Is Uncharted: The Lost Legacy a full game? It’s a valid question in the wake of a speedy, and seemingly slimmer, follow-up to Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. I spent a decent amount of time with the game, both in an extended preview and in a full-length review , and I can answer pretty confidently that it is a full game indeed. If you care about numbers, my recorded playtime was more than nine hours. In reality, it was more like 13 hours because the game doesn't record playtime if you reload saves. And if you’re a fan of stealth (and to survive Lost Legacy you kind of have to be), then you’ll reload saves.
According to gamelengths.com the average playtime for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was 10.8 hours , and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception was 9.9 hours . So Lost Legacy is pretty close to what fans expect from an Uncharted game. Although I should note that I went a bit completionist, and found all 11 Hoysala tokens (i.e. token collectible) which padded my number a bit. I also played on a slightly higher difficulty setting than the default normal, so a sun’s-out-guns-out kill ‘em all approach on normal would likely be a lot faster. If that’s how you roll, don’t expect to hit nine or 10 hours.
Beyond the gameplay length for Lost Legacy , the other big number is price. At $40, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is masquerading as an adventure on par with what you may have experienced in Uncharted 4. This release was born of a desire to make a smaller game similar to the DLC for The Last of Us, but grew oversize with ambition.
"We tried to keep it small," game director Kurt Margenau told Game Informer . "As we started coming up with story ideas, it just became clear that with new characters and in this genre of Uncharted , it has to be big. With the gameplay stuff we wanted to explore, it felt like it needed more room to breathe."
Breathe it does. Lost Legacy boasts the largest explorable space ever featured in the franchise, and the vast Hoysala ruins provide a perfect setting for the death- and/or gravity-defying feats we’ve grown accustomed to from developer Naughty Dog. It’s an intricately detailed setting too, especially if you’re lucky enough to be playing on a PS4 Pro (I wasn’t :sad face emoji:). But even for us plebs there’s plenty of eye candy, and a smooth and bug free experience conveys the sense Lost Legacy has all the polish of a finished, full game.
Of course, it’s not without some problems. I noted in my review the frustrating “invisible walls” that consistently undermined the game’s sense of openness, and Lost Legacy has the same multiplayer set up (more or less) as Uncharted 4. It’s probably OK, I didn’t get to spend any time with it before launch so I apologize if your Twitter feed is currently raging with reports of bad servers and a ruined feature. But I can’t say I have sympathy for you if you’re looking to Uncharted for amazing multiplayer action, when there are about 3240985723048957 games focused on doing only that, and doing it better.
The bottom line is that Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is a full, single-player experience on par with other games in the franchise, but humbly priced to keep your expectations moderate. If you do that, you’ll likely find an experience worth the playtime.
Have you started Lost Legacy yet? Are you trying constantly not to compare it to Tomb Raider? Let us know in the comments!
- Great character development.
- Solid, satisfying stealth action.
- Gorgeous environments.
- Open world isn't that open.
