Synopsis

Before A Thief’s End, there were already three journeys that had sent Nathan Drake across the world.

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection brings together the solo campaigns of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception in a single remastered collection for PlayStation 4. It allows players to follow Nathan’s evolution from his first major treasure hunt through to the events immediately preceding Uncharted 4.

In Drake’s Fortune, a four-hundred-year-old clue discovered inside Sir Francis Drake’s coffin sends Nathan in search of El Dorado. Accompanied notably by Elena Fisher and Victor “Sully” Sullivan, he discovers that a mythical treasure can hide something far less desirable than gold.

Among Thieves pulls him back into the world of thieves through the mystery of Marco Polo’s lost fleet and the legendary kingdom of Shambhala. His journey takes him through locations including Istanbul, Borneo, Nepal, Tibet and the Himalayas.

In Drake’s Deception, Nathan and Sully set out in search of Ubar, the mythical “Atlantis of the Sands,” on a journey that leads them through London, France, Yemen and the Arabian Desert. The story also places their relationship at the forefront, with Sully having long served as both mentor and father figure to Nathan.

The Nathan Drake Collection therefore transforms three adventures once separated by several years of development into one long journey where the character, the staging and even Uncharted’s design language can be seen evolving almost without interruption.

Overview

Three games, one collection

The Nathan Drake Collection is not a new installment. It is a remastered compilation of the first three Uncharted games originally developed by Naughty Dog for PlayStation 3.

It includes:

  • Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
  • Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
  • Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

All three campaigns are included in full, but the multiplayer modes from the PS3 versions are not included. The PlayStation Store still presents the collection as a single-player experience consisting exclusively of the solo campaigns.

That decision gives the compilation a very clear identity: its main purpose is to preserve and harmonize Nathan Drake’s narrative journey.

Bluepoint did more than increase the resolution

The remastering work was handled by Bluepoint Games, working closely with Naughty Dog. The studio recovered the technology behind the original games and adapted it for PlayStation 4.

The main technical goal was to run all three adventures at 1080p and up to 60 frames per second, while improving lighting, shadows, materials, shaders, textures, models and visual effects. The cutscenes were also re-rendered to benefit from the graphical improvements and 1080p/60 fps presentation.

But the work goes beyond the image.

Bluepoint also harmonized camera speeds, aim assistance and certain control behaviors so that moving from one game to the next would feel less abrupt. Drake’s Fortune’s grenade system was notably brought closer to the sequels, while the control layout was standardized across the trilogy.

The collection therefore remasters the continuity of the experience as much as the pixels displayed on screen.

Drake’s Fortune shows how far the series came

The first Uncharted is naturally the game whose age is most visible.

Yet Drake’s Fortune already establishes almost everything: Nathan, Elena, Sully, archaeology transformed into pulp adventure, cover-based gunfights, climbing, puzzles and that distinctive mixture of historical references and invented mythology.

The remastered version particularly benefits from the harmonization of controls and aiming. Bluepoint notably rebuilt its aim assistance and modified the grenade system to bring the experience closer to the two sequels.

The result does not erase the design differences between it and the later games. It simply makes them less abrupt.

And that is ultimately part of what makes the collection interesting: playing the three titles in succession makes it possible to watch Naughty Dog learn how to make Uncharted in real time.

Among Thieves remains the major leap in scale

Uncharted 2 considerably transforms the formula.

The adventure becomes more mobile, the environments more varied and the boundary between gameplay and staging far harder to distinguish. Trains, buildings, villages and mountains no longer serve merely as backgrounds: they participate directly in the rhythm of the action.

The collection preserves that progression while giving it the same technical targets as the other entries: 1080p resolution, a frame rate reaching 60 fps, improved textures and models, reworked effects and enhanced audio.

Moving directly from Drake’s Fortune to Among Thieves makes it particularly easy to see how dramatically Naughty Dog had evolved its formula in just two games.

Drake’s Deception refines the spectacle

Drake’s Deception continues that evolution by multiplying sequences built around movement and spectacle while developing Nathan’s past and his relationship with Sully more deeply.

The desert, sandstorms, horseback travel and the search for Ubar are among its most recognizable images.

Within the collection, this third entry benefits from the same technical harmonization and new options added by Bluepoint.

The contrast becomes less technological than structural: Uncharted can gradually be seen evolving from a relatively traditional action-adventure game into the form of continuous interactive spectacle that would become one of Naughty Dog’s signatures.

New modes for playing differently

Bluepoint added several tools and modes that were absent from the original releases.

Photo Mode allows players to capture environments and scenes from all three adventures, while new trophies accompany the compilation.

Three additional modes change the way the games can be played more directly:

  • Explorer Mode greatly reduces combat difficulty to make the adventure more accessible.
  • Speed Run Mode adds a timer for tracking progression time.
  • Brutal Mode offers a difficulty above Crushing and unlocks after completing Crushing in the relevant game.

More than sixty-five character skins can also be used across the three campaigns.

These additions do not change the identity of the games, but they give the collection a reason to exist beyond simple porting.

Key takeaways

  • Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection brings together the first three main entries in the series.
  • The compilation contains Drake’s Fortune, Among Thieves and Drake’s Deception in remastered form.
  • The solo campaigns are included, but the multiplayer modes from the PS3 games are not.
  • The remastering work was carried out by Bluepoint Games in collaboration with Naughty Dog.
  • The games target 1080p and 60 fps, with numerous graphical improvements.
  • Controls, camera behavior and aim assistance were harmonized across the three entries.
  • The collection notably adds Photo Mode, Explorer Mode, Speed Run Mode and Brutal Mode.
  • New trophies and several dozen character skins complete the additions.
  • The collection is a PS4 release, not a native PS5 version.
  • It remains playable on PS5 through backward compatibility, but that does not justify adding ps5 to the plateformes field.
  • The experience is entirely single-player.

PANACHES review

The remaster almost becomes a machine for observing a studio’s evolution

Taken separately, the first three Uncharted games belong to different moments in the PlayStation 3 era.

Taken together, they tell another story beyond Nathan Drake’s adventures.

They show Naughty Dog gradually figuring out what it wants cinematic action-adventure to become.

Drake’s Fortune is still experimenting. Among Thieves discovers much of the formula. Drake’s Deception then pushes spectacle, movement and staging considerably further.

The collection makes that evolution visible without changing console, technical generation or even control layout.

Harmonization may be its best work

The move to 1080p/60 fps is obviously welcome, but Bluepoint’s smartest idea is probably less visible.

The three games did not control in exactly the same way. Certain mechanics, aim-assist systems and button layouts directly reflected the period in which each entry had been designed.

Harmonizing them reduces that friction without pretending the three games are identical.

That is exactly what a good remaster can do: clean the glass without repainting what lies behind it.

A collection that became an excellent entry point

The absence of the old multiplayer modes prevents The Nathan Drake Collection from being a completely exhaustive preservation of the PS3 versions.

For discovering Nathan Drake’s story, however, the compromise works almost perfectly.

Three campaigns, visible technical progression, more consistent controls, cleaner presentation and enough additional options to prevent the games from feeling as though they were simply moved from one console to another.

The compilation also has a rather amusing quality today: it returns to an era when three complete adventures could fit inside a single package without turning the main menu into a storefront, seasonal calendar and daily login reminder.

Sometimes video game heritage benefits simply from being allowed to remain heritage.

Good to know

Release and platform

  • Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection was released in France on October 7, 2015 for PlayStation 4.
  • The North American edition arrived on October 9, 2015.
  • The collection is published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
  • It is still listed as a PS4 version on the PlayStation Store.
  • The PS4 version can run on PS5 through backward compatibility, although PlayStation notes that some PS4 features may potentially be unavailable.
  • The entry therefore keeps only ps4 in plateformes.

Bluepoint Games and PANACHES entities

  • Bluepoint Games carried out the remastering work, working closely with Naughty Dog and its technology.
  • Bluepoint Games is not present in the entity list supplied for this PANACHES CULTURE entry.
  • It is therefore not artificially added to the entites field.
  • Naughty Dog is associated as the studio behind the three original works and a partner on the project, while Sony Interactive Entertainment is listed as publisher.

Technical improvements

  • The three games were adapted to run at 1080p and up to 60 fps.
  • Bluepoint improved lighting, shadows, materials, shaders, models, textures and visual effects, among other elements.
  • Cutscenes were re-rendered with the visual improvements and 1080p/60 fps presentation.
  • The remaster also includes ambient occlusion, motion blur and various rendering improvements.
  • Camera behavior, controls and aim assistance were reworked to make transitions between the three games more consistent.

New modes

  • Explorer Mode provides a heavily reduced combat difficulty, notably for players who want to focus on the adventure.
  • Speed Run Mode adds a timer for measuring progression time.
  • Brutal Mode is a difficulty above Crushing and requires completing Crushing in the relevant game.
  • Photo Mode allows players to capture scenes from all three adventures.
  • New trophies and more than 65 character skins were also added.

No multiplayer in the collection

  • The multiplayer modes present in Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 on PS3 are not part of The Nathan Drake Collection.
  • The collection focuses exclusively on the three solo campaigns.
  • Purchasing the collection originally provided access to the multiplayer beta for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, held in December 2015; that benefit was temporary and naturally no longer has any function today.
  • The entry therefore uses modes_de_jeu: 'solo'.

A collection distinct from Legacy of Thieves

  • The Nathan Drake Collection brings together the first three Uncharted games and belongs to the PS4 generation.
  • Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is a different compilation containing remastered versions of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy for PS5 and PC.
  • The two collections should therefore not be confused within PANACHES CULTURE.
  • The Nathan Drake Collection remains focused on Nathan Drake’s beginnings and the PS3 trilogy, while Legacy of Thieves covers the two adventures from the following generation.

A trilogy designed as preparation for Uncharted 4

  • When it was announced, Naughty Dog explicitly presented the collection as a way to replay or discover the first three entries before Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
  • The three original games had already surpassed 21 million copies sold combined before the compilation was announced; this figure refers to those previous three entries rather than sales of The Nathan Drake Collection itself.
  • No sufficiently recent and precise official sales data for the collection itself is used here.
  • The compilation is a completed work; the entry therefore uses statut_parution: completed.