Here At the End of All Things - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Swan songs are a bitch.

Done wrong they can be bloated, messy, disjointed, contrived, and deeply, tragically unsatisfying. When it's time for a beloved character to exit stage left, the sense is there's a sacred responsibility not merely to bring him full circle, but to do so with such zeal and flourish as to leave no doubt his tale is done, done right, done best, done for the ages. Often as not this results in the final chapter being overloaded with symbolic 'lasts', a checklist of Things That Have to Happen to wrap the package up all neat-'n-tidy lest a thread be left to dangle. It's a noble sentiment, but it's also a hell to a high-wire act, trying to close the book on an entire franchise without dragging down the story that's in front of you at the moment. I imagine it's even harder when your departing hero is no less an icon than Nathan Drake, video game explorer extraordinaire and the face of Sony Playstation for the last decade. A Thief's End, as the title suggests, is indeed his last adventure (please swallow your grain of salt now), but the good people at Naughty Dog avoided virtually all the pitfalls of a standard denouement to give their signature hero one hell of a sendoff. Once more into the breach, my friends. It's treasure huntin' time.

It's been five years since Drake's last adventure, which is several eternities in the gaming world. In that time the industry has enjoyed a technological leap ahead with the next-gen platforms, as well as a massive expansion of game libraries that include, amongst the thousands of shooters, RPGs, indie start-ups, and open-world sandboxes, several franchises showcasing the same brash run-'n-gun third-person adventure format that is Uncharted's trademark. Since 2011's Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception there has been not one, but two new Tomb Raider games starring a revitalized (and slimmed down) Lara Croft, who pre-dates Drake by a wide margin, as well as seventy-one new Assassin's Creed titles, which are now being released in time with the phases of the moon (and still selling like gangbusters, a fact which continues to confound this writer). Both series incorporate the same trio of platforming, puzzle-solving, and cinema-style combat that is Uncharted's stock and trade, and both have enjoyed the fruits of the new system's beefed-up processors and graphics cards for huge, explosive set pieces and epic presentation. Neither Lara nor the mopey bores with the queer hoods are showing any signs of slowing down. After five years, is Nathan Drake still relevant? For that matter, is it still possible to frame in a story that can compete with the younger, more distilled children his franchise helped create?

Tall order indeed, but Naughty Dog has never been one for half measures. The company that once claimed Crash Bandicoot as its mascot has enjoyed a prime spot on the critic's mantlepiece thanks to 2013's The Last of Us, a masterpiece of a game that blurred the line between video game and first-rate drama. That pivotal effort led to a shakeup in Naughty Dog's top brass, including the departure of Amy Henning, the company's erstwhile Creative Director, Uncharted's head writer and virtual creator of the Nathan Drake character. For a while it seemed that move spelled a inglorious doom for Drake and his future adventures until it was announced the team that filled Henning's absence would take over and give their hero a proper sendoff. I was ambivalent about the notion, for it was no secret that Henning's ousters would be taking the helm and the thought that the same folks who did The Last of Us would be penning a new Drake title filled me with trepidation. The Last of Us was a tour de force, no question, but it was also the single most depressing thing I've ever done, ever. I feared we'd pop the next Uncharted into our consoles to find a haggard, aging Drake not unlike the haunted Joel from TLoU: brooding, morose, and dark as hell. I wanted another poppy frying-pan-to-the-fire bonanza, not a winding commentary on the futility of hope.

So as not to keep you in suspense: my fears were unfounded, and I was wrong. Uncharted 4 is a brilliant piece of game-making, not only a worthy successor to the original trio of games, but a gorgeous effort in its own right, and a deeply satisfying end to one of my favorite game series of all time. In deference to the new writers, it is unquestionably a more mature work, one that favors choice-consequences and character growth over explosions and gunplay, but it is presented in a way that is neither ham-fisted nor out-of-place. Indeed, it is the long-awaited, never-attempted exploration of Nathan Drake the person, and a seriously well-crafted plunge into the things that make him tick. That the game-makers managed to frame it all within a compelling story that is at least as good (and in many spots flat-out better than) Drake's previous adventures is a testament to their skill and commitment. The crow doesn't taste so bad when it's washed down with damn fine gaming.

Storytelling takes center stage right from the start, plunging you in medias res as Drake and his brother – yes, that's his brother, and who knew? – race across a storm-tossed sea toward a foreboding island, pursued by heavily-armed foes hellbent on scuttling them. Then a collision, a fantastic explosion, and we are back in Nathan Drake's life. The narrative leapfrogs from there, sending us back in time to a fateful night when Nate, a lonely tot of ten or so sequestered in a creepy orphanage, busts out for a night of rooftop shenanigans with elder sibling Sam. As they leap and climb and grapple with the skill of professional parkour artists, we glean the close bond that exists between them, the fledgling adventurer and his juvenile delinquent bro (who smokes and wears denim and does all the things juvenile delinquents do). Then another time shift takes us to a hellish Panamanian prison where the story proper begins. The now-grown brothers Drake are on the trail of infamous captain Henry Avery, a seafaring genius and unrepentant pirate who supposedly hid a $400 million dollar haul of gold and jewels that remains undiscovered 300 years later. Joining them is shifty-eyed moneyman Rafe Adler, a fair-weather fortune hunter with a psychotic streak whose impulse-control problems lead to a dead guard and a harrowing, bullet-riddled getaway. Sam is shot and left for dead while Nate barely escapes, reluctantly abandoning the brother who taught him how to be an adventurer.

All this occurs before the opening credits. Only then do we realize that fully fifteen years has passed since the incident in Panama, the period when Drake (Nolan North, in the best performance of his career thus far) became the Anthony Bourdain of lost cities. But it seems a thousand near-deaths at El Dorado, Shangri-La, and Iram of the Pillars has exorcised his wanderlust, and he has finally settled down into a normal life of commercial salvage diving and predictable marital bliss (?) with longtime love interest Elena Fisher (Emily Rose), now a successful travel writer. Naughty Dog takes great pain to emphasize the pablum tuna casserole Nate's life has become, taking us through an entire chapter exploring his lovely normal home (laundry room, living room, office) and his attic stuffed full of mementos from more exciting times (a inside-reference geek's wet dream). It's so bland it hurts, and as Nate gazes distractedly at a wall painting of some exotic locale, we feel his frustration, the old pull of danger, even as our thumbs itch to lead a target and pull a trigger once more. It is a testament to the time and detail the designers put into Nate's here-and-now, if only to contrast the poop storm that is to follow.

Troy Baker brings his puckish charm to Sam Drake

Said storm arrives in the form of Sam Drake (gaming's golden boy Troy Baker, here affecting a slight Chicago twang), not dead but lost this last decade-and-a-half in the prison where Nate left him. Seems Sam's last cellmate was notorious drug kingpin Hector Alcazar, who instigated a daring escape for the two of them in exchange for Sam's share of Avery's swag, about which Sam very indiscreetly chattered nonstop for fifteen years. Failure to remit payment in three months will result in Sam's painful, torturous death. Nate finds himself caught between the promise he made to Elena to leave adventuring behind and saving the life of the brother he's only just found again. All they have to do is pick up a trail close on twenty years cold.

What follows is standard Uncharted fare, albeit presented in about as taut and nail-biting a framework ever attempted. Together again and as unstoppable as ever, Nate and Sam resume their fortune hunting escapades in grand fashion, first crashing a swanky auction at an Italian villa then raising Hell at a Scottish cathedral before the clues lead them to Madagascar and a fateful rendezvous at a forgotten island in the Indian Ocean. Their foil, no surprise, is none other than Adler, who never stopped looking for the treasure but, for lack of Sam's knowledge or Nate's je ne sais quoi, compensated with manpower and explosives, carving a swath of destroyed tombs and false leads with the help of Shoreline, a private mercenary company and this outing's hapless redshirts, doomed to die by the score. As usual, the treasure is protected by any number of ludicrously elaborate puzzles (although Naughty Dog did, for a little while at least, conjure a somewhat plausible explanation for the assorted Rube-Goldberg death traps this time) judiciously seeded with equally ludicrous gunfights in which Nate routinely bests a dozen armed foes, all while running, tumbling, leaping, rope-swinging, and butt-sliding through a living obstacle course of gorgeously-rendered environments. Familiar territory to any Uncharted vet, but the designers cranked the dials to eleven this time, upping the challenge factor in all of Drake's requisite skill sets. Plan to die a lot in this game, as the platforming elements will require crackerjack timing and and the shooting encounters will tax even seasoned gunners. Foes will actively (and successfully) attempt to flank you at every turn and cover will dissolve amidst a fusillade of lead, demanding constant repositioning, reloading, and improvising. Stealth-minded gamers will be happy to see Naughty Dog borrowed a page from The Last of Us, allowing Nate to stalk and disable enemies for added battlefield advantage, something he could always do in previous games but here seems almost essential to the outcome of a fight. It's the little concessions to...well, not realism, but we'll say 'fidelity' that makes this title something special.

Views like this won't be the same without Nate by our sides...

But at its heart A Thief's End is a rumination on bonds – those of brotherhood, of friendship, of love, of shared joys and divided loyalties. Not unlike but at least significantly less like the other games in the series – which always ended with Drake choosing honor over booty – fortune and glory take a back seat to the squaring of emotional debts and figuring out once and for all what is most important in life. Hint: it ain't some dead sailor's gold. Naughty Dog uses the entire width and breadth of the game's 15-20 hour story to explore Nate's relationships with each of his supporting cast in turn – Elena, Sam, and even irascible, invincible old salt Victor Sullivan (Richard McGonagle). Every character shines, exposing more facets and foibles than ever before, never once resorting to stock stimulus-response antics or predictable dialogue. This is especially true of Sam Drake, who, being new and untested, had to work that much harder to win us over (he does) while avoiding the easy pitfalls of being the the “bad brother”. But the writers chose not to make Sam bitter or brooding, but rather driven, and armed him with a kind of gruff panache that is decidedly different from Nate yet endearing all the same. As the hunt for Avery's treasure morphs into the unearthing of a lost pirate utopia ruined by infighting and madness, the specter of “gold fever” looms in background but never takes over the narrative. When Nate uncovers the desiccated bodies of forgotten fortune hunters, it isn't lost on us that their dying words scrawled on foolscap unfailingly mention wives, children, sweethearts, and the quiet comforts of home, all abandoned on a fool's quest ending in lonely death. Nate gets the message, but he still must see it through to the end if he's to save his brother.

I can't abide end-game spoilers, so I'll only say the ending is deeply satisfying and, while textbook Uncharted in any number of ways, all the more profound for the patient, layered story the Naughty Dogs cared enough to give us from the very start. It is easily the most beautiful looking game I've seen on the PS4 thus far, and loaded with collectibles, unlockables, and easter eggs to merit several replays. And replay you will, if for no other reason than to remember the good times before old-fashioned adventure went out of this world. While we are very sorry to see such a likable hero ride off into the sunset, we can't help but feel happy that his swan song was indeed one for the ages.