Missed potential with Uncharted 4

Naughty Dogs' newest game, Uncharted 4, has released with critical acclaim across all media boards and it seems set to be in the running for game of the year. Although the game itself is quite a visual, technical and narrative marvel I personally feel that Naughty Dog has decided to take the safe route with Uncharted 4 instead of doing something 'a bit more unique' like they did with The Last of Us.

Uncharted 4 is said to be the last Uncharted game and the game was a fantastic closing chapter to the Nathan Drake story. Similar to previous titles in the franchise Uncharted 4 follows the story of Nathan Drake and his adventures through exotic and historical locations across the world. It also features parkour and climbing, a staple of all Uncharted games, mixed with puzzle solving and some gunplay. This might sound all well a good for a sequel but when compared to their previous game, The Last of Us, and the direct competitor, The Rise of the Tomb Raider, I feel that Uncharted 4 falls short in providing more content than the other two games.

Both TLOU and ROTR not only features pretty much all the gameplay in Uncharted 4 but more so it adds more elements of progression such as leveling, crafting, skills and looting. Though some may want their Uncharted experience to be a bit straight forward and let it be more of an interactive movie than an in depth game. Maybe Naughty Dog wanted to play it safe and not add any extra content and leave the extra gameplay elements to a TLOU sequel (if there ever is one) than trying to shoehorn that style of gameplay into Uncharted 4.

I can understand that adding that kind of content can cause the game to become completely different from the vision that Naughty Dog wanted to achieve with Uncharted but when I finished the game I felt like a wanted a bit more. A bit more story, a bit more actions, a bit more Uncharted BUT alas I was left slightly disappointed at the overall length of the game being around 12 hours or so. I could go back and discover all the secret treasures or notes but I'm not really the kind of gamer to go through a story focused game again so quickly. There needs to be more ways to play the game than the content already offered.

It's a fantastic game, don't get me wrong, i'll probably will play the game in a few months or years just to re-experience the story. But I just can't not feel like after all the delays, after all the effort that the game only managed 12 hours with no new mechanics and ultimately felt like a movie sequel more so than a game sequel.