Creating a franchise is a financial endeavor. That is to say that a
franchise lacks heart. Despite excellent management and shining
quality it still copies what has been done. It is unable to innovate beyond
the frame it occupies.
Frames can be good, though. We rely on frames. We rely on
franchises. I don’t think it is too risky to say that we all have
our own favorite business-chain. Where we get food or where we watch
movies: brand loyalty is a thing. It guarantees a measure of success.
Show me a new flavor of Dorito and I’ll most likely try it. Because
Dorito. Duh.
Franchises offer safety.
This is why Nathan Drake’s video-game adventures, the Uncharted
series, are ironic in title at least.
Like Indiana Jones or Lara Croft,
Nathan Drake will venture into long lost cities and find hidden
treasures.
It’s the adventure genre.
Games full of running, jumping, facing unbeatable odds, and seeing
beautiful sights.
Every Uncharted game, like any franchise, fits into a frame.
They tend to break down as follows:
1. Nathan Drake is seeking a
treasure he has long heard about. This fact worth noting. He’s
always heard of the treasure extensively by the time the player hops
into the scene. He knows lots of things we, the player, do not. His
knowledge and our ignorance will be used to help further the plot and
give us exposition at key moments.
2. There are bad men also seeking
the treasure. Always. Nathan Drake finds himself in a race against
these bad men to recover the stolen goods. Usually they follow him
deliberately, allowing our hero to remain just one step ahead until
the last moment.
3. The last moment features a large
fight with the bad men, a deus ex machina that prevents anyone from
getting the treasure, and Nathan walking away empty handed, but light
hearted, and closer to his friends and loved ones.
This sequence of events is standard
in every Uncharted game. Even the last one, which is the inspiration
for this article.
Despite the grand visuals and the
witty one-liners, Uncharted has never stood-out to me as a very good
game.
Uncharted games are linear, feature
gameplay for the gameplay’s sake, and rarely for the narrative.
They
are also
very cliché (if the above
list didn’t make it
obvious). You get exposition, puzzle/platform, fight, spectacle.
Usually in that order. Great
graphics, funny (shallow) characters whose moral nature never asks
any questions.
Well, almost never.
Enter Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
The best Uncharted game.
If the heavy title didn’t give it
away, it is the last game in the Uncharted franchise as we know it.
Nathan Drake’s last game.
It starts off different from any
other title in the series
You find yourself in the middle of a
boat chase. Above is a dark sky filled with storm. Drake and an
unknown friend are on a small craft amid increasingly choppy waves
(which look lovely, by the way). It isn’t long before the
aforementioned bad-men show up, giving chase and challenge.
The game takes this moment in the
story to introduce basic mechanics. First, piloting the ship. Second,
gunplay.
The scene ends abruptly with a
crash. Nathan and his companion fly through the air. Before
we can find out what happens next, we
jump scene, jarringly, to a warm tropical day sometime in the past.
Here the next elements of gameplay unfold, but just as we get the
hang of them we jump scene once more. Fifteen years later.
The pacing of the Story doesn’t
let up, and at first seems confusing. Disjointed. But, it all starts
to come together in a way
that kept me intrigued.
When did Uncharted try to be
uncharted? To do something new? And, it gets better.
Fifteen years later and the events
of the first three games have come and gone. Insane adventures that
are only sepia-tinted memories from the past. “Unbelievable” to quote an
in game character. And, they were. Fantastical. They establish quite quickly that
the events of the past were almost golden compared to the slice of
reality that Nathan faces every day. No guns. No ancient temples or
lost treasure.
Nathan has a day job. Nathan has a
wife.
More importantly, Nathan has a life.
Something to lose. Instantly we connect with him in a way that was
never possible in any previous Uncharted title.
This game is the grand YOLO. The
final hurrah of a beloved franchise, and they use it as a commentary
on the entire franchise.
Most of the characters we know and
love show up for the story, and an adventure does ensue,
but the entire time it remains grounded in Nathan Drake and his
marriage. It adds a dimension to the character--the stubborn
pig-headed character--that we have never seen. And, that we’ll
never see again unless I miss my mark.
It’s a sobering tale. Not a tale
looking for a sequel. It suddenly felt real.
There are still convenient walls to scale
and tons of nameless soldiers to murder while bantering
wittily, just like every other Uncharted game, but despite that:
despite the gaminess of it all, it comes home strong. It makes you
care. It ends the franchise with the care of a veterinarian for a
beloved pet.
You’ve lived a good, long life,
Uncharted. You can rest now.
