Nathan Drake’s adventure finally came to a satisfying conclusion in last year’s Buy Now , but developer Naughty Dog isn’t done with the series just yet. Later this year, we’ll get our hands on the stand-alone spinoff Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and Naughty Dog is extremely proud of the work it has done. In some respects, it’s even more ambitious than Uncharted 4, as well as another Naughty Dog spinoff, The Last of Us: Left Behind.
Due to time restraints, some of Uncharted 4‘s largest locations, including Madagascar, had to be cut down. With The Lost Legacy, as many as five different teams are working on the same location at once, which allows for the biggest single location we’ve seen yet in an Uncharted game, and makes it ripe for exploration and hunting for secrets. PlayStation’s Sid Shuman pointed to the original Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune for insight into The Lost Legacy‘s varied environments, which feature a mix of urban areas, jungle, and temples.
The game isn’t just a “bigger and better” or “greatest hits” release — new features like a silenced pistol, which has somehow never made it into an Uncharted game before, as well as a lock-picking mechanic will also help to separate Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross’ adventure from those of Drake. The latter feature is still a work in progress, but we’re hoping for it to bear more resemblance to the classic Splinter Cell games’ fine-tuned, rotation-based picking than the largely automated system we’ve seen in contemporary stealth games.
The Lost Legacy has drawn comparison to The Last of Us: Left Behind, as both are stand-alone stories that act as companion pieces to their full-price counterparts, but The Lost Legacy will apparently offer a “lengthier experience” than Left Behind did. Naughty Dog has also been very clear that Nathan Drake will not be making an appearance, and it sounds like he won’t even be mentioned.
“We’re not going to touch on Nathan Drake in this, at all,” said game director Kurt Margenau during his interview with Shuman.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy launches later this year exclusively on PlayStation 4. The game takes place a short time after the events of Uncharted 4.
