Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is a revelation on PS5

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection marks the series’ debut on PlayStation 5, bringing to Sony’s newest console the two most recent (and arguably, the two best) entries in the franchise: 2016’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and 2017’s Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Considering how pedestrian this package seems on the surface — the expected coat of higher-resolution, higher-frame-rate polish and some key quality-of-life improvements, all courtesy of the PS5’s increased horsepower — I find myself surprised at just how much I appreciate its upgrades, and at how much of a difference they make. I’d go so far as to say that one of the new visual modes is a revelation.

Over the past 15 years, developer Naughty Dog has created some of the defining games of the modern action/adventure landscape. Its two franchises during that period, Uncharted and The Last of Us, have set the standard for a certain type of experience within the genre: the largely linear, narrative-driven, cinematic third-person shooter. The studio is also renowned for its technical mastery, with each game making the most of the PlayStation hardware of the moment.

Game development is full of compromises, and the aforementioned circumstances have meant that each of these games has been limited to a frame rate of 30 frames per second at launch. That’s not a problem per se; some would even argue that it makes sense, since Naughty Dog is aiming for a cinematic feel. But it does have consequences for responsiveness, which can be a significant issue in a shooter franchise that also features life-or-death platforming challenges.

Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy are not the first Naughty Dog titles to be remastered (or simply upgraded via patch) with a doubled frame rate on a new platform. The Legacy of Thieves Collection, though, marks the first time that any Uncharted game has been playable at a frame rate target of 120 fps. Of course, this mode entails some visual trade-offs: The resolution drops to 1080p. But that was the original resolution for both of these games on the base PS4, and I believe it’s a trade-off worth making.

Nathan Drake stands on a ridge overlooking an opulent estate at sunset in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection’s remaster of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (screenshot captured in Performance mode)

The 1440p Performance mode is the Goldilocks graphics setting for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection — it maintains a rock-solid 60 fps while delivering terrific image quality, as you can see in this wide shot of the Rossi estate in Uncharted 4.

Image: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the Fidelity mode. It’s obviously the way to go if you just want the highest image quality — although the improvement isn’t a night-and-day difference, even compared to the lowest-quality setting — and of course, these games are totally playable at the same old 30 fps. But after spending the lion’s share of my time in the Performance and Performance Plus modes, the Fidelity mode feels sluggish by comparison.

If you have the capability, the Legacy of Thieves Collection’s Performance Plus mode is too alluring to pass up, due in no small part to the games’ innate visual splendor. With this setting, they look as good on PS5 as they did on PS4 — not markedly better, if at all. Yet the absence of visible graphical upgrades at 1080p is far outweighed by the smoothness and responsiveness provided by playing at 120 fps (or close to it). After all, even if the frame rate isn’t locked at that figure, it’s still somewhere above 60 fps. I noticed only one obvious drop in performance, at the start of the third chapter of The Lost Legacy, which appeared to result from a momentary loading-related hitch. It would help if Sony had added variable refresh rate support to the PS5 by now, but that long-promised update is still missing.

Prior to checking out these remasters, I hadn’t touched the games since the first time I played them on PS4, and I was worried about the atrophy of my combat skills. I was initially dying more often than I thought I should have been, so I looked for adjustments. I then realized that in Performance Plus mode, I needed to use a lighter touch on the sticks to aim accurately; the controls are that much tighter on this setting. Soon, I was nailing headshots left and right. The Uncharted games are not celebrated for their gunplay, but the combat feels terrific at 120 fps — as do the spectacular set-pieces here, such as Uncharted 4’s pell-mell urban chase sequence and The Lost Legacy’s jaw-dropping train finale. Plus, it’s exciting to see these games’ stunning real-time cutscenes running at 60 fps.