This weekend was the open access for the Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End Multiplayer Stress Test. There was no way that we wouldn’t give it a quick playthrough. Here’s some gameplay and our impressions.
The Uncharted franchise has always been known for its single player campaign and its abundant usage of its interactive environment paired up with an engaging and intriguing storyline of a man willing to do anything to hunt down artifacts and the troubles he gets caught up in. Multiplayer mode is an expansion of that world but some questions couldn’t be helped. Will it live up to its promise? Will it differentiate itself from the growing multiplayer franchises already available on the market? And most importantly, how?
The Stress Test loads smoothly right into the main menu that takes the player into an introductory level so new and old players can familiarize themselves again with the controls. They also can learn the new tricks such as the “Grappling Hook” icon that allows the player to know where they can grapple to other platforms. That is a rather nifty and handy aspect. Right away, the frame rate is at par and the game itself is graphically beautiful to look at. After a short round of fighting in the introduction, knowing how to collect treasure and its use, the weapons and some firefight, the game lets you get into the online multiplayer mode. Its time for the real deal!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5qaSmSwwjY
The key feature of Uncharted 4’s multiplayer mode is teamwork. The gameplay is simple: random 5 players to 5 (Red vs. Blue). The player chooses the character they want, the game shows us which players are on each team and the character they chose as the game loads up. Teamwork comes into play when a player gets knocked down, escapes and can call for help. Their teammates can heal them. If not done in the allotted time, the player dies.
Another interesting addition is in line with the main story of artifact hunt and that is the addition of using relics. These can be used when a certain amount of treasure is accumulated and traded in for a relic. These are mystical powers just like a special power to help fight the other team. In any game, there is a 12 minute round and whichever team to get 35 kills in this timeframe wins. There are multiple environments available. We were able to experience three different ones during our playthrough.
Multiplayer games are fun, possibly more so playing with friends rather than random strangers. Uncharted 4’s multiplayer mode is a good expansion. Everything works well and it is visually appealing. However, it all comes down to whether teamwork is an aspect other players respect. There were rounds where it was fairly unbalanced. At times, it was how the players didn’t work together resulting in losses. However, this is not a fault of the game itself. While the premise of Uncharted may hold a dear place in a lot of players hearts, the stand out features is the Relics and their interactive environment. The concept of healing and helping teammates aspect is not particularly unique to this game.
As a final thought and question: Is playing as Nathan Drake (or the other characters) and having interactive environments enough to make this different from other multiplayer games?
