Hands on: Uncharted The Nathan Drake Collection on PS4

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Great games, burdened only by the fact that they’re bound to the almost nine year-old PS3. And, well, my TV only has two HDMI inputs, and they’re awfully hard to reach…

The good news is that Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection brings these three classics to PS4 in remastered form, lovingly detailed by the exacting touch of veteran studio Bluepoint. I got to play a short sequence from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves — namely, the thrilling helicopter attack set piece you might remember from PlayStation’s E3 2009 Press Conference (good memory, by the way!).

Based on what I played, PS4’s copious processing power is helping Uncharted 2 age gracefully. We should all be so lucky as Nate. The new 1080p resolution and generous framerate give everything a clean, crisp, fluid look and feel that flatters the original PS3 version without betraying Naughty Dog’s vision. One might say that this is Uncharted 2 the way it was meant to be played. And yep, that building still falls down real good.

I played unfinished code that was missing a few minor visual effects, but Bluepoint’s loving influence was readily apparent. The studio is upgrading character models, environment textures, lighting, and special effects across the board, bringing all three games as close to visual modernity as possible while ensuring they remain true to their original creative direction.

As the studio finalizes work on the collection, it will also roll in the assorted control scheme tweaks, gameplay refinements, and subtle mechanical upgrades that evolved through the series across all three games, bringing them into closer gameplay parity.

Though my experiences with the game were brief, they were encouraging. You’ll get to see for yourself when a playable demo launches on the PlayStation Store later this summer.

Have questions? I’ll do my best to answer in the comments below!