It’s been eight months sinceUncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collectionreleased on PS5, updating the six-year-oldUncharted 4with some minor visual tweaks but offering a massive boost in performance. Since then, PC gamers have been patiently waiting forUnchartedto finally land on PC storefronts as it is one of the last big PlayStation IPs still not on the platform. After a few false release date rumors sprinkled throughout the year and the announcement and release ofGod of WarandMarvel’s Spider-Manwell afterUncharted’s PC announcement, theLegacy of Thieves Collectionis finally here. Thankfully, the wait was well worth it.
Uncharted: Legacy of ThievesCollectionbrings the critically acclaimedUncharted 4: A Thief’s EndandTheLost Legacystandalone expansion into one convenient package.Naughty Dog’s celebrated action-adventure seriesis a benchmark in gaming, combining cover-based third-person shooting with thrilling platforming and environmental puzzle-solving while also telling a compelling story with well-defined characters and movie-grade cinematics. Any PC gamers jumping intoUnchartedfor the first time who aren’t well acquainted with Nathan Drake and his quippy supporting cast of characters will be happy to know that theLegacy of Thieves Collectionis still a fantastic pair of games that work well independent of the previous series entries.
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It is a questionable decision to bringUncharted 4and its DLC to PC while the platform is notably missing the previous three games, leaving some gamers hesitant to jump into the series. However, even as thefinal installment in this part of theUnchartedfranchise, PC players can go into theLegacy of Thieves Collectionwith a basic knowledge of the series and still have a great time, thanks to the excellent writing that players have come to expect from Naughty Dog. Nathan Drake’s quest to find Henry Avery’s legendary pirate treasure takes place several years afterUncharted 3,often feeling like a victory lap entry for the series rather than a completely linear sequel. There are certainly plenty of payoffs and callbacks sprinkled throughout both games that will feel sweetest to those who have experienced Nathan’s journey from the beginning. However, the game’s main plot and story beats are as exciting, emotional, and well-earned to new players as they are for series veterans.
Uncharted: Legacy of ThievesCollectionon PC is very much the same game released on PS5 earlier this year: an enhanced version of 2016’sUncharted 4: A Thief’s Endand accompanying DLC. Although naturally, the transition from console to PC would mean thatLegacy of Thieveswould come with some new bells and whistles, improving the game over the already impressive PS5 version with an uncapped ceiling for performance and a few new bits of eye candy.
Prior to release, there was some hesitancy from the PC crowd about the inclusion of support studio Iron Galaxy on this project. Any PC gamer that has been around long enough can recount the disastrousBatman: Arkham KnightPC port that Iron Galaxy spearheaded. This is not the case withUncharted.As a matter of fact,Iron Galaxymight very well be putting itself right next to Nixxies as one of the best porting and support studios in the business right now with this entry.Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collectionruns like a dream on PC, possibly being the best PlayStation Studios port from an out-of-the-box performance standpoint.
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Across two test benches and Valve’s Steam Deck,Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collectionproved to be a remarkably performant port offering great scalability while also sporting some seriously impressive graphics. Starting with the graphics menu, theLegacy of ThievesCollectiondoes tend to be a bit leaner in terms of graphical settings, with less to tinker with under the hood than the massive suite of options available inMarvel’s Spider-Man. However, the game still hits the key settings needed to optimize performance with options for Textures, Model Quality, Anisotropic FIltering, Shadows, Reflections, and Ambient Occlusion, each scaling from Low to Ultra. AMD FSR andNVIDIA DLSSare also here for PC gamers who need that extra performance boost. Fans keeping up with the recent PlayStation ports will be quick to notice that these options are the same set the excellent PC port ofGod of Warelected to use earlier this year.
The beefiest test bench that ranLegacy of Thievesconsisted of an RTX 3080 and an i9 10900k at 4k. At all Ultra settings and native rendering, the game never dipped below 60 frames per second in the most intensive scenarios and generally liked to linger at around the 70-80 fps mark. Indoor scenes can go as high as 100 frames per second and even touch 120 fps in some instances. Turning on DLSS cleans up the variable frame rate and can achieve a steady 144 fps when upscaling to 4k at the Performance setting. At the higher end, any PC gamer with an RTX card or recent AMD card can runUnchartedat the highest settings with no problem.
On a more modestly powered ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 laptop equipped with an AMD 6700s GPU, the game ran at 50-60 fps when rendering at 1600p native resolution.AMD’s FSR solutionat the Balanced preset impressively boosted those frames up to 80-90 fps. Overall, this is a solid showing from theLegacy of Thievescollection, as the game can clearly make the most out of both NVIDIA and AMD hardware, even allowing lower-powered mobile cards to run at native resolutions past 1440p at a buttery smooth 60 fps.
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WhileUncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collectionperforms exceptionally wellin most circumstances, it won’t always run at a fixed frame rate for all players. Oddly enough, this PC port doesn’t include any option to limit the frame rate to any interval besides 30 fps. This presents a problem as not everyone runs a G-Sync or FreeSync monitor to combat screen tearing when frame rates fluctuate, resulting in inconsistent frame-pacing and a suboptimal experience. For now, fans will have to look for external frame-limiting solutions to achieve the most consistent frame rate possible or lower the settings and use DLSS or FSR to hit their monitor refresh rate cap.
Fans should note that unlike many PC games, which make players wait for shaders to compile before letting them play, theLegacy of ThievesCollectiononly gives a small notification in the bottom right corner of the main menu indicating that the game is building shaders but still lets players get into the action before the process is complete. Fans should let the game finish compiling these shaders before starting a new game, or else they will compile as the game is running, to the detriment of performance. Players will have to do this every time they update their graphics card drivers, but failure to do so will seeUnchartedconsume tons of CPU power and usage at all times, which becomes very important as it relates to the Steam Deck.
As far as the popular Steam Deck is concerned,Uncharted: Legacy of ThievesCollectionruns just as impressively there as well. Once shaders are compiled and players get into the game,Unchartedcan run at Medium settings with FSR set to Quality at 40-50 fps, sometimes going past 50. However, for a smoother experience, players can lock the game to 40 fps, where the game can stay stable for decent chunks of time. The handheld struggles the most in high-action scenes with many particle effects and enemy AI but regularly stabilizes as the scene continues. For the absolute smoothest and best-lookingUnchartedexperience onthe Steam Deck, players can lock the game to 30 fps at the High graphical preset. Considering that the Steam Deck is essentially a handheld PS4 in terms of power, 30 fps at high settings makes sense as a PS4-level experience and showcases how remarkably scalable this PC port truly is.
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On the PC quality-of-life front,Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collectionhas all the PC-centric options needed to tailor the game for any setup. The game supports ultrawide 21:9 and 32:9 monitors, with a complete set of rebindable keyboard and mouse controls, already bound intuitively out of the box. Any PC gamer with aPS5 DualSense controllercan also take full advantage of its adaptive trigger functions as long as the controller is connected via USB-C. Moreover, theLegacy of Thieves Collectionhas also been one of the most bug-free PlayStation ports of late. So far, the only real problems with the game are minor frame stuttering issues that tend to occur throughout scene transitions, primarily on the Steam Deck. Otherwise,Unchartedhas been a rock-solid experience from front to back.
PC gamers are in for a treat whenUncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collectionlaunches on Steam and the Epic Games Store on October 19. The long-awaited arrival of a Naughty Dog modern classic on PC could not have been handled better, offering excellent performance across multiple PC setups featuring the latest upscaling tech to make the whole experience run, feel, and look as good as possible. TheLegacy of Thieves Collectioncontains two of Sony’s best exclusive games from the past ten years, and the port on display lives up to the standard for quality thatUnchartedhas established in its almost fifteen-year run. If Naughty Dog and its support studios continue to put this much care and effort into PC ports going forward, then PC gamers should also have plenty to be excited about whenThe Last of Us Part 1is ready to jump from TV screens to computer monitors at some point in the future.
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collectionis available for PS5 and launches for PC on October 19. Game Rant was provided a PC code for the purposes of this review.
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection
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In an experience delivered by award winning developer Naughty Dog, UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection includes the two critically acclaimed, single player adventures: UNCHARTED 4: A Thief’s End and UNCHARTED: The Lost Legacy.Discover lost history with the charismatic yet complex thieves, Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer, as they travel the world with a sense of wonder, pursuing extraordinary adventures and lost lore – remastered in stunning detail for the PS5™ console with improved visuals and frame rate.
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