In 2016, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End came out for the PlayStation 4 (PS4) and was met with critical and commercial success. One year after that, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, an expansion on the Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End story came out. Both of these games are excellent, and still play great on the PS4. However, the hardware’s age is starting to show, and with the release of the PlayStation 5 (PS5), new games are looking better. Naughty Dog, the company that makes the Uncharted games, remastered both Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy for both the PS5 and PC for a collection called Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection. This review will focus on the Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End portion of the PS5 version of the collection.

   Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is about Nathan Drake, a thief similar to Indiana Jones, and his adventures stealing treasure across the globe. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End focuses on an older Nathan, who wants to have a normal life after his past life of stealing. He has a normal job, a wife, and hasn’t stolen anything since his last adventure. This all changes when his brother, Sam Drake, comes back into his life. Sam was presumed dead when he was shot, whilst he and Nathan escaped prison. He tells Nathan that they need to do one last adventure to steal legendary pirate Henry Avery’s treasure, which is based on an actual legend. They need to steal the treasure because the drug lord, Hector Alcázar, broke Sam out of prison and is expecting payment. The game follows the two brothers, as well as Nathan’s friend and father figure, Victor Sullivan (aka Sully), going on an adventure to steal the treasure.

   The best thing that the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection does is improve the game visually. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is already a great-looking game. The Last of Us Part II, which also came out on PS4, is one of Naughty Dog’s latest games, and is highly regarded for its visually aesthetic graphics. It looks even better than Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End ever did on PS4 and even got a performance boost update for the PS5. The collection makes Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End look even better than The Last of Us Part II. There are so many instances that I could point out where the game looks stunning. The attention to detail added is amazing. There are a lot of times where you can clearly see characters’ hair strands blowing in the wind, something that was blurry in the previous release. Most of the areas that had bad lighting in the previous version, now have excellent lighting. My favorite way that Naughty Dog improved the game, however, is improving the HDR quality. HDR makes the colors look much more realistic. HDR is often overlooked by developers who consistently just focus on making their games look great in a 4K resolution, which this collection also does amazingly. I could point out many places where it looks amazing, but my personal favorite place they do this in is where Nathan and Sam were riding on a motorcycle together and there was an explosion. The fire looked so realistic, and the colors really popped.

   Most of the changes made in the remaster were visual, but there were other performance upgrades that made the game so much better. The game runs at 60 FPS, and even 120 FPS if your display supports it. This update makes the game run more smoothly than it ever did on the PS4, and it makes the already great gameplay seem even greater.

   Another thing that Naughty Dog incorporated into this release is support for haptic feedback for the PS5 DualSense controller. When aiming a weapon, you have to physically squeeze the trigger on the controller harder, which makes the immersion much better.

   Overall, the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is an amazing upgrade to the game, and the best way to experience the amazing story told. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is available at most retail stores for $49.99.