Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection Reviews and PS4 Comparison

Tomorrow will mark the release of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, a set containing refreshed versions of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and the standalone expansion Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Many reviews have already appeared online and it seems that the collection lives up to the expectations.

The PlayStation 5 release has an average rating of 87% on Metacritic. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection will also be released on PC - so far no reviews of this version have appeared.

The refreshed editions of both projects do not introduce changes to the gameplay, but only improve the graphics. That's why the most important thing is how this collection looks like in action and how it compares with the original versions, released on PlayStation 4. These issues are presented on the video prepared by the editors of Digital Foundry.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on PS5 offers three modes:

According to Digital Foundry, the difference in sharpness between Fidelity and Performance is not significant, thanks in large part to good use of post-processing effects like Depth of Field.

Performance mode forces the game to 1920x1080 resolution, which loses a lot of detail, but it's the setting that Digital Foundry's editors liked best, as the 120 fps it offers is excellent for gameplay, providing much smoother controls, and the well-applied edge-smoothing ensures acceptable image quality.

It's worth noting that Naughty Dog opted not to use dynamic resolution, which changes depending on what's happening on screen in order to maintain the target fps.

The PS5 version (right) renders more detail over longer distances than the PS4 version (left).

The changes are not limited to resolution and frame rate. The developers have also made subtle but beneficial modifications to other visual elements. The PS5 release renders more details over a longer distance, which not only makes locations look better, but also reduces the ugly effect of ambient elements suddenly materialising during exploration. Importantly, this improvement is present in all modes.

In addition, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, has upgraded some textures, though most have remained unchanged since PS4. Slight improvements have also been made to shading and reflections. Motion blur has also been reduced. The problem is that it's still adjusted to 30 fps, so when playing at 120 frames, the blur is almost invisible, diminishing the cinematic feel of the visuals. There is also an option in the game's menu to completely disable this effect.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection also offers much faster loading times. During normal gameplay this is not noticeable, as even on PS4 the game is constantly loading data in the background. This improvement can be appreciated only when manually loading selected parts of the campaign. While this loading on PS4 could take up to 48 seconds (and 32 seconds on PS5 in backward compatibility mode), the native PlayStation 5 version needs just 3 seconds.

The PS4 originals retained a mostly consistent 30 frames per second, but on the PS4 Pro, after an update to improve graphics for the newer console, drops as low as 24 fps happened, which was noticeable to the naked eye. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection doesn't have most of these issues. Fidelity mode delivers a perfect 30 fps, with occasional dips below 60 fps (1-2 frames) in Performance. The case is different with Performance+. In this variant, the game maintains 120 fps most of the time, and isolated drops are hard to notice. However, there are a few very demanding sequences in the campaign, where Uncharted 4 can only display a little over a 100 frames, and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy just 90-something.

Also very impressive are the improved surround sound, which offers convincing effects when using headphones, and the improved DualSense controls.

1. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End Review – The best PS4 exclusive on the market
2. Uncharted 4: End of Thief - game guide
3. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy - game guide
4. Naughty Dog - official website
5. Uncharted series - official website

Sample reviews for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection

1. God is a Geek - 10/10
2. Game Rant - 5/5
3. PlayStation Universe - 9.5/10
4. Press Start - 9.5/10
5. Twinfinite - 4.5/5
6. Game Revolution - 9/10
7. True Gaming - 9/10
8. COGconnected - 90/100
9. Push Square - 9/10
10. Worthplaying - 8.5/10
11. Atomix - 85/100
12. GameCentral - 8/10
13. Telegraph - 4/5
14. GameSpot - 8/10
15. Washington Post - 80/100
16. Stevior - 7/10