I’ve received most of the Uncharted games as Christmas presents. Drake’s Fortune was the PS3 showcase that made my Christmas morning in 2007. Among Thieves brought Drake and co. back under my tree two years later. And Uncharted 4 was my belated introduction to the PS4 generation when I got the game alongside the console as presents in 2016. There are other games I love more (like Naughty Dog’s own The Last of Us series), but there’s nothing I would rather play on Christmas afternoon with wrapping paper strewn around my feet.
The best Christmas games feel exciting and new. It’s the reason that, when I got a Switch with Skyrim, it just didn’t feel that Christmas-y. An old game (even one that you haven’t played before) doesn’t hit as hard on Christmas as something that feels like it points to the future.
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Uncharted Took Us Into… Uncharted Territory
That’s how Uncharted has always felt to me. When I first played Drake’s Fortune in 2007 it, alongside Guitar Hero 3, introduced me to the PS3 generation. I had never played a plastic instrument game, and I’d never played a game like Uncharted either. Both were pointing the way to trends that would dominate the generation and, in Uncharted’s case, beyond.
Until the PS3, I had been a Nintendo kid, which meant, by and large, playing games with no voice acting. There were plenty of exceptions, obviously, but they were mostly third-party games like King Kong and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. Nintendo’s bread and butter, first-party games placed a high value on gameplay, and a low value on a ‘cinematic’ presentation.
That made Uncharted an introduction to a whole new kind of game. I had never played anything that looked this realistic — silly as that seems with 17 years of hindsight — nor anything that was so clearly trying to gamify a kind of film I knew and loved. I grew up on Indiana Jones, so Uncharted felt familiar, but completely new at the same time.
Following The Series Beyond The PS3
When Uncharted 2 arrived under the tree the next year, I knew what to expect. But, I still had a great time engaging in its train-related hijinks and abominable snowmen. This isn’t my favorite game in the series — snow and ice just don’t hit as hard as jungle japes — but its highs were still really high.
I didn’t get Uncharted 3 for Christmas, but it did help me celebrate teenager Christmas, i.e. having the house to myself for a weekend while my parents were out of town.
Uncharted 4 was the next true Christmas game, and it served as my introduction to current-gen gaming after four years away. After a college-length hiatus, I came back to the hobby shortly before Christmas 2016, but with Wii U, PS3, and GameCube games. During that time, I played through The Last of Us, Portal, Resident Evil 4, and Twilight Princess HD, but had little idea what was happening in current games. Uncharted 4 was the answer, a generationally gorgeous game with phenomenal acting, the best combat the series had ever seen, and a move into the wide-linear design that would define the next era of Naughty Dog.
Throughout all these years, I’ve loved getting these games because I’ve loved showing them off to my dad. He only really likes to play games with slow-paced puzzle-focused gameplay, but he loves to watch me play a graphical powerhouse. And unlike The Last of Us, Uncharted is PG-13 enough that I can play it with the whole family around. If Naughty Dog never returns to Uncharted, that’s okay. But I’ll keep missing it on Christmas mornings.
