Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a 2009 action-adventure game created by Naughty Dog and released by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. It is the second game in the Uncharted series. The story takes place two years after Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (2007) and follows Nathan Drake, Chloe Frazer, and Elena Fisher as they search for the Cintamani Stone and Shambhala while fighting a group led by Serbian war criminal Zoran Lazarević.
Development for Uncharted 2 started right after the success of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The team used ideas from explorer Marco Polo and his travels through islands and parts of eastern Asia. Naughty Dog created a new special engine for Among Thieves, called the Naughty Engine 2.0. These improvements allowed for more detailed movements, better movie-like scenes in the game, and the addition of an online multiplayer feature, which was new for the series.
Among Thieves was praised for its story, voice acting, graphics, technical quality, and movie-like style. It was considered better than Drake's Fortune and won Game of the Year awards from many publications and events. It is seen as one of the most important games for the seventh generation of video game consoles and among the greatest games ever made. The game sold over six million copies worldwide and was later released on PlayStation 4 as part of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection. A sequel, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, was released in 2011.
Gameplay
Uncharted 2 is an action-adventure platform video game played from a third-person perspective, with the player controlling Nathan Drake. Drake is strong and agile, able to jump, climb, and scale narrow ledges and walls to move between locations. Drake can carry up to two firearms—one used with one hand and one with both hands—and a limited number of grenades. He can pick up weapons and ammunition from defeated enemies, automatically replacing the weapon he was using. The player can direct Drake to take cover behind corners or low walls, using aimed or blind-fire to defeat enemies. Drake can also fire while moving. If enemies do not see Drake, the player can use stealth to eliminate them, such as sneaking up behind them to knock them out with one hit or pulling an enemy over a ledge from which Drake is hanging. Some areas require solving puzzles using clues from Drake’s journal. A hint system provides guidance, such as showing the direction of the next objective.
Throughout the game, there are 100 special treasures and one secret relic hidden in difficult-to-reach locations that the player can collect. Collecting these treasures and completing specific challenges earns medals, which give in-game money to unlock extra content, such as concept art, game movies, and game cheats like weapons with unlimited ammunition. Many medals also award trophies.
Uncharted 2 includes both competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes. In cooperative play, up to three players can take the roles of Nathan Drake and two other "hero" companions. Missions involve gunfights, platforming, and teamwork-based objectives. Players can assist teammates if they are critically injured or captured by enemies.
In competitive play, up to ten players can compete in two teams of five. Six modes are available: Deathmatch, Plunder, Elimination, Turf War, King of the Hill, and Chain Reaction. Deathmatch has two teams of five, with one team as heroes and the other as villains. Players choose character models, such as Nathan, Elena, Sully, Tenzin, or Chloe. As players earn points and rank up, they can purchase new character skins. Players can select two Boost abilities to use during matches. Plunder is similar to capture the flag, with teams trying to steal a treasure from a central point and return it to their base. The player carrying the treasure moves slowly and can throw it away to avoid enemies or pass it to a teammate. Elimination involves two teams of five players trying to eliminate all members of the opposing team. Players do not respawn and must eliminate the other team three times to win.
Chain Reaction is similar to Turf War, with players capturing posts in a specific order: one team captures posts 1 through 5, while the other team captures posts 5 through 1. King of the Hill requires players to capture a hill on the map to score points, staying on the hill as long as possible while the opposing team tries to do the same.
Gold Rush is a cooperative mode where 2–3 players work together to find a randomly placed treasure and return it to their base, similar to Plunder. AI enemies try to stop them. If a player is defeated and not revived before the timer ends, they cannot return until the next round. Enemies become stronger in each consecutive round. Survival is another cooperative mode where 2–3 players must defeat ten waves of enemies, each wave becoming more difficult. A new co-op mode called "Siege" allows players to team up to secure a zone while defending against enemy waves. The multiplayer servers for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves were shut down on September 3, 2019.
Plot
Two years after the events of the first game, treasure hunter Nathan "Nate" Drake (Nolan North) is approached by former associate Harry Flynn (Steve Valentine) and Flynn's associate Chloe Frazer (Claudia Black) to help steal a Mongolian oil lamp linked to Italian explorer Marco Polo's doomed 1292 voyage from China. The group plans to trick Flynn's client and take Polo's treasure for themselves. Without knowing, Chloe and Nate were once partners, and Chloe plans to leave with Nate after the mission. Nate and Flynn break into a museum in Istanbul and find the lamp, which contains a map and flammable resin that reveal Polo's fleet was shipwrecked in Borneo and carried the Cintamani Stone from the fabled city of Shambhala. Flynn betrays Nate despite their initial plan, leaving him to be arrested.
Three months later, Chloe helps free Nate with his long-term friend Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Richard McGonagle). She reveals that Flynn works for Zoran Lazarević (Graham McTavish), a Serbian war criminal seeking the stone. In Borneo, Nate and Sully infiltrate Lazarević's camp, with Chloe as a spy. Nate discovers the stone never left Shambhala. They find a temple containing the bodies of Polo's crew, as well as a phurba and map showing the carrier will gain passage to Shambhala through a temple in Nepal. Nate and Sully escape after being surrounded by Flynn and his men.
Sully leaves the mission, so Nate and Chloe continue to Nepal, which has been attacked by Lazarević's mercenaries. They meet Nate's ex-girlfriend journalist Elena Fisher (Emily Rose) and cameraman Jeff (Gregory Myhre), who are tracking Lazarević. At the temple, Nate and Chloe use the phurba to find Shambhala's location in the Himalayas. After Jeff is shot in an ambush, Chloe insists on abandoning him; Nate and Elena help him but are captured by Lazarević. Chloe switches sides to keep her cover while Lazarević kills Jeff and gets Shambhala's location from Nate. Although Flynn tries to kill Nate and Elena, they escape.
With Elena's help, Nate follows Lazarević's train. He fights through it to find Chloe, but she refuses to leave after he compromised their mission to help Jeff and Elena. Flynn arrives and shoots Nate, but Chloe stops him from killing him. Cornered, Nate causes an explosion that derails the train over a cliff. He escapes the hanging train car, retrieves the phurba, and falls unconscious. A Tibetan Sherpa, Tenzin (Pema Dhondup), takes Nate to his village.
Nate reunites with Elena and meets German explorer Karl Schäfer (René Auberjonois). Schäfer convinces Nate and Tenzin to search for the remains of Schäfer's failed expedition for the Cintamani Stone. Nate and Tenzin travel through ice caves and fight strange monsters. They learn Schäfer worked for the Nazi Ahnenerbe and killed his men to protect the world from the stone. They return to stop Lazarević's attack on the village, where Lazarević kidnaps Schäfer and steals the phurba. Elena and Nate follow Lazarević's convoy to a monastery, where the dying Schäfer warns Nate to destroy the stone before Lazarević can use its power.
After retrieving the phurba from Chloe, Nate and Elena unlock the secret passage to Shambhala under the monastery, but Lazarević corners them. With Chloe's cover exposed, Lazarević forces Nate to open the pathway to Shambhala. The monsters attack but are killed by Lazarević, who reveals them as human-like guardians of Shambhala. After the gate opens, unsuited guardians attack, allowing Nate, Elena, and Chloe to escape.
In the city, the group finds the Cintamani Stone is a giant amber made from the sap of an ancient tree of life, along with the flammable resin. The sap gives the drinker superhuman powers, explaining the guardians and Polo's doomed crew. Flynn, left for dead by Lazarević, ambushes them in a suicide attack, seriously wounding Elena. Nate leaves her with Chloe and confronts Lazarević at the tree. Lazarević drinks the tree sap, becoming nearly invincible. Shooting explosive pockets of resin, Nate injures Lazarević and leaves him to be killed by the guardians. As the city collapses from the tree's fall and exploding resin, Nate and Chloe carry Elena to safety.
In the village, Chloe tells Nate to tell Elena he loves her before saying goodbye. Sully leaves a recovering Elena with Nate. The couple honors Schäfer's memory and kisses.
Development
In December 2008, Game Informer first shared a teaser trailer for the game. The trailer showed Nathan Drake, the main character, walking through a snowstorm to reach a phurba partially buried in the snow. Richard Diamant, a lead character artist, noted that the trailer was created in real-time using the game's engine. A second teaser trailer was released shortly after, showing a seriously injured Drake trapped in the wreckage of a train dangling over a cliff. The story begins in the middle of events, with a quote from Marco Polo: "I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed."
Three main writers worked on the game: Amy Hennig, the head writer, Neil Druckmann, and Josh Scherr.
Uncharted 2 includes an online multiplayer mode. In August 2008, Naughty Dog hired a dedicated multiplayer designer to develop this feature. A test version of the multiplayer mode was available to players who purchased early copies of the game inFamous. The test version was also accessible to annual subscribers of the PlayStation Network service, Qore, on June 3 to those who had subscribed by May 15. Beta codes for Qore began being sent out on May 8, 2009. Codes for the inFamous beta were included in the packaging of the game on May 26. Another beta was released on September 15, and an open beta was made available to players in the EU and US on September 29 through the PSN store. Both beta versions ended on October 12. Within one year of the game's release, more than 125 million matches and 10,500 man-years of gameplay were recorded online.
The game's development took 22 months, with six months dedicated to pre-production.
The Tibetan village sequence was inspired by the 2008 video game The Graveyard by Tale of Tales.
At E3 2009, videos from Naughty Dog showed voice actors performing motion capture for the game. The actors wore special motion capture suits to record both their movements and voices. They also practiced together and discussed scenes with game directors to create realistic and cinematic dialogue.
Naughty Dog aimed to use the Cell processor's SPUs more effectively than in the first Uncharted game, where utilization was only about 30%. This improvement allowed the game to have more realistic environments and animations. Uncharted 2 includes 564 in-game cinematic animations, compared to 80 in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.
The game uses Naughty Engine 2.0, an improved version of the original engine. This version allows for real-time moving environments, more realistic textures, and animations. The engine works with Havok Physics to enhance gameplay.
Uncharted 2 uses between 90% and 100% of the Cell processor's power and utilizes all 25GB of a single Blu-ray Disc. Evan Wells later stated:
In an interview, Christophe Balestra emphasized the importance of including a hard drive in every system:
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion was fully processed on the SPUs.
Post-release
Naughty Dog's creative director, Amy Hennig, shared information about a special Fortune Hunter edition of Uncharted 2 that could not be purchased in stores. This edition includes the game, a replica of the Phurba Dagger artifact and stand, a BradyGames strategy guide, an art book, the official soundtrack, and a collector's case signed by Naughty Dog. It also included various downloadable content. A collector's edition of Uncharted 2 was not announced for sale in the United States.
SCEA marketing manager Asad Qizilbash told readers of the PlayStation Blog that limited edition giveaways occurred on the blog, PlayStation Home, the game's multiplayer demo, and a few other unnamed locations. Qizilbash stated that only U.S. residents were eligible to win. Only 200 copies of the Fortune Hunter edition were made.
Exclusive to the PAL region, the Uncharted 2 special edition includes the game, gold versions of the Beretta and AK-47 weapons, two postcards, a PlayStation 3 theme, and multiplayer skins. The game is packaged in a steel case called SteelBook. This edition was never officially announced but was found on the game's European launch site, with a link to a major British game retailer called Game.
A Game of the Year Edition of Uncharted 2 was released on October 12, 2010. It included all previously released downloadable content (except the Sidekicks Skin Pack), four motion comics, and Pinball Heroes: Uncharted for the PSP. It was later rereleased under the "Greatest Hits" label, with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune as a "Greatest Hits DualPack," and an "Ultimate Combo Pack" that included a metallic blue DualShock 3 controller.
The first downloadable content (DLC) pack was released on November 27, 2009. It featured a new multiplayer map, "The Fort," from The Fortress chapter in Drake's Fortune, available for free. In December, the "Uncharted: Eye of Indra Multiplayer Skin Pack" was released exclusively for the PAL PlayStation Store. It included all four parts of the motion comic Uncharted: Eye of Indra and two multiplayer skins based on the motion comic. The pack was later released in North America.
In 2010, several DLC packs were released. The "PlayStation Heroes Skin Pack" (January) included characters from Killzone 2, Resistance, and inFamous. A February DLC pack added two new multiplayer maps, six skins based on Drake's Fortune, 12 PSN Trophies, and 13 medals. Skins and maps were sold separately, and a bundle was also available. On April 22, the "Siege" DLC pack was released. It included a new co-op multiplayer mode called "Siege," two new maps, six character skins, and 11 PSN Trophies (10 bronze, 1 silver). Two of the skins were from Drake's Fortune, and the other four were new to the game. The "Sidekick Skin Pack" (August 26) included six alternate appearances of previously available characters and two new villain skins, Dillon and Mac. The "Golden Guns" DLC (December 12) added gold versions of the AK-47 and Beretta weapons.
In PlayStation Home, Naughty Dog created a themed game space for Uncharted 2, developed by Outso. This was the second game space from Naughty Dog, following the one for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The space, called "Nepalese Village," included mini-games like Mask Mayhem, Torch Race, and Fortunate Thieves, with rewards. A Uncharted 2 blog was also available. The space was released on October 23, 2009, in European and North American versions of PlayStation Home. In a PlayStation Blog video, Jack Buser, director of Home for SCEA, described Fortunate Thieves as a "full-on, interactive mini-MMORPG." The Uncharted series was the first to have game spaces for both games in the series on Home.
From 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Pacific Time on November 5 and 6, a contest in the North American PlayStation Home allowed U.S. users to win the Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Fortune Hunter Edition. Players competed in the "Mask Mayhem" mini-game, and the top leader on the leaderboard won a copy. A second chance occurred from November 20 to 21, with players competing in the "Fortunate Thieves" mini-game. A final chance was from December 18 to 21, with players competing in the "Torch Race" mini-game.
An Uncharted apartment called "Uncharted Fortune Hunter's Apartment" was released on May 6, 2010, for European and North American PlayStation Home. Themed costumes were also added. The apartment was released in the Asian version on May 27.
In 2015, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was included in Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection for the PlayStation 4. Other games in the collection were Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. Changes included improved shooting and grenade mechanics, controls, and camera systems. In-game cutscenes were updated with better lighting, visuals, and character models. Online leaderboards and motion blur were added. The collection only included single-player story modes, with no multiplayer content.
Reception
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves received widespread praise, being called one of the best video games of all time. It won many "Game of the Year" awards, including those from Spike's Video Game Awards. The game earned 41 perfect review scores and a Metacritic score of 96 out of 100, making it the most critically acclaimed game of 2009.
The first publication to review Uncharted 2 was the French edition of PSM3. They described the game as "long, visually impressive, deep, and exciting," saying it combined all the best qualities of a video game and more. The magazine gave it a score of 21/20, a rating previously achieved by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas five years earlier. PlayStation: The Official Magazine awarded the game a perfect score, calling it "one of the greatest games of all time." The British edition of the magazine also gave it a perfect score, named it the second-best PlayStation 3 game of all time, and readers voted it the greatest PlayStation game.
Hiawatha Bray of The Boston Globe praised the game for its storytelling and gameplay.
The Los Angeles Times review said the game "would be better played on a large screen in a movie theater" and noted that "Uncharted 2 is so immersive that players forget they are controlling the actions of treasure hunter Nathan Drake." The New York Times review called it "perhaps the best-looking game on any system" and described it as providing "a genuinely cinematic entertainment experience."
Other developers also praised Uncharted 2. Gordon Van Dyke, producer of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, said the game was "amazing-looking" and noted that it set a high standard for quality in the industry.
IGN gave the game a 9.5 out of 10, praising its "stunning visuals" and calling it "fantastic." They also said the multiplayer mode was "one of the best multiplayer experiences in any game." Adam Sessler of X-Play gave the game a 5 out of 5, calling it "the best single-player experience I have ever played."
The game faced some criticism, such as issues with the control system. The New York Times noted that "its controls can be difficult to use at times." Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell said "some platforming sections can be challenging" even when players feel they are jumping correctly. IGN mentioned that "repetitive gunfight sequences can be frustrating" and criticized the "very linear" climbing sections, though it called this a minor complaint.
Uncharted 2 was ranked 19th in Dengeki Online's reader poll of the best games of 2009, making it the only non-Japanese game on the list. For its 15th anniversary, IGN noted that "Uncharted 2 set the template for the cinematic story-driven adventure game that became PlayStation’s main focus in the years to come."
According to NPD Group's sales data, Uncharted 2 was the top-selling game in the United States for October 2009, with about 537,000 units sold. Media Create's data showed it sold 47,000 units on its first day in Japan. Phil Rosenberg of SCE said the game reached one million copies sold by November 12, 2009. Gaming analyst Jesse Divnich noted that Uncharted 2 was the third first-party PlayStation 3 game to sell over one million units in North America. By February 2010, the game had sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide, becoming the fastest-selling first-party PlayStation game. It is now part of Sony's Greatest Hits collection. Naughty Dog reported that it sold 3.8 million copies worldwide by September 2010. By December 2011, over 5 million copies had been sold. As of March 2015, the game had sold 6.5 million copies.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves received over 300 industry awards, including more than 200 "Game of the Year" awards. At the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards, it earned eight nominations and won three, including Game of the Year. IGN and many other websites named it their "Game of the Year." At the AIAS 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, it received fifteen nominations and won ten, including Game of the Year. It tied with Naughty Dog's The Last of Us (2013) for the most awards ever won by a game in the Academy's history.