Uncharted is an action-adventure video game series and media franchise created by Sony Interactive Entertainment and developed by Naughty Dog. The series was designed by Amy Hennig and follows a group of treasure hunters who travel around the world to solve historical mysteries. The games mix real history with fantasy and folklore, featuring fictional characters alongside real people and events. In the main series, players control Nathan Drake, while a later expansion lets players control Chloe Frazer.

The first game, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, was released in 2007. It was followed by Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009), Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (2011), and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (2016). Other games, such as Uncharted: Golden Abyss (2011), Uncharted: Fight for Fortune (2012), and the standalone expansion Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (2017), support the main series. Initially available only on PlayStation consoles, the franchise later released games on other platforms, including the mobile game Uncharted: Fortune Hunter (2016) and remastered versions of A Thief's End and The Lost Legacy for Windows in 2022.

The main games are played from a third-person view, with gameplay focused on combat, shooting, exploration, and puzzles. Later games added multiplayer modes, stealth gameplay, and driving. The series was inspired by other games, movies, and media, and features exciting locations around the world. Adaptations of the series include a live-action film, board games, comics, and a novel.

The main series received high praise from critics for its stories, characters, voice acting, gameplay, and graphics. Its quality is often compared to Hollywood action-adventure films, such as the Indiana Jones series. The series raised the standards for single-player action-adventure games, with its second and fourth numbered games frequently ranked among the greatest video games. Uncharted has sold over 41 million copies, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises. It helped the success of PlayStation during the seventh and eighth generations and improved Naughty Dog’s reputation as a top game developer.

Titles

Drake's Fortune, the first game in the series, was released for PlayStation 3 in November 2007. The system included the next two games in the main series after Naughty Dog agreed to release the games only on Sony systems. Among Thieves was published in 2009, and the creative team had more freedom to use more of the system's random-access memory (RAM) because of an improved proprietary engine. This allowed the game to include more locations, more freedom to explore, better combat skills, and a larger map. Drake's Deception, released in 2011, continued this progress and added a better online multiplayer mode.

The next main game, A Thief's End, was published for PlayStation 4 and focused on realism and detail. It was the last game in the series to include the main character, Nathan Drake. The game added driving elements and improved gameplay features like stealth and role-playing. It also had better multiplayer options. It became very successful and broke several records. A free-to-play game for iOS and Android called Fortune Hunter was released to support A Thief's End.

Golden Abyss was published in 2011 and was the first game in the series to appear on PlayStation Vita, a handheld console. It is considered a prequel to the main series, though some developers said it is a separate, original story. In 2012, a turn-based card game called Fight for Fortune was released. It was developed by One Loop Games and included interactive elements suitable for the Vita.

Drake's Trail was an online game released in 2007. It was a browser-based game with elements that mixed real and imaginary worlds. The story, which served as a prequel to Drake's Fortune, followed journalist Elena Fisher hiring a private detective to find Nathan Drake, who was searching for a big treasure. Players used a Google Maps plugin to locate real-world areas and a Flash Player to explore fictional locations like Drake's apartment for clues.

The Nathan Drake Collection is a remastered version of the first three games in the series. It was ported to PlayStation 4 by Bluepoint Games in October 2015. It was released to make up for the delay in producing A Thief's End, which was originally planned for summer 2015. The collection included a voucher for the beta version of A Thief's End's multiplayer mode. The games had improvements like new trophies, an in-game Photo Mode, and better textures and gameplay. Multiplayer modes from Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 were not included. The collection received positive reviews, with most praising the technical and visual improvements. It was offered for free as part of Sony's Play at Home initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic in April–May 2020.

The Lost Legacy was released as a standalone expansion to A Thief's End and is the first game in the series not to feature Nathan Drake. It includes characters Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross, who previously appeared in Among Thieves, Drake's Deception, and A Thief's End. It was released for PlayStation 4 in 2017. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, a remastered version of A Thief's End and The Lost Legacy, was released for PlayStation 5 on January 28, 2022. A Windows version, developed with Iron Galaxy, was released on October 19, 2022.

Common elements

The gameplay in the Uncharted series combines action-adventure and 3D platforming, with a third-person view. Players complete physical tasks to move through the story, such as jumping, swimming, climbing, and swinging on ropes. Other elements like shooting, combat, and solving puzzles are also common. Later games added activities like driving and riding boats.

The maps in the Uncharted games allow players to explore freely. Later titles include open-world areas, letting players roam to find collectibles or avoid enemies through stealth. In A Thief's End, role-playing was expanded to include side conversations with other characters. The series follows the structure of traditional action games, where players complete levels in a set order, using a third-person view.

Shooting is an important part of the game, as players must defeat enemies. Players can carry a sidearm like a pistol, a main weapon like a rifle or shotgun, and a few grenades. These weapons are found by picking up items dropped by defeated enemies or scattered across maps. If a player dies, they restart at a specific checkpoint in the level.

In A Thief's End, vehicles were added to let players explore environments freely. However, vehicles must be driven to certain locations to advance the story.

In Among Thieves, multiplayer was introduced. It includes both competitive and cooperative play. Cooperative mode allows up to three players to take on the roles of Drake and two other characters, completing missions with gunfights, platforming, and teamwork. Players can help teammates if they are injured or captured. Competitive mode lets ten players split into two teams of five, with six modes like deathmatches and team objectives. A Thief's End added a survival mode where players fight through waves of enemies and complete objectives. Multiplayer also lets players earn points and ranks to buy new character outfits.

The first game, Drake's Fortune, takes place near Panama, in the Amazon rainforest, and an uncharted island off South America. Among Thieves was the first game to include multiple locations, such as the Tibetan Plateau, Istanbul, Borneo, and Nepal. Later games added settings like London, Cartagena, France, Syria, Yemen, and the Rub' al Khali desert. A Thief's End includes locations like a Panamanian jail, an Italian estate, a Scottish cathedral, Madagascar, and uncharted islands near Africa. Boston and New Orleans also appear, showing the main character’s past and present homes.

The prequel game Golden Abyss features a dig site in Panama. The expansion The Lost Legacy includes areas in India’s Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu, and a small bazaar.

Many locations in the series were researched carefully. The development team visited real places with guides and historians, taking photos and videos to accurately recreate settings.

The series uses many voice actors. The team chose less well-known actors for major roles. Only three characters appear in every main game, and Chloe is the only other playable character in single-player mode:

• Nolan North as Nathan Drake
• Emily Rose as Elena Fisher
• Richard McGonagle as Victor Sullivan
• Claudia Black as Chloe Frazer

Other media

Uncharted: The Board Game is a game made by Bandai in 2012. It was created by Hayato Kisaragi and allows two to four players to search for treasure and battle enemies.

Sony Computer Entertainment America released the first part of a four-part motion comic series called Uncharted: Eye of Indra on October 23, 2009. This story comes before Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The second part was released on November 25, and the third and fourth parts were released together on December 7.

A motion comic adaptation of the beginning of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was made. It starts with the discovery of Francis Drake’s coffin and ends with the first meeting between Nathan Drake and Gabriel Roman. The comic uses the same voice recordings from the video game.

A comic book titled Uncharted was published by DC Comics around the time Uncharted 3 was released. Written by Joshua Williamson and illustrated by Sergio Sandoval, with covers by Adam Hughes, it came out on November 30, 2011. It is part of a six-issue mini-series. The story follows Nathan Drake’s quest to find the legendary "Amber Room," leading him to the Hollow Earth.

A novel called Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth was published in October 2011. It was written by Christopher Golden and published by Del Rey Books. The book follows Nathan Drake’s search for Daedalus’s Labyrinth, a maze from Greek mythology that once held the Minotaur.

Ruben Fleischer directed a movie based on the games, written by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway. The film stars Tom Holland as Nathan Drake (who also helped produce the movie) and Mark Wahlberg as Victor Sullivan. Antonio Banderas, Sophia Taylor Ali, and Tati Gabrielle have supporting roles. The movie was released in theaters in the United States on February 18, 2022. It was produced by Columbia Pictures, Atlas Entertainment, and Arad Productions, with PlayStation Productions as an executive producer. Sony Pictures Releasing distributed the film. In August 2023, producer Charles Roven said the studio was planning a sequel. Sony confirmed a sequel was being developed by June 2024.

In July 2018, director Allan Ungar made a fan-created 15-minute short film featuring Nathan Fillion as Nathan Drake. Fillion had long wanted to play the role. The film was well received, especially for Fillion’s acting and an action scene shot from a close angle, like in the video games. The film also includes Stephen Lang as Victor Sullivan and Mircea Monroe as Elena Fisher, with appearances by Ernie Reyes Jr. and Geno Segers. Some people wondered if the fan film might affect the official movie. A leader from Naughty Dog, the game’s developer, praised the film with a heart emoji, and film director Shawn Levy also gave it positive feedback. Ungar supported the official movie.

A "storycoaster" ride based on the 2022 movie, called Uncharted: The Enigma of Penitence, opened at PortAventura Park on June 17, 2023.

Reception

The Uncharted series has been very successful in terms of both reviews and sales. Much of the praise for the series has focused on the graphics created by Naughty Dog, as well as the writing and voice acting. GamesRadar ranked it as the second best franchise of the seventh generation. The Uncharted series is widely recognized for helping to raise Naughty Dog's reputation and is now considered one of the best game developers in the industry.

Nathan Drake, the main character in the series, is often seen as a symbol for PlayStation. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is considered one of the greatest games ever made. It received more than fifty Game of the Year awards, and critics called it a major milestone in gaming. The game currently holds one of the highest ratings among PlayStation 3 games on Metacritic. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is also ranked as one of the best games in the series and among the top video games of the eighth generation.

The first game in the series was part of the PlayStation Essentials collection and sold over 2.6 million copies worldwide. Uncharted 2 was the best-selling game in the month of its release, and by the end of their life cycles, the series sold over 13 million copies by 2011. Sales for Uncharted 3 were more than double those of its predecessor, which exceeded expectations. This helped the series reach over 17 million copies sold worldwide. Before the release of the fourth main game, Sony announced that the Uncharted series had sold over 28 million copies worldwide.

Uncharted 4 is the best-selling game in the series so far, with over 18 million copies sold, making it one of the top-selling PlayStation 4 games of all time. As of December 2017, the series had sold 41.7 million copies globally.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was named the best PlayStation 3 game of the year by IGN.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves won several awards during the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards (Game of the Year, Best PS3 Game, and Best Graphics) and the 2010 BAFTA Game Awards (Story, Action, Use of Audio, and Original Score). It also won in 10 categories, including Game of the Year, at the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, and in 5 categories, including Game of the Year, at the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. It was the game that received the most Game of the Year awards in 2009.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception won several awards during the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards (Best PS3 Game and Best Graphics) and the 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering, Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction, and Outstanding Achievement in Animation). It also received awards in the VideoGame Writing category from the Writers Guild of America Awards and in the Best Visual Arts category from the Game Developers Choice Awards. It was one of the most awarded games of 2011 in the Game of the Year category.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End won several awards during The Game Awards 2016 (Best Narrative and Best Performance) and the 20th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards (Adventure Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Story, Outstanding Technical Achievement, and Outstanding Achievement in Animation). It also won as Best Game at the 13th British Academy Games Awards, as PlayStation Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, and as Best Video Game at the Empire Awards. It was the game that received the most Game of the Year awards in 2016.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy won in two categories (Game, Franchise Adventure, and Sound Editing in a Game Cinema) at the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards and in the Best Music/Sound Design (People's Voice) category at the Webby Awards.