Uncharted 4s Multiplayer - Support Classic Mode

As many of you have already seen, unless you’ve been living under rock for the past year or like Patrick Star you call it home, the Uncharted 4 multiplayer trailer and details have finally graced us with their presence for a number of weeks now. For some of you Uncharted fans you’ll be jumping for joy at the new details presented to us about the brand new multiplayer mode, however for others you’ll be disappointed at the new direction taken in the new instalment, quite like myself and the reason for this is simple, Uncharted 2.

Uncharted 2? What the hell has Uncharted 2 got to do with this I hear some of you ask? Well Uncharted 2 didn’t just feature an amazing single player experience which left many gamers blown away in 2009 when the game released but also featured a multiplayer mode that left such a huge impression on a large amount of Uncharted 2 players. It was something which came totally out of the blue, no one really saw it coming, not even me and can you blame us when so many single player driven games are usually ruined or don’t live up to their expectations because the developers felt the need to add an unnecessary online part of their games. Their decision to this however was because NaughtyDog had finished and polished the single player story of Uncharted 2 as much as they could and had resources to spare as well as time. In the end they decided to put together a multiplayer mode for Uncharted 2 and surprisingly the online was a hit with many Uncharted fans up until the point where it slowly started to develop a loyal following which is still growing today. Why was this though? Why did this multiplayer that was just thrown in loved so much? The reason for this is because the online was very different from other multiplayer games out there, back when Call of Duty was on top of the world and first person shooters were all in the range, Uncharted 2s multiplayer stood out and did things different.

Now whether it was different because they didn’t have time to develop it as much as they wanted or add the features so many multiplayer games have these days is questionable, we’ll never know but the fact that this multiplayer didn’t follow the same structure as Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo for example is why it was loved so much. There was no gimmicks like kill streaks, no loadouts where weapons were easily given to you or even weapon mods which made your loadouts even stronger, no Uncharted 2 was bare bones and only featured a handful of perks (boosters in this game) that only really made a difference until you had become more experienced with the game and didn’t rely on the extra help. In the end Uncharted 2 was loved because it was a multiplayer experience which let gamers rely more on skill then gimmicks. This meant lower level players who had just joined the game were not really at a disadvantage against higher level players because they had unlocked a better gun, an over powered perk or even a weapon mod which made it easier for them to shoot, Uncharted 2 was not only more about skill but was player friendly.

Anyway enough about Uncharted 2, I thought it would be good to get some background on the best Uncharted multiplayer experience before we talk about our main topic. I could go on about the horrible 1.5 update which kind of brought Uncharted 2 down but that’s a new topic entirely. The point of this blog is to talk about the multiplayer in Uncharted 4 and why despite not actually playing the multiplayer yet, not even the beta, it’s time to act if we want some sort of Classic Mode we ended up getting far too late in Uncharted 3. Like I’ve always said, it’s better to bring up issues early then much later, this would give NaughtyDog more time to developer their online as it’s still in development, not having us waiting for a update months later for something they could have added in the beginning. Now of course we don’t know if there is a classic mode within the game, if there is then we can easily disregard this and move on but that uncertainty is not something I want to risk, especially with Uncharteds multiplayer. You are probably wondering why I’m so bothered, well that’s easy, the Uncharted multiplayer is the only multiplayer in recent times I’ve ever fell in love with and because this is apparently the last ever Uncharted game (maybe the last one in a long, long time even) I’d like to see the best this game has to offer.

So the changes, the changes that Uncharted 4 has brought to the table and boy judging from the main trailers and the multiple hands on videos from Paris Games Week I’m left stunned. Hell Uncharted 3 brought it so uneasy changes but the game was manageable but this, I’m sorry to say is the Last of Us-Uncharted. Despite NaughtyDog stating how “Uncharted was Uncharted” and “Last of Us is the Last of Us” they’ve seemed to bring in most of the features from the Last of Us into Uncharted, features which don’t seem to fit the style or pace of the game. Now you are probably thinking “how can you judge if you haven’t played it”, that’s totally true and a very good point but because a lot of these features were in the Last of Us and a few in Uncharted 3 (things which have been added onto) we’ve kind of already formed an opinion over it. For example if you didn’t like sweetcorn or peppers either by themselves or within a salad but then it was added onto a pizza and someone said “come on you haven’t even tried it you can’t judge” the thing is you can because you know you don’t like sweetcorn or peppers either on their own or in something else. So if you have features in the Last of Us for example and you’ve formed an opinion on them then despite how well you tinker with them when you add it in the next game, this game being Uncharted 4, then you kind of already have some sort of opinion over it. Just because these features are in something else doesn’t mean it erases any opinion formed when it was in something else. Hell the multiplayer trailer looks amazing untill you get to the part where Sully calls on an NPC, “I’ve got your back”, and it starts to show the ugly looking changes or should I say gimmicks.

Let’s start with the in game store. This is something I never quite managed to wrap my head around when it was in the Last of Us. Why? Well that’s mostly because the world of the Last of Us is about scavenging, looking for supplies, trying to save ammo and so on yet here we are in a multiplayer part of the game where you can easily convert cash into weapons. Despite what you think it made more sense in the Last of Us because it was a slower paced game, you had time to find somewhere to hold up as you accessed the menu to select your weapons, with how fast paced Uncharted is you’ll have to quickly know what things to select but that’s not even the main problem, how is picking things out of a menu skilful, you can’t even pick up weapons on the map now you have to do it within this in game store. Then we have revives, another thing in the Last of Us, again it made sense because you relied more on teamwork and how much slower the game was. With Uncharted if you blast your way in and unload an AK clip into someone or manage to get someone with a grenade then they should go down, even a headshot. Supers which seem like a condensed version of Kickbacks are also in the game, something not many people enjoyed about Uncharted 3 and also sidekicks where you can call upon NPCs to help you within battle, yes, A.Is to help you out and like the other things within this game they can all be called upon by buying these gimmicks from the in game store.

So what can be done for Uncharted 2 veterans or people in general who just want to play a multiplayer game which isn’t like the rest? Well sorry to say but nothing, that’s the main direction they are taking Uncharted 4 now nothing can be done to change that. They could have improved on Uncharted 2 where less is more but they didn’t, it’s a shame but it’s something we’ll have to accept. However the second best thing we can do is to ask for a classic mode. There is a good thread I saw on the official NaughtyDog forums by a user like me, like you, like any Uncharted 2 lover who has started a “Classic Mode” thread. Just like this post the guy has made absolutely clear that it’s been done to just get a “head start” in case the worst happens. I like people who try and do something and for sharing roughly the same opinion on this matter I had to bring it N4Gs attention as I know there are a lot of Uncharted 2 veterans on this site. So please click on the site, log in with your Playstation account details and “like” the thread and feel free to comment.

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I mostly made this as well because despite being an official forum you are obviously going to get forum purists who will try and downplay any criticism someone makes. Roughly the same bunch of users on the forum who are trying to downplay the thread by saying that the “single” mode people want, and this is funny, will “ruin player pools”. Yeah I know hilarious, they think one mode is going to ruin the entire Uncharted 4 player pool. They also try and downplay the thread by saying how a Classic mode didn’t work for Uncharted 3 despite the fact (and I’ll point out what some people in the thread have said) that Uncharted 3s Classic mode didn’t take off because it didn’t start out of as Classic mode, it came far too late, they didn’t listen to some of the things we wanted within the mode and a number of other stuff. Hell I don’t mind if you have a different opinion, if you like the Uncharted 4 changes good for you but a single mode for the online where other Uncharted fans just like yourself can play within feeling “banished” from the online would let us all play together as one.

So I hope to see you on the forums and support the Uncharted 4 Classic Mode. I thought N4G would be a good place to spread the word as most people forget about official forums where developers usually take note first. Like I’ve said if they already have a classic mode planned then great but this is just to make sure, a fail-safe in case the worst happens. I’m sure we’ll have time to judge it better when we play the beta in December but considering we’ve experienced most of these features in other games I don’t think it’s going to make people do a total 180 with their opinion.