Is Uncharted 4’s Multiplayer as good as it gets?

Let’s be honest, when most people think of the stella Playstation franchise Uncharted, they think of the stunning single player game, with emotional stories, fantastic graphics, hair’s breath escapes, desperate shootouts and humorous one liners. What often gets overlooked is the solid multiplayer foundation the series has put up since Uncharted 2 arrived. It would also be folly to just write the Multiplayer aspect of the series off as “just an add on part I’ll play sometime” as Uncharted 3’s multiplayer was even rumoured to be gunning for Esports status.

As a veteran of the series, who has put over 150 hours at least into the Multiplayer of both UC2 and UC3, it was then with great interest to get UC4 and to thrash the living daylights out of this latest offering on the PS4.

We all know the PS4 has vastly superior power than the PS3, so it is of no surprise that the graphics of the MP are of course superb. What is a surprise though is that the MP graphics, that are historically slightly inferior to SP games, is still so detailed, fluid and crisps with vivid environment’s and movement, that they are good enough to put to shame some stand alone triple AAA SP games!

The game only comes with 4 game modes and no co-op, which to be honest is a huge disappointment for any UC mp fan, especially the lack of an online co-op component at all.  The four modes you do get though are fan favourites, Plunder (think capture the flag but with treasure), Command, (think domination) and Team death match and ranked Team deathmatch.

Again from the box just these 4 ( well three really ) modes was a disappointment, which hopefully a few patches and free expansions like Naughty Dog did with adding the fantastic Interrogation Mode to The Last of Us, is hopefully on the cards. As it is though it feels like a bare minimum amount of modes are here.

The difference in the game play from UC3 to UC4 is massive! One of the main gripes of UC3 was it was far too over complicated in its grind for better weapons ( which you needed to acquire in game treasures to unlock better weapons ) and a ranking and ticket system that was frankly mind boggling to understand.  UC4 has slimmed down and is all the better for it.

There is still a grind to unlock better weapons but it’s mainly just like a COD game where the more time you spend with one weapon the better unlocks you get, plus the base weapon of the AK47, is frankly the best all round gun anyway!

There are other unlocks for gear, mystical’s, sidekicks, which are all interesting but not overpowering buffs, and a stupendous amount of customization to dress your chosen characters up in many different stupid; and the more stupid the better, outfits. It never gets old looking at tough man Lazarovich in a wide brimmed purple ladies day at Ascot hat!

In game kills, and help towards the games objectives give you in game cash to spend on the affore mentioned buffs, and the tactical use of these buffs can turn a match on its head, but only for a short while. Use the china lake heavy weapon buff when all the enemy team is crowding around the treasure near their own base, desperate to put it in the chest in plunder, and blowing them all up together never gets old!

But, buffs, cash, customization aside, what’s it actually like to play? Flippin’ fantastic that’s what! Uc3 felt terribly soft core, as it required a terrible amount of bullets to down/kill an enemy and with the maps so clustered with boxes, alleyways, and debris, it was far too easy to unload an entire clip at someone and not get the kill, they pop out of cover when you’re re-loading, two bullets, and punch you’re out. Not so in UC4.

Sure there is a one shot melee kill but it has to be charged with your grappling hook, otherwise it’s a three hit melee strike before death. Like the game the last of Us Mp, down does not mean out, as you can be revived in this state. Also the weapons require just a few less bullets to down than UC3, which when you get the jump on someone, is satisfying not to have to worry about getting through an entire clip. This also means that skillfull players can now take out two, possibly three players with one clip, something impossible to do in UC3.

The maps seem much better in their thought process for the system and mechanics of the game. There are many ways to traverse them, with hooks, sliding, jumping etc, but players still generally congregate around hot spots and the maps seem less clustered, so using the right weapon for the right part of the map is paramount.

It’s also VERY pleasing not to have to suffer, much, from spawn killing. In the near 20 hours MP game play I’ve already put in, I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve spawned and been shot straight away.

Lastly though, there is one technical issue that is, to be honest, driving me nuts. Connectivity. To be honest I am a duel console owner, and I’ve played a lot of MP games on Xbox live. But I have to say it’s very noticeable to me how often I get disconnected, or suffer from crippling in game lag on UC4, when I don’t on any Xbox live games. Point being same internet connection, same person, same times, different results.

I hope this can be patched to make stable somehow, but as it is, it’s something that is happening far too often to not mention. Also there seems an issue of being stuck in the game loading screen for a MP game with no chance to back out apart from turning the console off. Again more times than I care to mention, the game has got stuck at 98% loading and nothing happened for over 10 to 15 minutes.

Do I think this is the best Uncharted MP yet? No. The vast amount of game modes, a lot of co-op options, and simple game play of UC2 IMO is still the best one. UC4 is FAR better than the clusterpuck UC3 multiplayer was though.What you do get with UC4 MP though is fun, fair, fantastic, just lacking more game modes and any co-op options to give it a huge amount of longevity for players to stay on it like they do other MP games like COD/BF/Titanfall/Destiny, etc.

Enjoy it for now though, and hope for more in free updates to keep you playing as I certainly will be for a while yet.