With PC gamers unsure about jumping into Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, Naughty Dog addresses their concerns and discusses the future.
To celebrate the release of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on PC, Naughty Dog has taken time to reflect on its journey up to this point and also answered why it decided to make A Thief’s End and The Lost Legacy the entry points to the series for PC gamers. As it turns out, porting over the first three Uncharted games would have required significant overhauls coming from the PS3, but in the future, Naughty Dog is more excited than ever to bring its games to the PC platform.
After eight months of waiting, PC gamers finally get to sink their teeth into Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, releasing on Steam and the Epic Games Store today. Early reviews for the Legacy of Thieves Collection indicate that this is one of the best PlayStation ports so far, featuring plenty of PC-centric enhancements and quality-of-life improvements. Despite the glowing reviews, some PC gamers are still hesitant to jump into this release, seeing as the first three Uncharted titles are notably absent from the platform.
In a PlayStation Blog post written by Naughty Dog Vice President Christian Gyrling, the executive addresses the concerns of the PC community while also laying out where the company will go from here. Naughty Dog still has plenty of admiration for the first three Uncharted games, stating that they still hold up narratively today, but would require “a major overhaul visually to stand up to modern PC releases.” Additionally, Gyrling says that Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy were easy candidates for PC conversions because they were developed on more modern hardware. Moreover, the company believes that each Uncharted game works well as a standalone entry, making Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy fine entry points for the series.
Going forward, Naughty Dog is excited about the future of its games on PC, stating that it deliberately worked with Iron Galaxy to “better understand PC development.” The work Naughty Dog and Iron Galaxy did for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection led to significant adjustments in the studio’s proprietary engine, leaving it better tailored and more flexible for the PC platform. Perhaps even leaving the door open for more ports in the coming years. Overall, Naughty Dog finds the experience to be a “transformative pivot point” for the company and an important milestone as it develops games for PlayStation 5 and PC.
While Naughty Dog’s dedication to the PC platform certainly shines through with its port of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, some of what the company said today might be questionable to some fans. Many will note that the Nathan Drake Collection packed in the original Uncharted games and was released on the PS4, indicating that the work needed to convert a PS3 game to the x86 platform–which newer consoles and PC share–has already been done. Notably, Bluepoint Studios led that project, so there could likely be an unseen hurdle between Bluepoint and Naughty Dog that prevents those games from reaching new platforms. Either way, Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy still serve as fine entry points to the series, and PC gamers may have a lot to look forward to when The Last of Us Part 1 releases on PC in the future.
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is available now for PC and PS5.