DLC #78 - Uncharted 3 : Drake's Deception - Flashback Map Pack 1

Flashback! More Uncharted Multiplayer trophies

Following on in the same trends from the previous Uncharted game, the Uncharted 3 DLC includes a slew of new trophies, exclusively tied to the game's Multiplayer modes.

The quantity of additional trophies on offer has been upped to a grand total of 50 split across 5 packages, with the first pack containing 10 of these trophies.

As a collective bunch, there are a whole host of time consuming and difficult trophies scattered throughout the DLC, and this package is no exception to that.

Half of the 10 trophies merely revolve around accumulating a certain number (mostly 50) of in-game medals whilst playing competitive Multiplayer, and none of these are particularly challenging, even though they might take some time to get through individually. However the challenge of this package lies elsewhere;

And Stay Down! - Win 50 matches of Elimination
Omnipotent - Complete a Co-op Adventure Map on Crushing Difficulty without losing a single life
Statuesque - Get the Curator Medal on Hard Difficulty

The "And Stay Down!" trophy, awarded for winning 50 matches of Elimination, is nothing more than a time-sink, but it can be frustrating if you're not winning matches frequently enough to keep the tally ticking over. Matches generally aren't very lengthy though, which is a bonus, but there is a heavy team reliance on unlocking this trophy, so you might want to get a group of like minded players together for best results.

The "Omnipotent" trophy, awarded for completing a Co-op adventure map on Crushing difficulty without losing a single life, lends the difficulty edge to the package. Crushing difficulty has always been seriously unforgiving in Uncharted games, and this challenge is no exception, with tough enemies and punishing health degeneration. 

Collective team co-operation helps, especially when you need to be open to the possibility of reviving yourself and/or your team-mates often, but caution is the best approach to unlocking this trophy. If you take your time and hang back, it doesn't really matter what happens to your team-mates, as long as you survive until the end, then you'll get the trophy. However, it is important to be aware of how many lives your team is using if they're respawning often, since you only get 15 lives to utilise on Crushing difficulty, and if they're all exhausted, the level is instantly failed and you'll have to restart, which is definitely something to note.

As far as which map to choose, it's difficult to recommend a specific one, they're all tough and contain multiple obstacles that are difficult to negotiate on Crushing difficulty, so it's just a matter of having the right approach and a good set of team-mates.

The "Statuesque" trophy, awarded for getting the Curator medal on Hard difficulty, is no doubt the toughest trophy in this package. The Curator medal requires you to not allow any RPG's to hit the statue on the Monastery Co-op adventure map, and requires a massive amount of team-work and co-ordination to complete. There is actually an identical trophy in one of the other DLC packages, that requires you to earn the medal on Crushing difficulty, and it's much easier to unlock this trophy on Crushing difficulty, since they will stack. It's hard enough doing this once, let alone twice, and since it's not actually necessary to do it twice, there's no point in making it harder than it is.

You will need a good team. There's absolutely no way you can just unlock this trophy naturally, or through a fluke, there are too many influencing factors surrounding it for any of that. The set-piece involves a number of enemies equipped with RPG's attacking from 6 different areas, in 3 waves of 4-6 enemies each time, and where they spawn from is completely random so it's important to have a method that focuses on each person covering every angle to minimise statue damage. It only takes a couple of RPG hits to knock off the statue's health bar, so margin for error is at a bare minimum, and all this time you'll be confronted by ground troops and armoured bosses, so there's alot to keep control over and high skill with flawless teamwork is imperative. 

It's also important to note, the statue section takes place at the very end of the level, meaning if you fail, you'll need to restart the whole thing, and given the fact it takes around 20 minutes to reach that point, it can be seriously frustrating if you end up trying to unlock this trophy multiple times. It's easily one of the toughest bronze (and toughest silver, if you consider the Crushing variant) trophies available in any game and makes the difficulty of this package soar.

Overall, this is a tricky piece of DLC to negotiate. It's very long winded and contains some genuinely hard challenges within. Prepare to grind for medals, especially for the other DLC packages, that contain a plethora of them, and make sure you have some dedicated and highly skilled partners to tackle the Co-op trophies, in-particular the "Statuesque" trophy. 

It's hard to nail down a time estimation, mainly for the reason that I started tackling all of the Uncharted 3 DLC at once, and just happened to complete this package first before any of the others. It isn't a quick list, that's for sure, and the challenge is representative of the other 4 DLC packages in the game, which is long and tough.