DLC #123 - Uncharted 3 : Drake's Deception - Flashback Map Pack 2

Completing this final piece of DLC for Uncharted 3 prompted me to look back over this entire set, and actually made me realise how difficult this journey has been.

There are challenges around every single corner, varying from the outrageously lucky, to the highly skilled. Given the ease of difficulty expected from the main list (which is to still be completed), the DLC alone makse it a very impressive 100% completion to have in any collection.

The Flashback Map Pack 2 adds 4 new maps, which are all re-incarnated from Uncharted 2, spanning both Competitive and Co-operative game modes. As standard, there are 10 new trophies added, with a slew of new tasks, and whilst this contains the second half of our treasure related collectible journey previously discussed within the Fort Co-op Adventure pack, there is actually a little bit more to talk about here, still presenting a slightly heightened challenge, which has certainly been a recurring theme within this whole game.

All 3 silver trophies will give you some degree of challenge to tackle here, whilst the other 7 bronze trophies are all focused on in-game medal accumulation again, another recurring theme throughout. None of these medals will cause too much trouble, as they'll mostly be covered off through the large time investment you'll be expected to put into the Competitive and Co-operative modes throughout this journey.

Whilst there are no questions about the treasures being the main focus for this package again, there is a nice little collection of trophies that will give you some challenges here;

Invincible - Complete a Co-op Arena Map on Crushing Difficulty without losing a single life
Two by Two - Win 50 matches of Three Team Deathmatch
Collector - Complete the Antiquity Treasure Set

The "Invincible" trophy, is a directly influenced from the Flashback Map Pack 1 DLC, which offered the exact same requirements, only applicable to the Co-op Adventure mode.

The same challenges that were present there are also present here. Arena is a very different game mode to Adventure though, and I would personally argue it's more difficult to survive within Arena mode than it is with Adventure mode, making this trophy the tougher of the 2. Where you could deploy some solid tactics to help you through Adventure mode, such as hanging back in certain sections, and allowing your team-mates to clear the way, there is nowhere to hide in Arena mode, and you'll have to defend on the front foot and be aggressive against the hordes of enemies if you want to succeed here.

In order to complete an Arena Map, you'll need to clear all 10 rounds, and to do this without dying, especially at the latter rounds when Brutes, armored enemies and RPG units turn up, can prove to be tough, and potentially get ugly very quickly. It's also important to pick your 2 other team-mates wisely. You don't want to play with uncooperative partners who could potentially let you die when you need to be revived, which will blow your chances of the trophy, and given the fact you have to clear all 10 rounds on Crushing difficulty also means you'll need team-mates with a lot of skill to see you through to the end.

It's also important to pick good partners because you're limited to 15 lives per game, and if lives are disposed quickly by your team-mates, the game will prematurely end when nobody can respawn anymore, so there's a small handful of important considerations needed to unlock this trophy.

The "Two by Two" trophy is the standard game mode win accumulation offering for this package. I certainly believe Three Team Deathmatch is one of the more difficult game modes to accumulate wins in, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's 3 teams competing against each other, unlike most other modes in Uncharted 3, where 2 teams go head to head. That may seem like a statement of the obvious, but competing against 2 other teams, rather than just 1, naturally decreases your chances of winning.

It also seems to be a mode where you run into a lot of pairs who don't like playing bigger team based game modes where they're forced to mix with random players, meaning a greater concentration of better teams that naturally gravitate to Three Team Deathmatch. This could just have been a coincidence, but I ran into a lot of good pairs who seemed to be experienced in playing with each other, and therefore, naturally very good.

Out of all 5 trophies that required 50 wins for the various game modes amongst all of these DLC packs, this was the last one I unlocked, purely because I lost a lot of Three Team Deathmatch games, due to a mixture of the above combinations. I did eventually find a decent partner and managed to win games more frequently, but it was definitely the longest game mode that I reached 50 wins in.

The "Collector" trophy, awarded for Completing the Antiquity Treasure Set, is the second half of the previously reviewed "Hoarder" trophy, in the Fort Co-op Adventure pack, and for the sake of not wanting to tread over old ground, there isn't really much to be said that hasn't already been covered prior to this.

There are a few key differences. The Antiquity set has 16 total treasure sets, with a combined total of 42 treasures, which is 6 sets and 16 treasures shorter than the Artifact set. Whether this actually makes a difference for something that is completely random, I do not know, but in theory, the much smaller collection should be the one you complete first. I have read a lot of strong backing for a theory that suggests you are always left with 1 treasure from each set for full completion, which was also the case for myself, so this, at least from my own experience, seems to be true. I also unlocked the larger Artifact set in full first too, which further disproves the theory that the fact the set is smaller actually matters, but this could be different for the general consensus.

A more relevant difference is the fact that this set also contains a collection of adventure treasures, awarded throughout the Co-op adventure chapters, just like the Artifact set did. However, where the Artifact set only awarded these treasures under the condition that you played the levels on Hard/Crushing, the treasures within the Antiquity set will drop treasures if you play the levels on Easy/Normal, so this is naturally a smoother journey as a consequence.

Apart from those minor differences, all the trials and tribulations you can expect from this trophy are exactly as they were described in the Fort Co-op Adventure pack for the "Hoarder" trophy, they're just not merged and discussed as one because they come from different DLC packs.

And with this, completes another tough set of DLC trophies from a game which isn't usually known for it's difficulty. I am still yet to obtain the Platinum trophy from the main list, but don't anticipate this to be anywhere close to as challenging as this DLC adventure was. When I sit here and look back on all of it as a collective, I can see where both the challenge and hours would have been amassed from. There are an assortment of trophies here, ranging from high skill requirements, time-consumption and the outright absurd. It is a real grueling collection that only those who really want it enough will obtain full completion within. It's hard to look back over everything and determine an overall timescale. I started unlocking some of these DLC trophies as early as 2012, so you can hopefully appreciate how difficult it is to truly say how long this took me altogether, when my only real reference points are my previous reviews of other DLC packs, and a few loose time totals from the online leaderboards. It's easily a 200+ hour experience as a very minimum.

It's massively time-consuming and requires a certain level of mastery to finish everything within these DLC packs and if you manage to beat the clock before that early September deadline for server closure, then make sure you cherish this victory.

DLC #122 - Uncharted 3 : Drake's Deception - The Fort Co-op Adventure

It's been almost 2 and half years since my last completed DLC pack for Uncharted 3, so to suggest that this one is overdue is a bit of an understatement.

In reality, if it weren't for an announcement from Sony that the Uncharted 3 Multiplayer servers are due to close in early September 2019, then this would have more than likely continued. However, the suddenly limited opportunity to grab these trophies has prompted some immediate action to be taken regarding the completion of this DLC set. So, here we are.

Just like all Uncharted 3 DLC packs, this is more of a top-up than anything else. There are 3 new character skins added to be used in-game, and a Prelude co-operative level to complete called Fort.

The package also adds 10 new trophies, following a similar template to the rest of the Uncharted 3 content. All geared towards the game's Multiplayer, there is a nice mix of competitive wins required, acquisition of certain volumes of in-game medals and the crown jewel of the set, the collectible treasures from the Artifact treasure set.

The majority of the trophies within this DLC are simply in-game medal accumulation tasks, and will come naturally over time. In reality, the treasures are what this package ultimately comes down to. Not just for this specific set of DLC trophies, but also for those who aspire to full completion. That's not to say there aren't other challenges along the way, but get ready for a strong task at hand if you're looking to complete this package;

Team Player - Win 50 matches of Team Objective
Hoarder - Complete the Artifact Treasure Set

It would be easy to skim straight over everything else, and just charge head-first into why the treasure system in this game is such a big deal, but it is also worth mentioning another aspect of this set.

The "Team Player" trophy, awarded for winning 50 matches of Team Objective, is the obligatory win based objective for this list (every DLC pack requires you to win 50 games of something). Team Objective is one of the more exciting game modes within Uncharted 3, where a series of objectives will pop up on a rotational basis, and you have to win that objective to score a point for your team. This continues on a first to 3 basis, and the rotation includes modes such as King of the Hill, Turf War and Chain Reaction.

50 wins is a heavy demand, but games generally are nowhere near as long as Plunder can be, and these trophies lend themselves well to the slew of in-game medal trophies that accompany these DLC packs, so even when you lose matches along the way, which you inevitably will, it never feels like a waste of time. This will take you somewhere in the region 25-30 hours alone, accounting for possibility of defeats en route to 50 victories.

The "Hoarder" trophy, awarded for completing the Artifact Treasure Set, is where the challenge of this package spikes heavily.

The treasure sets were not a new addition to the game via this DLC offering. They already existed as part of the base game. So, it may well have been the case you had already made progress towards this trophy without even realising it. The Artifact Treasure Set is the larger of the 2 sets (with the Antiquity Treasure Set being the other), at 22 sets containing a cumulative total of 58 treasures. The achievement of these are all spread over the various components of Uncharted's Multiplayer, including Co-op adventure, Co-op Arena and Competitive Team Deathmatch/Objective and Plunder.

This trophy is the solitary reason for the 2 and a half year gap since the completion of the Co-op Shade Survival Mode pack back in February 2017. The acquisition of treasures is completely random, and there is absolutely no way this can be influenced by the player whatsoever. The sets are checklisted, and the game will tell you which component of the wider game you can obtain each treasure from within, but that's about as much help as you'll get.

Otherwise, it's merely a case of loading up said game modes and hoping you'll get the treasures you need from killing opponents/enemies in-game. The biggest barrier to completion here is the fact that treasure drops will constantly duplicate, which eventually turns this trophy into a needle in a haystack task once you get down to the final handful of treasures you still require. You'll need to absolutely plow the hours into this, and the level of dedication required to persevere with farming these treasures is extremely high. You'll also need to be mentally prepared to go through prolonged periods of time picking up duplicate treasures as your list gets smaller and you find yourself only needing the last few. It has a very, "so close yet so far" feel to it, and can be easily demotivating when you're not seeing any signs of progress.

The key is to just stick at it. That's really the only piece of advice you can give, for a trophy which is without question the most challenging luck based trophy I've ever unlocked. There are a few recommended methods which can prove to be formulas for success, but for me, exclusively playing Hunter Arena will net the majority of the treasures with higher success rates, especially the last listed treasure in each set, which is considered "rare". It is also important to note that, you'll also need to be prepared to play through the 5 adventure chapters on the grueling Hard/Crushing difficulty too, which is another challenge within itself, as 13 of the 58 treasures are exclusively granted from level bosses within these chapters when only playing on these 2 difficulty levels. Just in case you needed another degree of challenge here.

A timescale is hard to nail down, both from a personal perspective, and an overall perspective. When I eventually came back to tackle this trophy when the date for the server closure was announced, and assessed my situation properly, I actually only needed 23 treasures across both the Artifact and Antiquity Treasure sets, but even then, it took me a solid 2 and a half weeks of exclusively playing Uncharted 3 to obtain every treasure, and some days I was easily playing for as long as almost 10 hours a day, which is well over my normal average, not to mention extremely tedious at times. 

To add some level of perspective, my chosen method was to farm Hunter Arena, which on average will see you earn around 3/4 treasures per game, with each game lasting 24 minutes in total (4 rounds of 6 minutes each), with no guarantee you'll get any new treasures. It's also important to note that, you'll only be active for 2 rounds, as you'll share with your opponent who will also have their turn at farming treasures for the other 2 rounds, whilst you sit back and await your next turn. Along with whatever progress I managed to make prior to my lengthy break from this game, it wouldn't surprise me if the treasures alone took me around 60-70 hours, but even that would be a very loose bottom end estimate.

It's ultimately the fear of the unknown that gets to you. There's always that niggling doubt in the back of your mind that you'll be one of these people that spends 30+ hours on that final treasure, which is only ever a concern that's alleviated once you actually have it and if you can see this one through to the end, that final treasure is hugely satisfying. I certainly consider this DLC pack to be an excellent scalp to add to the collection. You can read up on the challenges the treasure sets have posed for other people, and some have even given up entirely. Whilst I never felt like I was ever at the point of quitting, I was absolutely glad it was over, and this package takes pride and place towards the top end of my collection.