After a summer mostly dedicated to finishing off one of the most challenging sets of DLC trophies ever experienced, this would have had to have been some offering from the game's main list in order to top it.
Thankfully, that isn't the case, and what is presented is actually the easiest Uncharted game to date instead. I'm always up for a challenge, but if you knew what the DLC trophies would put you through, you would also be more than welcome of a Platinum trophy with more relaxed demands.
The blueprint for this trophy list is what you would consider fairly standard for an Uncharted game by this point, after 3 installments of the series which have all followed the same patterns when it comes to delivering the trophies.
The list is still a predominantly Single Player experience, barring 2 trophies which are awarded for dabbling within the Competitive and Co-operative game modes, which you'll more than likely have done if you're looking to finish the DLC trophies too.
It's also a fairly large list, clocking in at 55 trophies in total, and purely focuses on the game's Single Player Campaign/Adventure mode, which sees you take on a story which tells the tale of a race to locate the lost city of Ubar. Drake's role is to prevent Talbot and Marlow, the game's main protagonists, from reaching the same location and stealing a powerful vessel being used to control the city, for their own ill gotten gains.
The "Charted! - Crushing" trophy, awarded for Finishing the game in Crushing Mode, is, as always is the case with any Uncharted game up to this point in the series, the hardest trophy within the list, but ultimately, doesn't really stack up any sort of greater challenge in comparison to previous titles. To also suggest it's the "hardest" trophy does a bit of a dis-service to such a term. This is a game which is very casual throughout, and that extends to a difficulty mode which has provided a reasonable challenge in the past, but has been somewhat watered down during this installment in the series.
Both prior Uncharted games were given a 6/10 in difficulty, so the challenge provided by Crushing mode in these games was enough to just about tip it over an average difficulty rating, and there is an obvious difference here when going through the story of this game when judging the overall difficulty levels compared to the other Uncharted titles that have preceded it. This story has 22 chapters in total and I didn't notice any sort of challenge provided by Crushing difficulty until around Chapter 18/19, which is very late on into the game, and even then, it was nowhere near any sort of difficulty that made the game feel laboured or slow.
It does provide a few tricky spots between that point on and the endgame, but it is noticeably less problematic than the previous two Uncharted titles, which is ultimately the justification for the lowered rating this time round. Even being able to negotiate these particular portions of the game aren't exactly that tough, and only took a handful of attempts in the worst case scenario. It's certainly the least crushing of all Crushing difficulties.
It is also important to note another constant within Uncharted games, and the fact that, previously, you have been required to beat the story once on any difficulty in order to unlock Crushing mode, which is not the case this time round. Crushing mode is readily available to play from the outset, and beating the game on Crushing mode, unlocks a subsequent mode called "Brutal" mode. This may explain the slightly lesser challenge from Crushing mode this time round, as it is now no longer the hardest difficulty available within the game, but is also not a requirement for the Platinum trophy either. There is a part of me that feels like "Brutal" difficulty could have just been a step up from Crushing, and although I never actually played through any part of this game on "Brutal" difficulty, I don't think it was necessary to make Crushing feel like to had been taken down a few notches as a result of a more challenging difficulty being placed above it.
If the idea was to add something even harder on top of Crushing difficulty, then it makes sense as to why they would not account for this within the trophy list, but I don't understand why they would detriment the challenge of Crushing difficulty at the same time. That is mostly just a personal gripe, but it makes the game way too easy and is the major reason why the overall difficulty rating is impacted in comparison to previous Uncharted titles.
The fact you don't need to complete the story more than once also means, in theory, you can beat the game and also unlock the slew of other trophies along the way in one fell swoop, though realistically, there will be a clean up operation necessary at the end to grab everything else you may have missed along the way.
There are also 3 other trophies awarded for completing the game on Easy, Normal and Hard, which will appropriately stack and unlock if you complete the game on Crushing difficulty. If you opt not to go straight into Crushing for whatever reason, the trophies will stack up to the highest difficulty you beat the game on.
The "Master Fortune Hunter" trophy, awarded for Finding all 100 treasures, is yet another staple for an Uncharted trophy list, and works under the same premise as previous titles.
Treasures are spread out in random locations throughout the games 22 chapters, and all 100 must be collected to fulfill the requirements of the trophy. You will more than likely need a guide, but the game is very helpful when it comes to accumulating these treasures. They carry over across multiple playthroughs, are very easy to spot against the games vast and colourful environments and are also listed for guidance on the chapter select screens, so you can easily pinpoint which chapters you may have missed any treasures on, and dip back into them accordingly to retrieve whichever ones you may still need. As far as collectible based trophies go, this is certainly not one of the more arduous ones out there, and that is mostly in thanks to the game's helpful disposition.
The trophy list also breaks these down and award trophies at incremental stages of 20, so you'll unlock 5 progressive trophies on the way to 100.
The rest of the list is a very casual checklist exercise. You'll unlock most of the trophies as you progress through the story, and there's a small collection of kill based trophies with specific weapons, combat based trophies awarded for killing enemies in certain ways and even a small grouping of secret chapter specific trophies for performing certain actions within a given chapter.
The game is very generous in it's flexibility for unlocking anything you may have naturally missed throughout the story. All trophies can be obtained through the use of chapter select, so you can either cherry pick the most combat-heavy sections of the game to assist you in obtaining the weapon/combat related trophies, and it also means the chapter specific trophies are not considered missable. Any trophy that relates to kill accumulation, whether that be through weapons or combat, is carried over across playthroughs, and even if you go back into chapter select multiple times post-game, the progress is still carried through even in those circumstances. It feels like the game wants you to succeed and make the Platinum trophy as accessible as possible.
This is definitely the easiest Uncharted Platinum trophy to date, and one of the easiest Platinum trophies to make it's way into the wider collection. Whilst a lot of this is more than likely down to the fact Crushing is no longer the hardest difficulty mode, like it was in prior Uncharted games, the list hasn't changed anything else to elevate the challenge further, and instead, sees a very standardised list with simple requirements presented to the player that you will have already seen before in the past.
The story is around 10-12 hours long, even if you choose to go through on Crushing difficulty from the outset, which is another aspect of this game which makes the list easier this time round, because the game no longer requires multiple playthroughs to unlock Crushing mode via beating the game once prior. Chapter select makes the clean up operation very smooth and none of the trophies are either taxing or grindy, so you should also only require a handful of additional hours to go back though and give the remainder of the list a once over.
It's a nice ending to a game that still looks great at full completion within the collection, purely because of the grueling DLC packs that come as part of the wider package. It was, up until now, the oldest game in my collection for which I still did not have the Platinum trophy for, and caps off a 7 year journey that began with the first trophy unlocked back in 2012, and what a journey it was too.
Notable Trophies -
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| Charted! - Crushing - Finish the game in Crushing Mode Master Fortune Hunter - Find all 100 treasures |
Charted! - Crushing
Finish the game in Crushing Mode
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