It’s remarkable then that Naughty Dog has tied all but three of its customisation sets exclusively to the co-op “Hunter” and “Arena” modes. For most, the entire purpose of the system is to acquire the best-looking loot for your avatar of choice when you carpet bomb an entire team or ledge grab that pesky sniper, you want your enemy to remember who put them in their place. So, how has Naughty Dog fumbled what seems like a fairly simple mechanic? Well, firstly there is the acquisition and availability of treasure.
Treasure sets offer a diversion from the constant stat-tracking and XP hoarding, the unpredictable random drops instilling even the most casual player with childish glee. On paper it’s brilliant idea, and one that Bend have mimicked in Golden Abyss’ singleplayer campaign to great effect. Grab every treasure in a set and you will bag yourself one of the game’s rare multiplayer weapons or a custom appearance option for one of the playable avatars. Such relics and artefacts belong to a groups or “sets,” each comprised of 2-4 collectibles. The concept is a simple one fell an enemy in either competitive or co-op multiplayer and there is a chance they will drop a treasure. Despite gnabbing top spot on my list of favourite online shooters, there has been one issue with Uncharted 3 (and a fairly minor one, depending on your viewpoint) that has bugged me ever since I first jumped into the multiplayer servers post-launch.įor a power-selling franchise centred around lost cities and artefacts of immense intrigue, the one thing I didn’t imagine Naughty Dog slipping up on was its promising “Treasure Set” system. Now, I could sit here and bang out paragraph after paragraph about how much I love Uncharted 3’s competitive multiplayer all day, but I’m not going to preach to the crowd. Purists weren’t too happy with the inclusion of more perk-like “Boosters”, weapon mods, and the Medal Kickback system, but for others including myself, such inclusions only seem like a natural evolution for the Uncharted series. The original multiplayer experience was simple, clearly following a “pick up and play” design philosophy that didn’t require meticulous levels of weapon/character tweaking, and though remarkably diverse and complex, the maps were easy to navigate yet gave every match its own unique appeal. For the most part Drake’s Deception left the multiplayer’s core mechanics practically untouched. Having poured hours into the online component of Among Thieves (even buying every little fragment of downloadable content) I was cautious of how Naughty Dog would handle the online experience in Uncharted 3, especially when trying to compete against the likes of Battlefield and Modern Warfare. Not many will agree, but in my opinion, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is the best multiplayer game going.