Ah, the train one. If you’ve played it you know exactly what I’m talking about. The sequel to Uncharted, once again has Nathan Drake breaking everything he touches. This is the game where we get the lovable nickname and playable skin for Doughnut Drake. Unlike the first game, the player begins this story in the middle. Drake awakens on a train, bleeding, and in danger. The train and in particular the train car that Drake is in is dangling off of a cliff. Injured and a little woozy you must climb to safety. It is not until you go through the tutorial for how to shoot a gun that you are brought to the beginning of the story at a bar on the coast of Greece where Drake agrees to steal a museum artifact from a Marco Polo exhibit in Istanbul.

While some of the characters from the previous game return, we do get new companions for Drake as well as a new villain. The team of thieves that talk Drake into breaking into an Istanbul museum are people from his past and while we only get hints of their backstory with Drake both have the witty banter of people you’ve known for a while. One is the mysterious and beautiful Australian Chloe Frazer, the getaway driver voiced by the talented Claudia Black, and the other Harry Flynn voiced by Steve Valentine. Flynn is a British smooth talker and he and Drake have that weird relationship where they constantly insult each other becoming annoyed but are still friends. Frazer is the stronger character of the two although Valentine’s voice work for Flynn makes him weirdly charming.

Things never go the way Drake plans it and his initial plan at the museum backfires and Drake is betrayed and put into a Turkish prison. He is bailed out by his old pal Victor “Sully” Sullivan and although Drake doesn’t trust her, Chloe Frazer. Frazer brings Drake back into the fight by telling him their true enemy is a Serbian war criminal Zoran Lazarević. Looking into Lazarević’s plan, the team discovers that he is after Marco Polo’s lost fleet and the magical city of Shambhala and within it the cintamani stone which promises power to the one who possesses it. The search for the city leads to the destruction of others on the way to Nepal. On the way Sully decides he is too old for this and so we will need new companions, one being “last year’s model” Elena Fisher and another loveable sherpa Tenzin who climbs, solves puzzles, and fights monsters with you. Ah, for what is Uncharted without some terrifyingly strong monsters? This time they resemble Yetis and are there to protect the cintamani stone.

The game play and in particular the ability to change your camera angle are greatly improved from the first game. There are still a couple of glitches and instances where a slight movement to the right or the left instantly causes your death. The final boss fight is a bit more challenging than the previous game and while there is no irritating jet ski level, the moving train you must advance through takes some patience and planning. Even though it has only been two years between this game and the original, there is an improvement in graphics although it is not as great as the difference in graphic quality between Uncharted 3 and 4. In all it was a great sequel in both game play and story. Even though Drake said, “I’m done being the hero”, he can’t help but be the one to take the risk to save the world and the ones he loves.