Okay, Fair Play, ‘Uncharted 4’ Is Pretty Much the Prettiest Game Ever

Out now, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is set up to be the biggest-selling PlayStation 4 exclusive to date. It’s received as close to universal acclaim as any modern triple-A game can hope to achieve; its plot – which I won’t spoil here, but you can at least get a flavour for in our in-depth coverage of how the game plays out – rollicks along like the best of blockbuster cinema; and it’s got probably the most realistic kiss seen in video games to date. It’s all about the squishy noses. Knocks that Soft Engine 2.0 thing right out the park.

It’s also devastatingly pretty. Like, holy shit, what the actual, how does this, I can’t even, I mean seriously levels of gorgeousness. Which, to be honest, the still screenshots collected here, drawn from my own first playthrough of the game’s 15-hours-and-change campaign, don’t wholly do justice to. Naughty Dog’s latest in motion is truly something to drink in, like so much syrupy nectar of the digital gods. You know what I mean. It’s not quite a case of there being something freshly fantastic to gawp at around every corner, but the game’s stellar sights are evenly spread across its run time, and vary from the widescreen African vistas seen in preview footage to rather darker, deadlier places, palpably alive with menace.

Videos by VICE

There’s nothing more to this article, honestly, than just: come on, seriously, look at this. These screens do run in chronological order, roughly, through the game (unless my memory’s failed me), and they contain at the very least minor spoilers. So if you’d rather play through the game absolutely without expectation, with no clues whatsoever as to where Nathan Drake and any other allies might end up, then I guess click somewhere else. Otherwise: the slideshow of sorts begins after the “recommended” bar. Trust me, this is but the tip of an enormous iceberg of screens I captured using the game’s Photo Mode (and just by thumbing that “share” button). Expect to lose entire afternoons to it.

Once again, don’t dip beneath the “recommended” bar if you want to see everything for the first time on your own playthrough. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Below this point, we’re getting towards the later stages of the game, and a little more spoiler-y, should you want to click away to something else.

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