Naughty Dog has done two betas for the Uncharted 4 multiplayer so far, a closed one for customers who bought Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection as well as an open one for all players. While we really enjoyed what we got to play so far, the multiplayer is not exactly perfect. Below, you can find our list of fixes that the development team should make for the final version of the game’s multiplayer.
Match Making
Naughty Dog decided to do an open beta for Uncharted 4 recently as a stress test for the online servers. While finding players was quick and the actual in-game matches were (for the most part) smooth, actually loading into the matches can take a very long time as it can take several minutes (if it loads at all).
Hopefully, Naughty Dog was able to get all the necessary data needed to fix this issue cause everything else seems to be running smoothly on the backend.
Better Mystical Balance
In the multiplayer beta, you can use the in-game store to purchase five mysticals: Cintamani Stone, Indra’s Eternity, Spirit of Djinn, Staff of Ayar Manco and Wrath of El Dorado. Out of the five, Spirit of Djinn ended up being the most useless as it simply lets players teleport at short distances.
The Cintamani Stone (reviving down allies in a certain area), Staff of Ayar Manco (a destroyable staff that shows off the enemy’s location on the mini-map) and Indra’s Eternity (slows down the enemy’s movement in a certain area) are more useful. With that said, a majority of players have opted to use the Wrath of El Dorado, which sends out homing spirits to attack the opposition, during the beta.
As a result, it was common seeing matchers filled with multiple Wrath of El Dorado as it became pretty efficient, when compared to the other options, at disposing of the opposition. This is especially true when it comes to groups.
Hopefully, Naughty Dog will be able to make the other mysticals just as useful. Alternatively, they can also reduce the effectiveness of Wrath of El Dorado.
Sidekicks
The most controversial addition to the multiplayer mode of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is being able to summon a sidekick during battle. There are four different types: Brute, Hunter, Savor and Sniper. The Brute is a slow moving character that has a lot of armor and heavy weaponry. The Hunter chases down and places a strangle hold on the nearest enemy while the Savor will be revive downed allies and restock ammo. Last but not least, the Sniper uses a sniper rifle to provide long distance defense of an area.
While these computer-controlled characters are relatively easy to take out, they still give plenty of advantage to those that summon them. Along with their support abilities, they will also attract attention and help earn in-game money, which can then be spent on even more power-ups via the in-game store. Not to mention that, even when they die, they won’t hurt the team’s score (at least during Team Deathmatch).
Needless to say, sidekicks can really make a match unbalanced as they basically give a team extra players. While complete removal of these computer-controlled characters may be too extreme, Naughty Dog should find some way to limit these characters in the final version of multiplayer. Perhaps they can add some sort of time limit as to how long sidekicks will stay on the battlefield.
PVE Co-Op
While not a fix, we are hoping that Naughty Dog will be bringing back online co-op in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. The competitive multiplayer of the upcoming game added some cooperative elements that make teamwork crucial in winning the match against other players. We would like to see the mechanics carry over to a player versus enemy co-op mode. Not to mention that the previous co-op modes for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception have been well received in the past as well.
So far, Naughty Dog has not mentioned anything in regards to co-op in Uncharted 4.
The final version of the multiplayer mode will be launching alongside Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, which will be released on the 10th of May. If you haven’t done so already, you can preorder the fourth mainline installment of the action-adventure franchise on Amazon with this link.