Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC Review: A ‘Marvellous’ but Pricey Port

It’s no secret that Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ arrival on PC was simply a question of “when” and not “if.” In just over two years, co-developers Insomniac Games and Nixxes Software have established a firm footing in the PC market, freeing not just one — Spider-Man Remastered — but both web-crawling odysseys from PlayStation’s exclusivity. Following in the footsteps of his mentor Peter Parker, this spin-off sequel is a natural extension, building on the legacy through Miles Morales’ suave but energetic personality, whilst retaining the same core framework. Its shorter playtime does give the impression of a glorified DLC, but this PC port packs quite a punch, with technical upgrades unfamiliar to the PS4 and PS5.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC review – Gameplay and controls

Left to defend New York City by himself, our titular hero grapples with new responsibilities and insecurities, as he tries earning the trust of Harlem locals. His lack of experience occasionally seeps through in clumsy web swings, failed landings, and amateur mistakes. But Spider-Man: Miles Morales balances things on the combat front, by arming you with explosive jolts of bio-electricity, as you stack up combos and unleash snappy, acrobatic finishers. Stealth segments are also improved, with the covert Camouflage ability turning you invisible for brief periods and opening room for creative takedowns. These can be gradually refined by dumping points into the skill tree, further distancing Miles from the original Spider-Man. This upgrade system fits perfectly with the tightly woven story, which on a thematic level, explores a teenager’s struggle with self-discovery.

Content-wise, you’re getting the same action-fuelled experience with as the 2020 console version of Spider-Man: Miles Morales — the main campaign, a wintry New York to explore, and uninspired side quests. It’s a basic copy-paste PC port that doesn’t include any extra cosmetics or new DLC tailored to the fresh platform. In my Spider-Man Remastered PC review, I mentioned how booting up the title opened a launcher window, where one could configure graphics settings before heading into the actual game. This continues in Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC, but there’s an improvement. Once you’ve found the ideal settings, you can disable the launcher window entirely and skip the extra step. Previously, hitting play in Steam or Epic Games triggered the launcher every time.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review: Hanging by a Thread

The new Venom strike ability separates Miles Morales from his mentor Peter Parker
Photo Credit: Insomniac Games

That said, the initial setup of Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC was a hindrance for me, crashing several times during the opening credits and loading screens. It was a mundane cycle of restarting the game over and over to trigger the next animation and eventually, progress to the main menu. Post that, it was smooth sailing across the board. The control scheme is quite like that of Spider-Man Remastered, save for Miles’ new shock ability, which by default, is bound to the right-click button. This moves the ‘Aim’ action to the middle mouse button, which, while jarring at first, isn’t a big deal since it can be customised to your liking.

Sure, there are a few combinations that are awkward for keyboard and mouse players, but accessibility features exist to simplify this. For instance, executing an airborne trick while swinging requires you to hold ‘T’ and press a directional button, which can be difficult to pull off with a single hand. However, these options allow you to map the control to a toggle action instead, so you can easily whiz past skyscrapers in style. Similarly, one could have entire QTE sequences play out automatically or even reposition the camera to a waypoint. Visual aids are also included, ranging from icon size changes to shader and contrast settings, aimed at people with low vision or challenges such as colour blindness.

Contrast and shader settings add a new filter that helps differentiate between characters
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC review – Graphics

Insomniac Games has come in clutch yet again with a new PS–PC port that’s nothing short of a visual feast. Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PC looks marvellous even at the lowest settings, prioritising character models above all else. Much like the recent Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, loss in visual quality is mainly noticeable in the surrounding open world, though it’s a bit more distracting here. The game carries over the Manhattan map from its prequel, adding a winter coat of paint and a few structural changes. So, when favouring performance over fidelity, it’s no longer a matter of simply blurring textures. The higher the graphics preset you choose, the denser snow gets, even settling between tiny cracks on wall surfaces.

These effects can be seen in real-time, thanks to the menu’s placement which only covers half the screen. Technical jargon is neatly described beside each setting, and there’s no need to restart the game to apply changes either. In addition to textural clarity, cranking the settings to Medium and beyond adds skin texture, increased hair density, and overall depth in images, thanks to areas in black getting darker. Even without ray tracing, shadows behave realistically, for the most part, getting cast in long or short forms depending on lighting, and that doesn’t exclude pedestrians or cars. There were a few moments during combat though, when I noticed some inconsistencies. When shooting webs to plaster foes onto structures that aren’t buildings, I sometimes found the latter behaving like transparent objects. So, instead of forming suitable, geometric shadows, all I could see were enemy shadows floating in the air.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC graphics settings
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

While the graphics settings between Spider-Man Remastered and Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC are pretty much the same, I found reflections to be far superior here. Swinging around town through crowds of cheery bystanders feels immersive when you see the reflections of tall skyscrapers passing by. However, they are pre-rendered/ hard-coded into the windows. Similar to lighting effects in interior segments, these remain constant and are unaffected by what presets you choose. With Screen Space Reflections (SSR) enabled, however, material world objects cast real-time reflections, provided they’re close to a reflective surface.

Crawling on glossy windowpanes as Spider-Man throws up a spitting image of our hero, with accurate depictions of what suit you’re wearing. This is a massive upgrade compared to the previous game, where reflections could only be seen from specific, narrow angles and even then resembled a greyish, translucent shadow. That said, SSR is restricted to the ‘Medium’ preset and above. Toggling it on at ‘Very Low’ or ‘Low’ settings will not create these immediate reflections, causing some areas to appear bland even if well-lit. But that’s the trade-off.

Notice the change in reflection going from Very Low (L) to Very High (R)
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ visual splendour extends to finer details such as real-time footprints and tire tracks in the snow. Christmas vibes are in full force here, with apt decorations and warm lighting that serve to soothe your eyes after intense action sequences. My only gripe with visual presentation would be the erratic snowfall during cutscenes, which I know sounds odd, because cinematics is something these first-party PlayStation games usually have a knack for. At times, when the footage cuts to a different shot, snowflakes would take a few seconds to load, and it was jarring enough to break immersion.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC review – Performance

For being a new-gen PS5 launch title, Spider-Man: Miles Morales performed surprisingly better than I anticipated, on my medium-end rig. I tested this game on an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD. Playing at Medium–High settings, I was able to achieve eye-catching visuals with near-smooth frames that seamlessly transitioned into cutscenes and back. Even as I stumbled into the occasional split second-stutter — due to new assets loading — the heroic background score never cut out, which I appreciate since music is a key component to Miles’ character.

At these settings, Spider-Man: Miles Morales averaged 63fps, with frequent dips as low as 52fps when cycling between moments of calm and interior combat, respectively. When performing at its best with SSR enabled and barely any action on-screen, the game was able to hit highs of 78fps, though it would fall back to 62fps during cutscenes. Some screen tearing managed to stick out during these cinematics, though I caught none of it during gameplay, thanks to motion blur being enabled. While the setting is deemed counterintuitive for most titles out there, as I mentioned in my Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves PC review, Sony never goes overboard with the effect.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC System Requirements Detailed

Our first encounter with Rhino is heavy on the hardware
Photo Credit: Insomniac Games

A good chunk of world interaction involves swinging around the city at a blistering pace, which understandably caused performance to drop a little. With traffic, crowd density and weather effects set to medium, Spider-Man: Miles Morales averaged 46fps on my PC, before settling at 51fps when coming back to earth and mingling with citizens. During an explosive boss fight against the beastly Rhino, involving a handful of thugs, performance averaged at 59fps, with lows of 49fps, depending on how populated my screen was with artefacts and elemental effects.

Pushing the game to its limits, the opening chase sequence has you tear through New York City’s Christmas-themed malls and establishments, cycling between spurts of combat and cinematics in haste. At the aforementioned Medium–High settings, Spider-Man: Miles Morales managed to chug out 53fps on average, peaking at 63fps. Thankfully, the developers reduced snowfall during the swinging action, or else my framerate could have dropped way below 30fps. That said, these erratic figures are not representatives of lag spikes. Nowhere in my playthrough did I experience a heavy enough dip to cause me to lose immersion. But still, this game could benefit from a VRAM usage indicator to help you figure out the right settings, so you don’t end up maxing out your graphics memory.

If you’re running a system that’s similarly specced as mine, please refer to the table below to understand how Spider-Man: Miles Morales performs at different presets. Bear in mind, these numbers are the worst-case scenarios based on the aforesaid chase sequence, which is full of epic-scale destruction effects that occupy a lot of screen space. As for general gameplay, at the lowest possible settings, I was able to max out at 116fps. Visually, I also didn’t notice any major disparity between the High and Very High presets — because they’re heavily geared toward ray tracing.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC (all values are in fps)
VERY LOW LOW MEDIUM HIGH VERY HIGH
LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH
46 65 105 46 60 80 35 53 63 35 46 55 30 42 50

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC review – Verdict

Spider-Man Miles Morales might be a shorter experience than its predecessor, but it offers a ton of improvements on the gameplay end, fitting comfortably as an introductory tale in the larger Insomniac universe. With impressive PC performance and the ability to adapt to hardware dating back to the GTX 950 days, this game is an absolute banger to play through. It’s also crazy to think how in recent years, the PC has become the definitive platform to best experience these first-party PlayStation games.

At the same time, the publisher continues to baffle me with its exorbitant, yet inconsistent prices. For a title that launched two years ago and isn’t as long, Rs. 3,299/ $49.99 is clearly on the higher end. In comparison, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on PC was priced the same, offering one-and-a-half games versus the “half” that is Spider-Man: Miles Morales. I would suggest waiting for a sale — but please, do not bail on this one.

Pros:

  • Well optimised
  • Superb visuals
  • Intuitive keyboard and mouse…

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Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC Review: A Breathtaking Sight, With a Few Rough Patches

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection — out Wednesday on PC — is no doubt a potent brew of blockbuster storytelling and epic-scale thrills. Its arrival marks the first time PC players get to experience this globe-trotting adventure franchise since its founding nearly 15 years ago, as it has been PlayStation exclusive starting with the PS3. This version expectedly comes with added enhancements, which are foreign to even the recent PS5 remaster. Seeing Iron Galaxy Studios at the helm of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, I had been erring on the side of caution, as these are the same folks behind Batman: Arkham Knight’s terrible PC port. Now, to be fair, that was outsourced to a small team of 12, under heavy time constraints — grounds for all kinds of technical issues. Even so, I kept my fingers crossed and dove into Uncharted PC with a sliver of hope. Here’s my full review.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC review — Prep work

As was the case with the PS5 remaster, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is essentially a refined version of Naughty Dog’s latest treasure-hunting games. It’s a charming crate that holds together 2016’s Uncharted 4 and its subsequent spin-off title, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, letting a new generation of players experience Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer’s adventures in the wild.

Let’s talk about distribution first — my primary point of concern. Iron Galaxy took the literal definition of “collection,” and bundled both games into a single application. This amounts to an 89.6GB download for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which after extraction and installation, takes up 124GB of drive space. Even if you lack interest in one of the titles, you’d still be forced to dedicate that massive space to both of them.

The Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection homescreen lets you switch between Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy at will. However, it’s a bizarre process. Attempting to do so triggers a forced restart, making you sit through a loading screen before you can get into the actual game. As evidenced by the install folder, it’s clearly jumping between two different .exe files. This begs the question, why aren’t they offered separately? “Convenience” isn’t the answer, as it takes the same amount of time to manually launch a different game anyway.

First-time setup for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection can feel like a chore, especially on lower-end PC builds, owing to a “shader building” process (according to a message on screen). This could take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes for each game, depending on your specs — in turn, affecting Steam’s two-hour refund policy. Sure, you can still play the game while this happens in the background, but it would be far from an optimal experience, with flickering screens, lag, and maybe even a hard crash. So, it’s recommended that you wait it out.

Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection PS5 Review

Uncharted 4 is clearly the more optimised out of the two
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC review — Gameplay

I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that the Uncharted series has lost its lustre over time, with predictable plot beats, corny dialogue, and dated mechanics. Don’t let that distract you from the bigger picture though, which still manages to be an absolute blast to play through. Be it parkouring along wet scaffoldings, disassembling a clock tower, or gunning down foes in that cinematic chase sequence in Madagascar, the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection screams unbridled mayhem.

The keyboard and mouse control scheme, which is super responsive, benefits mildly from the game’s accessibility features. While not as intricate as the PS4 and PS5’s The Last of Us Part II, you get basic aids such as lock-on aim, a persistent centre dot, and mono audio, aimed at those suffering from unilateral hearing loss. Hand-to-hand combat segments in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection require some button-mashing — my sworn enemy — building up tendon pain in my wrist and palm. Luckily, I could just configure the ‘Hold’ action, making the ordeal near effortless.

Core gameplay remains the same, with grappling hooks to swing around, puzzles to solve, and driving segments, all of which are slightly expanded in The Lost Legacy. Tiptoeing along narrow beams requires some precision, but you can continue making far-off, physics-defying leaps with ease. I was hoping for some minor conveniences such as ammo auto-pickup, which would streamline the run-and-gun experience, but unfortunately, all changes are limited to the technical side.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC System Requirements Announced

The action set pieces in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection screams unbridled mayhem
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Graphics

In keeping with past PlayStation-to-PC ports, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection prioritises character models above all else, and what better setting than the snow-capped vistas of Scotland, bursting with vibrant vegetation and ancient pirate ruins. Heading into Chapter 8, I was worried about how the ‘Low’ graphics preset would affect inscriptions, a vital type of clue in the quest for Henry Avery’s gravestone. As it turns out, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection makes an exception for objects that characters interact with, akin to 2D animation, adding an extra level of detailing that sets these apart from other assets.

For example, angular objects such as doors and vehicles have blurry decals, and text is prone to jagged edges. However, humans remain pristine, with sweat-glossed foreheads, realistic skin texture, and attire that collects dust and grime over time. When thrown into the same cutscenes in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, there’s a jarring effect, as the subject and background textures do not match. And honestly, that might be the only blatantly obvious downside to playing at the lowest settings. Unlike Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered on PC, there isn’t much to fiddle around with in the graphics menu. Fine-tuning shadows, reflections, and ambient occlusion do add that oomph, but it’s not significant to gameplay — at least not at full-HD 1080p.

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On higher presets, foliage gets denser with added shadows
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

Compared to their original PS4 builds, both Uncharted games look breathtaking. Hightailing across the sandy terrains of Madagascar feels hypnotic, as the scorching heat drenches you in growing streaks of sweat. That allure is amplified by the rugged, real-time dirt tracks you leave behind, packs of lemurs scurrying about, and locals cowering in fear as you steamroll past them. The Lost Legacy’s PC port ups the ante for visuals, populating the screen with denizens bartering in the bazaar, exotic flora, and gigantic moss-covered idols and shrines to scale. It’s insane how good Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection looks — it made me want to invest in an ultra-wide monitor.

The ‘Medium’ quality preset in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection adds lighting effects, making streams and puddles shimmer when trudging along. Human reflections were fairly solid on the marble floor of the Italian Rossi Estate, but those on water bodies were inconsistent.

At the ‘High’ preset, minute details such as ridges and cracks are defined, adding undeniable stress to your GPU. This helps distract from the blurry, pixelated mess that plagues rocky surfaces you latch onto, in addition to separating foliage and flower beds, for even more realism. I didn’t bother much with the ‘Ultra’ preset on Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, as my graphics card was maxing out on memory.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Performance

While not fully on par with past PlayStation–PC ports, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is decently optimised. My test rig consisted of an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD. With this configuration, I was able to hit a sweet spot at Medium–High settings, resulting in stunning graphics. The experience was nearly smooth, but frame rates in this game can be quite erratic — at times, situational, depending on what chapter you’re on.

At these settings, Uncharted 4 ran at 65fps on average, with frequent dips to 51, depending on scenery changes and camera movement. This remained true for both gunplay and exploration segments, with highs of 73fps reserved for select cinematics and closed-room events. When jostling through the Madagascar market or the auction setting earlier in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, the frame rate plummeted to 32fps, before settling somewhere in the 40s. That drop was very noticeable, even at the Low preset, sometimes even causing the audio to cut out for a split second.

The adrenaline-fueled Madagascar chase sequence is undeniably the finest zone to push Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection to its limits. It’s not enough that you’re thrown onto a large-scale playing field, with a tank right behind you. But then you’ve also got mercenaries, explosions, gunfire, mud flying off tires, destruction, and ongoing environmental changes to account for. At the aforementioned settings, the game managed to chug out 44fps on average, with the highest peak being 55fps. Bursting down a stairway filled with stalls, vendors, and brightly coloured umbrellas, triggered massive stutters, dropping the frame rate to 28fps at one point. The camera shaking does help with immersion, but some lag spikes are unavoidable.

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The adrenaline-fueled Madagascar chase sequence pushes your GPU to its limit
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

At the time of writing, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy feels slightly rough in comparison, though that is somewhat justifiable. A decent chunk of the gameplay here involves traversing through wilderness. This generated an average of 50fps, with sharp declines to 32fps during intense sequences. On the other hand, puzzle sequences, wall climbing, and cutscenes saw numbers maxing out at 63fps.

The Lost Legacy’s Chapter 2 pits Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross in a high-stakes platforming run, as they’re shot at by mercenaries in heavy rainfall. In addition to strong reflections on wet surfaces, you’re faced with sparking bullet streams and environmental destruction. This sequence pushed out 46fps on average, and a quick brawl against enemies ran at 28fps. Having motion blur on helped avoid screen tearing, which I would recommend since Sony never goes overboard with it — there’s no nauseating effect.

Bear in mind that both aforementioned chase sequences will cause significant lag spikes at certain intervals, if your hardware is in the same ballpark as mine, no matter which quality preset you choose.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (all values are in fps)
LOW MEDIUM HIGH ULTRA
LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH
55 68 83 51 65 73 47 55 63 39 48 57
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
LOW MEDIUM HIGH ULTRA
LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH
35 51 66 32 50 63 30 42 55 30 40 50

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Verdict

Through gorgeous imagery and robust level design, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection promises a delectable adventure for newcomers to the franchise. Sure, the launch timing makes it seem like compensation — a playful jab — for PC gamers not being able to play God of War Ragnarök at launch, but Sony is not interested in matching Microsoft’s day-and-date release strategy. For the Rs. 3,299/ $50 price tag, you practically receive one and a half games here — a splendid offer, if you can overlook its original last-gen release window.

Its shortcomings are exposed in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which lacks a bit of polish. And while support for ultra-wide displays and native 4K 60fps appear mouthwatering, I’m not sure that will be enough to draw in those who have already experienced these games on PS4 or PS5 for a second helping.

Pros:

  • Decent accessibility features
  • Motion blur is not obnoxious

Cons:

  • Packaged as a single, large application
  • The Lost Legacy is not as polished
  • No ammo auto-pickup or gameplay improvements
  • First-time setup can take time

Rating (out of 10): 7

Gadgets 360 played Uncharted:…

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Gotham Knights PC Review: A Technical Disaster, to Say the Least

Gotham Knights — out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X — attracted all kinds of negative attention in the run-up to its release. Starting life as a series of cryptic tweets, heralding the inclusion of the enigmatic Court of Owls was an excellent way to build hype for the next chapter in the Batman: Arkham saga, or so we thought. Later, it was revealed to be a separate arc, focused on the Dark Knight’s motley crew of sidekicks, much to the dismay of avid fans. Initial impressions were cold, as the new co-op component drew parallels to the bloated mess that was Marvel’s Avengers in 2020. With pre-release footage rolling out, that fear grew into contempt, as displays of laggy gameplay and clunky mechanics threw a wet blanket over any prior excitement. Add to that WB Games Montréal cancelling the previously announced PS4 and Xbox One versions five months before launch, and we’ve got a launch overshadowed by complaints.

Gotham Knights PC review: gameplay and controls

The aftermath of Batman and Commissioner Jim Gordon’s tragic deaths has left Gotham City in shambles, begging for a new saviour as an assortment of volatile criminals take over. Restoring order becomes the utmost priority, with the remaining Bat-Family suiting up and operating from the Belfry, hoping to see a new dawn. One of my concerns with Gotham Knights was its open-world system, which seemed to borrow its design philosophy from mundane Ubisoft titles. While this remains true with respect to quests, on-screen icons, and world traversal, there is still a hint of classic Arkham DNA in there.

You’re presented with a near-freeflow combat technique that demands extra attention for timed dodges, and a ton of erratic camera movement as you leap from one opponent to another. The Gotham Knights settings menu recommends that you leave motion blur off for better performance, but I’d say otherwise since a few extra frames won’t solve the issue. To put it bluntly, Gotham Knights is poorly optimised on PC, causing minor stutters, even in cutscenes. Leaving motion blur on, however, helps smoothen movement, avoiding screen tearing.

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Combat feels a bit similar to the Batman: Arkham games
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

The Gotham Knights PC control scheme is super RPG-like, with a medley of skills, status effects, and combat options that might seem daunting to newcomers to the genre. However, the biggest hurdle in regard to gameplay stems from general movement, which is super sensitive, and at times unresponsive, causing heroes to bump into objects frequently. This is worsened by the fact that you occasionally get stuck to corners or edges, so instead of simply turning the camera and manoeuvring out of that site, you’re forced to take two steps back and reposition yourself.

For ranged attacks, you can mindlessly spam a button to inflict small doses of damage, as you regain composure. Meanwhile, the auto-aim/ tracking feature from the Arkham games — when manually hurling batarangs — has been removed in Gotham Knights. This can be simplified by visiting the accessibility settings, where you’ll find plenty of options to make gameplay feel like a breeze.

For instance, configuring Precision Aiming to a button tap lets you focus on cursor alignment, instead of holding and dragging your mouse into foes. Likewise, you can take advantage of the colourblind mode, a voice reader that narrates menus, and subtitle backgrounds for those hard of vision. Lodged within the pile is a ‘Movement Smoothing’ option, which does help a bit with the aforesaid sensitive navigation issues. However, when travelling through vents in Gotham Knights, I found characters to be moving in slow motion, requiring me to toggle it on and off, throughout the playthrough.

Gotham Knights PC review: graphics

The graphics are possibly the highlight of Gotham Knights on PC, partly carried by the moody lighting which adds to the helpless tone of the city. But what’s holding me back from fully enjoying this game is the character art design, which is in sheer contrast to its surroundings. It’s clear WB Games Montréal has invested a decent chunk of its time in working on the vigilantes’ suits. In fact, part of Gotham Knights’ marketing campaign involved showcasing unlockable outfits, and the inspiration behind each of them. However, the developer seems to have overlooked how shadows will affect these costumes, and the characters wearing them — for the most part.

Everything You Need to Know About Gotham Knights

Vigilantes’ suits have a weird glow effect to them
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

Halogen lights throw proper reflections and tint effects, which are extended onto the tall, menacing shadows behind you. But, when facing away from light in Gotham Knights on PC, or just roaming through some dark alleyway, the suits have a weird glow, which merely exists so you can appreciate their finer details. This is prevalent even during combat, creating some disparity between you and oncoming goons, with flat colours that would be more appropriate in a mobile game.

In my time with Gotham Knights on PC, I only found illumination to be consistent in two places — cutscenes and time spent within the Belfry. That tower of operations is the only place you see daylight, as you link clues and chart the next steps in your course of action. Even on the ‘Low’ graphical preset, you’re greeted with visible dust particles, long shadows from the clock’s mechanisms, and a blinding sun-kissed effect that looks beautiful.

Like most modern AAA titles, upon first launch, Gotham Knights on PC configures graphics settings for you. The results looked disappointing for me, playing on a medium-spec build. The game automatically adjusts the maximum render resolution to the 60s on its sliding scale, creating jagged edges on our vigilantes and a scrambly effect on hair and shadows, which is hard to miss. I would recommend raising this to at least 125, and also tweaking the sharpening level, depending on what GPU you own — AMD’s Fidelity FX sharpening, or Nvidia Image Scaling — to reach an acceptable level of detail. Sadly, visual flair is minimised once you head outdoors, as you’re slapped with lifeless, dated architectural assets such as brick walls and foggy windows, whose textures see nary an improvement even on the Highest preset.

Cruising through the lanes of Gotham City, I noticed several artefacts, streetlights, and entire backgrounds popping in and out of the frame. To the developers’ credit, it was (unintentionally?) clever of them to set the game at night, making it difficult to identify such hindrances — albeit the jarring changes in lighting effects were always a dead giveaway. Switching from the lowest presets to beyond, the most significant change in Gotham Knights on PC has to be reflection quality and quantity. What appeared as a blurry smudge at Medium or lower settings forms a complete mirror image of its parent object at higher presets, with rippled edges that emulate the sense of a downpour.

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Notice the difference in reflection quality, going from Low (L) to High (R)
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

The effects of rainfall are also seen in character outfits, as water droplets calmly trickle down your suit or dry off when under shelter. It’s such minor details that demonstrate a level of passion behind Gotham Knights on PC. But in the larger scheme of things — the narrative, combat, open world, and overarching shadow of the Batman: Arkham games — a lot of it can go unnoticed, and rightfully so.

Gotham Knights PC review: performance

Even as WB Games Montréal threw a near-endless barrage of unpolished gameplay demos at us in the runup to this game’s launch, I held a positive outlook, for two main reasons. A: It’s rare to see AAA developers being fully honest about their games, giving you a clear idea of exactly what you’re spending money on. Because let’s be real, nobody wants another Cyberpunk 2077 situation. And B: I was hoping that this game’s glaring issues would be fixed by launch time. Having spent about a week playing Gotham Knights on PC, I can now confirm that I was wrong about the second part. This title plays exactly as advertised, featuring wonky gameplay and constant dips in performance, no matter what graphics configuration you set.

My test rig consisted of an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD — a build that’s usually sufficient to smoothly run modern titles at Medium–High settings, at 1080p. Gotham Knights, however, demands a lot more horsepower, setting the baseline at a GTX 1660Ti GPU for 60fps gameplay at the lowest settings. What the developers never say outright is that those numbers are best-case scenarios. In simple terms, Gotham Knights has two main graphics options: Indoors and outdoors. With the former, my PC delivered a solid 50fps average at Medium settings, as I tackled the main campaign missions and interior segments.

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Gotham Knights is prone to heavy stuttering issues when in the open world
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

But the story is wildly different on the streets of Gotham City, where riding around on the Batcycle tanked my frames to an average of 30fps, with frequent drops to the 22fps region. This trend continued across all graphical presets, resulting in a sluggish traversal experience that was also heavily impacted by the slightest camera movement. The world of Gotham Knights is far denser than the studio’s previous outing, Batman: Arkham Origins, teeming with lifeless civilians, vehicles in motion, smoke effects, neon lighting, and a lot of rainfall — all of which are responsible for pronounced performance fluctuations in the open world. Even by reducing the environment density and setting everything to low, I could not achieve a stable 60fps on my PC. Combat segments would usually max out at 34fps, while cutscenes with rain were capped at 40fps.

The optimisation here is bafflingly inconsistent. What better way to convey this than take you through one of my personal experiences? Early on in Gotham Knights, you’re tasked with breaking into the Blackgate Penitentiary and meeting with Harley Quinn to follow up on a lead. As you might expect, she sends you on a wild goose chase. This involves a mix of stealth segments and an all-out prison brawl. What’s interesting here is that throughout this whole sequence, at Medium settings, Gotham Knights on PC never dropped below 59fps — it even hit 70fps once (yay?) — but then I got my hands on the quest item.

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Harley Quinn in Gotham Knights
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

Presumably, the next course of action would be to simply retrace your steps through the same hallways, and deliver the document to Quinn. But the very second I turned around, Gotham Knights plummeted to 35fps on my PC, even in the following cutscene, up until I made my way back to the Belfry. In fact, as I rode into the subway tunnel leading to the hub area, I noticed a massive lag spike. Performance dropped to 12fps, and completely disoriented my camera positioning. With such abysmal optimisation, it’s not surprising that the console — PS5 and Xbox Series S/X — versions of this game have been locked to 30fps.

Clearly, this isn’t a good look for Gotham Knights on PC. But, if you’re still interested to know how a mid-range system might run this game at higher settings, please refer to the table below:

Gotham Knights PC Performance (all values are in fps ranges)
LOW MEDIUM HIGH HIGHEST
INDOORS OUTDOORS INDOORS OUTDOORS INDOORS OUTDOORS INDOORS OUTDOORS
51–61 25–37 46–50 18–35 37–48 17–26 31–43 12–25

Gotham Knights PC review: verdict

WB Games Montréal clearly bit off more than it could chew here, resulting in a bloated mess that fails on a technical level. Running on Unreal Engine 4, Gotham Knights on PC can look visually appealing at times, but constant frame drops and high-end PC requirements essentially doom it. At the end of the day, the game itself is tedious to play, and because of that, it’s hard to see players waiting around for months for the performance issues to be resolved. Remember Batman: Arkham Knight…

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Gotham Knights PC Review: A Technical Disaster, to Say the Least

Gotham Knights — out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X — attracted all kinds of negative attention in the run-up to its release. Starting life as a series of cryptic tweets, heralding the inclusion of the enigmatic Court of Owls was an excellent way to build hype for the next chapter in the Batman: Arkham saga, or so we thought. Later, it was revealed to be a separate arc, focused on the Dark Knight’s motley crew of sidekicks, much to the dismay of avid fans. Initial impressions were cold, as the new co-op component drew parallels to the bloated mess that was Marvel’s Avengers in 2020. With pre-release footage rolling out, that fear grew into contempt, as displays of laggy gameplay and clunky mechanics threw a wet blanket over any prior excitement. Add to that WB Games Montréal cancelling the previously announced PS4 and Xbox One versions five months before launch, and we’ve got a launch overshadowed by complaints.

Gotham Knights PC review: gameplay and controls

The aftermath of Batman and Commissioner Jim Gordon’s tragic deaths has left Gotham City in shambles, begging for a new saviour as an assortment of volatile criminals take over. Restoring order becomes the utmost priority, with the remaining Bat-Family suiting up and operating from the Belfry, hoping to see a new dawn. One of my concerns with Gotham Knights was its open-world system, which seemed to borrow its design philosophy from mundane Ubisoft titles. While this remains true with respect to quests, on-screen icons, and world traversal, there is still a hint of classic Arkham DNA in there.

You’re presented with a near-freeflow combat technique that demands extra attention for timed dodges, and a ton of erratic camera movement as you leap from one opponent to another. The Gotham Knights settings menu recommends that you leave motion blur off for better performance, but I’d say otherwise since a few extra frames won’t solve the issue. To put it bluntly, Gotham Knights is poorly optimised on PC, causing minor stutters, even in cutscenes. Leaving motion blur on, however, helps smoothen movement, avoiding screen tearing.

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Combat feels a bit similar to the Batman: Arkham games
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

The Gotham Knights PC control scheme is super RPG-like, with a medley of skills, status effects, and combat options that might seem daunting to newcomers to the genre. However, the biggest hurdle in regard to gameplay stems from general movement, which is super sensitive, and at times unresponsive, causing heroes to bump into objects frequently. This is worsened by the fact that you occasionally get stuck to corners or edges, so instead of simply turning the camera and manoeuvring out of that site, you’re forced to take two steps back and reposition yourself.

For ranged attacks, you can mindlessly spam a button to inflict small doses of damage, as you regain composure. Meanwhile, the auto-aim/ tracking feature from the Arkham games — when manually hurling batarangs — has been removed in Gotham Knights. This can be simplified by visiting the accessibility settings, where you’ll find plenty of options to make gameplay feel like a breeze.

For instance, configuring Precision Aiming to a button tap lets you focus on cursor alignment, instead of holding and dragging your mouse into foes. Likewise, you can take advantage of the colourblind mode, a voice reader that narrates menus, and subtitle backgrounds for those hard of vision. Lodged within the pile is a ‘Movement Smoothing’ option, which does help a bit with the aforesaid sensitive navigation issues. However, when travelling through vents in Gotham Knights, I found characters to be moving in slow motion, requiring me to toggle it on and off, throughout the playthrough.

Gotham Knights PC review: graphics

The graphics are possibly the highlight of Gotham Knights on PC, partly carried by the moody lighting which adds to the helpless tone of the city. But what’s holding me back from fully enjoying this game is the character art design, which is in sheer contrast to its surroundings. It’s clear WB Games Montréal has invested a decent chunk of its time in working on the vigilantes’ suits. In fact, part of Gotham Knights’ marketing campaign involved showcasing unlockable outfits, and the inspiration behind each of them. However, the developer seems to have overlooked how shadows will affect these costumes, and the characters wearing them — for the most part.

Everything You Need to Know About Gotham Knights

Vigilantes’ suits have a weird glow effect to them
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

Halogen lights throw proper reflections and tint effects, which are extended onto the tall, menacing shadows behind you. But, when facing away from light in Gotham Knights on PC, or just roaming through some dark alleyway, the suits have a weird glow, which merely exists so you can appreciate their finer details. This is prevalent even during combat, creating some disparity between you and oncoming goons, with flat colours that would be more appropriate in a mobile game.

In my time with Gotham Knights on PC, I only found illumination to be consistent in two places — cutscenes and time spent within the Belfry. That tower of operations is the only place you see daylight, as you link clues and chart the next steps in your course of action. Even on the ‘Low’ graphical preset, you’re greeted with visible dust particles, long shadows from the clock’s mechanisms, and a blinding sun-kissed effect that looks beautiful.

Like most modern AAA titles, upon first launch, Gotham Knights on PC configures graphics settings for you. The results looked disappointing for me, playing on a medium-spec build. The game automatically adjusts the maximum render resolution to the 60s on its sliding scale, creating jagged edges on our vigilantes and a scrambly effect on hair and shadows, which is hard to miss. I would recommend raising this to at least 125, and also tweaking the sharpening level, depending on what GPU you own — AMD’s Fidelity FX sharpening, or Nvidia Image Scaling — to reach an acceptable level of detail. Sadly, visual flair is minimised once you head outdoors, as you’re slapped with lifeless, dated architectural assets such as brick walls and foggy windows, whose textures see nary an improvement even on the Highest preset.

Cruising through the lanes of Gotham City, I noticed several artefacts, streetlights, and entire backgrounds popping in and out of the frame. To the developers’ credit, it was (unintentionally?) clever of them to set the game at night, making it difficult to identify such hindrances — albeit the jarring changes in lighting effects were always a dead giveaway. Switching from the lowest presets to beyond, the most significant change in Gotham Knights on PC has to be reflection quality and quantity. What appeared as a blurry smudge at Medium or lower settings forms a complete mirror image of its parent object at higher presets, with rippled edges that emulate the sense of a downpour.

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Notice the difference in reflection quality, going from Low (L) to High (R)
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

The effects of rainfall are also seen in character outfits, as water droplets calmly trickle down your suit or dry off when under shelter. It’s such minor details that demonstrate a level of passion behind Gotham Knights on PC. But in the larger scheme of things — the narrative, combat, open world, and overarching shadow of the Batman: Arkham games — a lot of it can go unnoticed, and rightfully so.

Gotham Knights PC review: performance

Even as WB Games Montréal threw a near-endless barrage of unpolished gameplay demos at us in the runup to this game’s launch, I held a positive outlook, for two main reasons. A: It’s rare to see AAA developers being fully honest about their games, giving you a clear idea of exactly what you’re spending money on. Because let’s be real, nobody wants another Cyberpunk 2077 situation. And B: I was hoping that this game’s glaring issues would be fixed by launch time. Having spent about a week playing Gotham Knights on PC, I can now confirm that I was wrong about the second part. This title plays exactly as advertised, featuring wonky gameplay and constant dips in performance, no matter what graphics configuration you set.

My test rig consisted of an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD — a build that’s usually sufficient to smoothly run modern titles at Medium–High settings, at 1080p. Gotham Knights, however, demands a lot more horsepower, setting the baseline at a GTX 1660Ti GPU for 60fps gameplay at the lowest settings. What the developers never say outright is that those numbers are best-case scenarios. In simple terms, Gotham Knights has two main graphics options: Indoors and outdoors. With the former, my PC delivered a solid 50fps average at Medium settings, as I tackled the main campaign missions and interior segments.

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Gotham Knights is prone to heavy stuttering issues when in the open world
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

But the story is wildly different on the streets of Gotham City, where riding around on the Batcycle tanked my frames to an average of 30fps, with frequent drops to the 22fps region. This trend continued across all graphical presets, resulting in a sluggish traversal experience that was also heavily impacted by the slightest camera movement. The world of Gotham Knights is far denser than the studio’s previous outing, Batman: Arkham Origins, teeming with lifeless civilians, vehicles in motion, smoke effects, neon lighting, and a lot of rainfall — all of which are responsible for pronounced performance fluctuations in the open world. Even by reducing the environment density and setting everything to low, I could not achieve a stable 60fps on my PC. Combat segments would usually max out at 34fps, while cutscenes with rain were capped at 40fps.

The optimisation here is bafflingly inconsistent. What better way to convey this than take you through one of my personal experiences? Early on in Gotham Knights, you’re tasked with breaking into the Blackgate Penitentiary and meeting with Harley Quinn to follow up on a lead. As you might expect, she sends you on a wild goose chase. This involves a mix of stealth segments and an all-out prison brawl. What’s interesting here is that throughout this whole sequence, at Medium settings, Gotham Knights on PC never dropped below 59fps — it even hit 70fps once (yay?) — but then I got my hands on the quest item.

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Harley Quinn in Gotham Knights
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

Presumably, the next course of action would be to simply retrace your steps through the same hallways, and deliver the document to Quinn. But the very second I turned around, Gotham Knights plummeted to 35fps on my PC, even in the following cutscene, up until I made my way back to the Belfry. In fact, as I rode into the subway tunnel leading to the hub area, I noticed a massive lag spike. Performance dropped to 12fps, and completely disoriented my camera positioning. With such abysmal optimisation, it’s not surprising that the console — PS5 and Xbox Series S/X — versions of this game have been locked to 30fps.

Clearly, this isn’t a good look for Gotham Knights on PC. But, if you’re still interested to know how a mid-range system might run this game at higher settings, please refer to the table below:

Gotham Knights PC Performance (all values are in fps ranges)
LOW MEDIUM HIGH HIGHEST
INDOORS OUTDOORS INDOORS OUTDOORS INDOORS OUTDOORS INDOORS OUTDOORS
51–61 25–37 46–50 18–35 37–48 17–26 31–43 12–25

Gotham Knights PC review: verdict

WB Games Montréal clearly bit off more than it could chew here, resulting in a bloated mess that fails on a technical level. Running on Unreal Engine 4, Gotham Knights on PC can look visually appealing at times, but constant frame drops and high-end PC requirements essentially doom it. At the end of the day, the game itself is tedious to play, and because of that, it’s hard to see players waiting around for months for the performance issues to be resolved. Remember Batman: Arkham Knight…

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Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC Review: A Breathtaking Sight, With a Few Rough Patches

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection — out Wednesday on PC — is no doubt a potent brew of blockbuster storytelling and epic-scale thrills. Its arrival marks the first time PC players get to experience this globe-trotting adventure franchise since its founding nearly 15 years ago, as it has been PlayStation exclusive starting with the PS3. This version expectedly comes with added enhancements, which are foreign to even the recent PS5 remaster. Seeing Iron Galaxy Studios at the helm of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, I had been erring on the side of caution, as these are the same folks behind Batman: Arkham Knight’s terrible PC port. Now, to be fair, that was outsourced to a small team of 12, under heavy time constraints — grounds for all kinds of technical issues. Even so, I kept my fingers crossed and dove into Uncharted PC with a sliver of hope. Here’s my full review.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC review — Prep work

As was the case with the PS5 remaster, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is essentially a refined version of Naughty Dog’s latest treasure-hunting games. It’s a charming crate that holds together 2016’s Uncharted 4 and its subsequent spin-off title, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, letting a new generation of players experience Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer’s adventures in the wild.

Let’s talk about distribution first — my primary point of concern. Iron Galaxy took the literal definition of “collection,” and bundled both games into a single application. This amounts to an 89.6GB download for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which after extraction and installation, takes up 124GB of drive space. Even if you lack interest in one of the titles, you’d still be forced to dedicate that massive space to both of them.

The Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection homescreen lets you switch between Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy at will. However, it’s a bizarre process. Attempting to do so triggers a forced restart, making you sit through a loading screen before you can get into the actual game. As evidenced by the install folder, it’s clearly jumping between two different .exe files. This begs the question, why aren’t they offered separately? “Convenience” isn’t the answer, as it takes the same amount of time to manually launch a different game anyway.

First-time setup for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection can feel like a chore, especially on lower-end PC builds, owing to a “shader building” process (according to a message on screen). This could take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes for each game, depending on your specs — in turn, affecting Steam’s two-hour refund policy. Sure, you can still play the game while this happens in the background, but it would be far from an optimal experience, with flickering screens, lag, and maybe even a hard crash. So, it’s recommended that you wait it out.

Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection PS5 Review

Uncharted 4 is clearly the more optimised out of the two
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC review — Gameplay

I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that the Uncharted series has lost its lustre over time, with predictable plot beats, corny dialogue, and dated mechanics. Don’t let that distract you from the bigger picture though, which still manages to be an absolute blast to play through. Be it parkouring along wet scaffoldings, disassembling a clock tower, or gunning down foes in that cinematic chase sequence in Madagascar, the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection screams unbridled mayhem.

The keyboard and mouse control scheme, which is super responsive, benefits mildly from the game’s accessibility features. While not as intricate as the PS4 and PS5’s The Last of Us Part II, you get basic aids such as lock-on aim, a persistent centre dot, and mono audio, aimed at those suffering from unilateral hearing loss. Hand-to-hand combat segments in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection require some button-mashing — my sworn enemy — building up tendon pain in my wrist and palm. Luckily, I could just configure the ‘Hold’ action, making the ordeal near effortless.

Core gameplay remains the same, with grappling hooks to swing around, puzzles to solve, and driving segments, all of which are slightly expanded in The Lost Legacy. Tiptoeing along narrow beams requires some precision, but you can continue making far-off, physics-defying leaps with ease. I was hoping for some minor conveniences such as ammo auto-pickup, which would streamline the run-and-gun experience, but unfortunately, all changes are limited to the technical side.

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The action set pieces in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection screams unbridled mayhem
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Graphics

In keeping with past PlayStation-to-PC ports, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection prioritises character models above all else, and what better setting than the snow-capped vistas of Scotland, bursting with vibrant vegetation and ancient pirate ruins. Heading into Chapter 8, I was worried about how the ‘Low’ graphics preset would affect inscriptions, a vital type of clue in the quest for Henry Avery’s gravestone. As it turns out, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection makes an exception for objects that characters interact with, akin to 2D animation, adding an extra level of detailing that sets these apart from other assets.

For example, angular objects such as doors and vehicles have blurry decals, and text is prone to jagged edges. However, humans remain pristine, with sweat-glossed foreheads, realistic skin texture, and attire that collects dust and grime over time. When thrown into the same cutscenes in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, there’s a jarring effect, as the subject and background textures do not match. And honestly, that might be the only blatantly obvious downside to playing at the lowest settings. Unlike Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered on PC, there isn’t much to fiddle around with in the graphics menu. Fine-tuning shadows, reflections, and ambient occlusion do add that oomph, but it’s not significant to gameplay — at least not at full-HD 1080p.

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On higher presets, foliage gets denser with added shadows
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

Compared to their original PS4 builds, both Uncharted games look breathtaking. Hightailing across the sandy terrains of Madagascar feels hypnotic, as the scorching heat drenches you in growing streaks of sweat. That allure is amplified by the rugged, real-time dirt tracks you leave behind, packs of lemurs scurrying about, and locals cowering in fear as you steamroll past them. The Lost Legacy’s PC port ups the ante for visuals, populating the screen with denizens bartering in the bazaar, exotic flora, and gigantic moss-covered idols and shrines to scale. It’s insane how good Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection looks — it made me want to invest in an ultra-wide monitor.

The ‘Medium’ quality preset in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection adds lighting effects, making streams and puddles shimmer when trudging along. Human reflections were fairly solid on the marble floor of the Italian Rossi Estate, but those on water bodies were inconsistent.

At the ‘High’ preset, minute details such as ridges and cracks are defined, adding undeniable stress to your GPU. This helps distract from the blurry, pixelated mess that plagues rocky surfaces you latch onto, in addition to separating foliage and flower beds, for even more realism. I didn’t bother much with the ‘Ultra’ preset on Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, as my graphics card was maxing out on memory.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Performance

While not fully on par with past PlayStation–PC ports, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is decently optimised. My test rig consisted of an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD. With this configuration, I was able to hit a sweet spot at Medium–High settings, resulting in stunning graphics. The experience was nearly smooth, but frame rates in this game can be quite erratic — at times, situational, depending on what chapter you’re on.

At these settings, Uncharted 4 ran at 65fps on average, with frequent dips to 51, depending on scenery changes and camera movement. This remained true for both gunplay and exploration segments, with highs of 73fps reserved for select cinematics and closed-room events. When jostling through the Madagascar market or the auction setting earlier in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, the frame rate plummeted to 32fps, before settling somewhere in the 40s. That drop was very noticeable, even at the Low preset, sometimes even causing the audio to cut out for a split second.

The adrenaline-fueled Madagascar chase sequence is undeniably the finest zone to push Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection to its limits. It’s not enough that you’re thrown onto a large-scale playing field, with a tank right behind you. But then you’ve also got mercenaries, explosions, gunfire, mud flying off tires, destruction, and ongoing environmental changes to account for. At the aforementioned settings, the game managed to chug out 44fps on average, with the highest peak being 55fps. Bursting down a stairway filled with stalls, vendors, and brightly coloured umbrellas, triggered massive stutters, dropping the frame rate to 28fps at one point. The camera shaking does help with immersion, but some lag spikes are unavoidable.

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The adrenaline-fueled Madagascar chase sequence pushes your GPU to its limit
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

At the time of writing, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy feels slightly rough in comparison, though that is somewhat justifiable. A decent chunk of the gameplay here involves traversing through wilderness. This generated an average of 50fps, with sharp declines to 32fps during intense sequences. On the other hand, puzzle sequences, wall climbing, and cutscenes saw numbers maxing out at 63fps.

The Lost Legacy’s Chapter 2 pits Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross in a high-stakes platforming run, as they’re shot at by mercenaries in heavy rainfall. In addition to strong reflections on wet surfaces, you’re faced with sparking bullet streams and environmental destruction. This sequence pushed out 46fps on average, and a quick brawl against enemies ran at 28fps. Having motion blur on helped avoid screen tearing, which I would recommend since Sony never goes overboard with it — there’s no nauseating effect.

Bear in mind that both aforementioned chase sequences will cause significant lag spikes at certain intervals, if your hardware is in the same ballpark as mine, no matter which quality preset you choose.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (all values are in fps)
LOW MEDIUM HIGH ULTRA
LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH
55 68 83 51 65 73 47 55 63 39 48 57
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
LOW MEDIUM HIGH ULTRA
LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH LOW AVG HIGH
35 51 66 32 50 63 30 42 55 30 40 50

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Verdict

Through gorgeous imagery and robust level design, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection promises a delectable adventure for newcomers to the franchise. Sure, the launch timing makes it seem like compensation — a playful jab — for PC gamers not being able to play God of War Ragnarök at launch, but Sony is not interested in matching Microsoft’s day-and-date release strategy. For the Rs. 3,299/ $50 price tag, you practically receive one and a half games here — a splendid offer, if you can overlook its original last-gen release window.

Its shortcomings are exposed in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which lacks a bit of polish. And while support for ultra-wide displays and native 4K 60fps appear mouthwatering, I’m not sure that will be enough to draw in those who have already experienced these games on PS4 or PS5 for a second helping.

Pros:

  • Decent accessibility features
  • Motion blur is not obnoxious

Cons:

  • Packaged as a single, large application
  • The Lost Legacy is not as polished
  • No ammo auto-pickup or gameplay improvements
  • First-time setup can take time

Rating (out of 10): 7

Gadgets 360 played Uncharted:…

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