The Uncharted series is a four-strong (plus a spin-off) series following Nathan Drake, a roguish treasure hunter with luck that borders on supernatural. Over four installments, Nathan has chased ancient mysteries, tangled with magical secrets, killed an honestly irresponsible number of mercenaries, found love, and kept the charming/frustrating smile.
Uncharted has been famously a PlayStation exclusive, and while that has changed with the Legacy of Thieves edition coming to PCs, for a long time people on different platforms had to get their share of treasure hunting, third-person action from other places. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of games which share some aspect of Uncharted’s general vibe. The question is: what are YOU looking for?
| Game | Release | Genre | Developer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Tomb Raider Goty Edition | 2013-03-04 | Adventure | Crystal Dynamics |
 | Rise Of The Tomb Raider 20 Years Celebration | 2016-02-09 | Adventure | Crystal Dynamics |
 | Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Definitive Edition | 2018-09-14 | Adventure | Eidos Montréal |
 | Horizon Zero Dawn | Complete Edition | 2020-08-07 | Adventure | Guerrilla Games |
 | Assassins Creed IV Black Flag | 2013-11-19 | Adventure | Ubisoft Montreal |
 | Assassins Creed IV Black Flag | 2013-11-19 | Adventure | Ubisoft Montreal |
 | Assassins Creed IV Black Flag Gold Edition | 2013-11-19 | Adventure | Ubisoft Montreal |
 | The Last Of Us Part II | 2020-06-19 | Action-adventure | Naughty Dog |
 | Prince Of Persia The Sands Of Time | 2003-12-02 | Adventure | Ubisoft Montreal |
 | Prince Of Persia The Forgotten Sands | 2010-06-10 | Fighting | Ubisoft Montreal |
 | Prince Of Persia Warrior Within | 2004-11-30 | Adventure | Ubisoft Montreal |
 | Prince Of Persia The Two Thrones | 2005-12-07 | Fighting | Ubisoft Montreal |
 | Prince Of Persia 2008 | 2008-12-10 | Adventure | Ubisoft Montreal |
 | Prince Of Persia The Sands Of Time Remake | TBA | Action | Ubisoft Montreal |
 | Quantum Break | 2016-09-29 | Adventure | Remedy Entertainment |
 | Quantum Break | 2016-09-29 | Adventure | Remedy Entertainment |
 | Batman Arkham Asylum Goty | 2010-03-26 | Adventure | Rocksteady Studios |
 | God Of War | 2022-01-14 | Action | SIE Santa Monica Studio |
 | Just Cause | 2006-09-22 | Adventure | Avalanche Studios |
 | Just Cause 2 | 2010-03-23 | Adventure | Avalanche Studios |
 | Just Cause 3 XXL Edition | 2018-10-24 | Action | Avalanche Studios |
 | Just Cause 4 Complete Edition | 2018-12-04 | Adventure | Avalanche Studios |
 | LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures | 2008-06-03 | Adventure | Traveller's Tales |
Without delaying the inevitable, let’s take a look at 10 games like Uncharted (in some crucial aspect).
Tomb Raider (reboot trilogy)
| Release: | 2016-02-09 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Crystal Dynamics |
| Play this is you want more: | Tombs to plunder for fun, profit, and accidental apocalypse |
History occasionally comes full-circles in more ways than one. For example: the Tomb Raider series was in inspiration for Uncharted. Then, the TR reboot trilogy took a look at Nathan Drake’s adventures and realized it’s a good formula for what they wanted to do. Thanks to that we get an exciting trilogy detailing how Lara became the intrepid tomb raider she’s known as.
There’s everything: exciting scripted sequences, environmental puzzles, weird magic, third-person combat, and weirdly brutal consequences of failing Quick Time Events. There’s also a hefty element of scavenging and crafting, and a lot of stealth. The rebooted TR is fairly serious, not as cheerful as Uncharted, but in terms of great third-person aggressive archaeology it’s awesome.
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Horizon Zero Dawn
| Release: | 2020-08-07 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Guerrilla Games |
| Play this is you want more: | great third-person action, and ancient mysteries |
Although Horizon Zero Dawn is removed by hundreds of years from Uncharted’s 21st century adventures, the sense of discovering ages-old ruins in search of knowledge and artifacts is similar. HZD takes place on Earth, but after a technological apocalypse it’s dominated by robots inspired by old Earth’s animals. You’re playing as Aloy, a young hunter who has several mysteries to solve.
One of them is connected to robots getting uncharacteristically aggressive, the other is related to Aloy’s own past. HZD, as well as its sequel, Forbidden West, is mostly an open world game, letting you freely explore and hunt between the tighter-scripted story bits. If you’re into the cinematic flair of Uncharted, you get it here as well, alongside great voice acting across the board.
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Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
| Release: | 2013-11-19 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Ubisoft Montreal |
| Play this is you want more: | treasure hunting and loveable rogues |
While many things about Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag apply to many AC games, there are some things that make Black Flag particularly suitable. First of all, treasure hunting is one of the things you can do here. Secondly, the protagonist, Edward Kenway is also something of a loveable rogue. It also has plenty of room for both “realistic” adventures and supernatural/science fiction stuff.
Black Flag takes place in the 18th century, during the Golden Age of Piracy, and appropriately takes place on a huge, gorgeous map of the region historically known as the West Indies. You’ll hunt whales, dive to retrieve sunken chests of gold, engage in naval battles, and seek ancient artifacts. If this is the kind of stuff you wanted from Uncharted, Black Flag has it in spades.
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The Last of Us (1 & 2)
| Release: | 2020-06-19 |
| Genre: | Action-adventure |
| Developer: | Naughty Dog |
| Play this is you want more: | Naughty Dog’s cinematic flair and tight design |
The Last of Us is by no means a series you should get into for some optimistic pulpy adventure you got from Uncharted. However, if you fell in love with its excellently acted cutscenes, tight level design, and commitment to storytelling, The Last of Us, a different game from the studio, can deliver. Just be ready for a brutal world where zombies are mostly to make humans look better in comparison.
The series takes place on Earth, after an outbreak of fungal parasites which mutated most of the humanity into a zombie-like creature. The games are very serious in their tone and themes, and do get quite heavy, but they are also incredibly fine-tuned to deliver engaging dramatic plot points, tense action and stealth sequences, and characters who feel like they could be real people.
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Prince of Persia (series)
| Release: | TBA |
| Genre: | Action, adventure |
| Developer: | Ubisoft |
| Play this is you want more: | magical messes; puzzles solved by parkour and climbing |
Nathan Drake is a fairly agile fellow, and his adventures involve a lot of climbing, jumping, and carefully moving across ledges. If you’d like more of that, cranked up to eleven, check out the Prince of Persia series, especially the original Sands of Time. The eponymous Prince puts most action hero to shame as he casually runs along walls, or swings on conveniently placed poles.
The original game involves a roguish prince trying to unfu… fix the mess his rash decisions caused. It involves a lot of running and jumping around gorgeous levels, mixed with pleasant, highly entertaining combat usually against people affected by the magical mess going on. A fantastic feature is that you can undo the last few seconds thanks to a magical dagger, as long as you have enough the magical sand.
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Quantum Break
| Release: | 2016-09-29 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Remedy Entertainment |
| Play this is you want more: | linear, third-person, story-driven action |
Although significantly more science fiction than mildly supernatural pulp adventure, Quantum Break is a curious mix of TPP action adventure and a live-action TV show, all packaged into one. The game is mostly linear, with minor branching, and it follows Jack Joyce, who accidentally gets tangled up in time-travel, chrono-manipulation powers, corporate shenanigans, and antagonizing Lord Littlefinger.
Gameplay involves a fair bit of shooting, but also using your powers to manipulate your environment to unblock a passage or fix some piece of machinery. Quantum Break isn’t groundbreaking by any means, but it knows what it wants to be and accomplishes that very well, and it’s certainly worth checking out if a story driven mix of puzzles and action is your jam.
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Batman: Arkham Asylum
| Release: | 2010-03-26 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Rocksteady Studios |
| Play this is you want more: | quasi-linear third-person action-adventure |
Batman: Arkham Asylum achieves a healthy balance between linearity and open world elements. You gradually unlock new places you can go to, and face the well-designed challenges therein, but after than you’re free to either chase the next sequences or backtrack and explore at your leisure. There are stealth sections, pure adventure-game style investigations, and plenty of engaging combat.
Of course, there are also boss fights against various famous antagonists of the Caped Crusader, and they always do a great job showcasing these villains. Outside of thew scripted sequences and following the story, there are also many secrets to find, including Riddler trophies found in inexplicable places. Bats is much less fun than Nathan Drake, but the set pieces can certainly rival Uncharted’s.
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God of War
| Release: | 2022-01-14 |
| Genre: | Action |
| Developer: | SIE Santa Monica Studio |
| Play this is you want more: | excellent, linear, story-driven adventure |
God of War and Uncharted have a few things in common. They are defined by their leading man (Nathan and Kratos), prefer linearity over sandbox, and originated on PlayStation, but have since then arrived on PC. The recent, Norse-themed God of War also adds a low TPP camera to the list of similarities. And an important point of contact is: 2018’s GoW is freaking amazing!
The new, or new until the sequel comes out, God of War features older Kratos, who travels across the Nine Realms with his son to properly bury the Boy’s mother. Unfortunately, the Norse mythology comes rudely knocking, both figuratively and literally, and Kratos and Atreus get tangled in familial drama they did not sign up for. What follows, it a lot of self-reflection and murder.
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Just Cause (series)
| Release: | 2018-10-24 |
| Genre: | Action |
| Developer: | Avalanche Studios |
| Play this is you want more: | bombastic, over-the-top action |
Going in a fully different direction, from the games we’ve described so far, how about something that is just straightforward fun? The Just Cause series puts you in the shoes of a special agent Rico Rodriguez and sets you loose on some small republic in dire need of somebody overthrowing a dictator. If your favorite bits of Uncharted are the high-octane chases and exploding planes, JC is that.
Where JC games excel, is at spontaneously generating exciting moments which wouldn’t feel very out of place in Uncharted. You won’t find much serious character-driven drama, but you’ll find light-hearted action aplenty, and plenty of gadgets to mess around with to create your own chaos even when you are in-between missions.
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LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
| Release: | 2008-06-03 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Traveller's Tales |
| Play this is you want more: | good old-fashioned pulpy adventures and treasure hunting |
To bookend this list: another spin on the cycle of inspirations, going back almost to rh source. And by the we mean: Indiana Jones, the legend which inspired Tomb Raider and, in turn, Uncharted. For this list, we’re considering the LEGO incarnation of Indy, to leave off on a cheerful, friendly note and because the LEGO version actually adapts the three original movies in a typical, funny LEGO style.
In a usual LEGO game fashion, there are two modes: Story and free play. In the former, you get to play a silly version of the original movies, with preset playable characters. In Free play, you can pick any of the unlocked dozens of characters and play the levels again, using the character abilities to reach previous inaccessible secrets. It’s a lighthearted, silly fun after a list full of intense adventures.
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X marks the spot
This concludes our list of games similar to Uncharted in some aspect. We’ve got treasure hunting, over-the-top action, character-driven linear adventures, you name it. There are no bad games on this list, the trick is to find one that matches the gameplay or theme you feel like immersing yourself in at the moment.