It's certainly got touches of the magic Hennig and Straley brought to the table, namely because Straley co-headed the project I suspect. And this is enough to stop it from being a bad game, and even reminds us of why the series is so beloved. It can be fun and exciting. But, unfortunately it has
Druckmann's signature excess and pretense smothered on it, so fun is frowned upon. Uncharted 4 suffers from a lot of self-indulgence and abject dourness that any editor would've cut. The game's narrative structure is the worst of the series by a large margin - it has, if I remember rightly, three "beginnings" and a flashback structure that is simply beyond the writing competency of the people involved. There's little reason for such convolutions, other than the writers thinking its fancy story structure, which they can't and didn't pull off. The narrative is a horribly convoluted affair, with the biggest moments all being spoiled by the trailers and E3 presentation, and the most sincere moments just being a retread of the things done better in U2. With TLOU2 being the Neil Druckmann show, and seemingly suffering from all of the same problems, it's fair to say U4 is more Druckmann than Hennig. And it's worse for it. Luckily, as I said, Straley's there to keep it on the rails for the most part - it's not bad, just not as good, as whats come before it.
It's biggest sin, though, is the narrative's botched attempt at "deconstruction" and "re-contextualisation" - things Druckmann attempts with TLOU2 and seemingly fails at again. According to Uncharted 4, U1-U3 were bad things and us, like Nate, should feel bad that we ever found it exciting, interesting, and fun. It's like making an Indiana Jones movie where the plot is Indie learning that adventure and fun is bad. The spirit of the narrative and the characters just doesn't come together. For me, it's a very dour game that's very unenjoyable, mostly because it fails to understand its predecessors. And that's Druckmann's signature.
2 > 1 > 3 > 4
