If you have a PS4, but not a PS3, or if you haven’t played an Uncharted game yet, I will a) judge you, and b) give you the low down on what you need to know going into Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Stand by.

Uncharted: The Eye of Indra.

First thing to note – this is not a game. It is a canonical motion comic that is set before Uncharted; Drake’s Fortune.

In it we see Nathan Drake tied to a chair and having the crap kicked out for him for some reason. It turns out that Nathan has chummed up with a woman he met in a bar (in fact she owns it) called Rika Raja. He asked her to help him translate some documents pertaining to an artifact known as The Eye of Indra which he has been asked to track down by a guy called Daniel Pinkerton. Once they have finished having sex her brother barges in, who only just stops himself from killing Nate when he realises that they know each other. This is Eddy Raja, with whom no one messes. But sleeping with his sister constitutes “messing with him” so Eddy is somewhat pissed off.

Anyway, they put their differences temporarily aside and the three team up, having worked out that the artifact was in fact already in Pinkerton’s possession (hidden inside a statue in Pinkerton’s safe). So in a smart business move, they plan to dick Pinkerton over by robbing him. But this goes to pot when Eddy (who was in charge of blowing up the safe) admits he only brought one detonator, and that one is dud. Undeterred, Nathan, Eddy and Rika (to whom Pinkerton is still unknown) come up with an alternative plan which involves Nate and Eddy being caught and tortured for information about The Eye of Indra. Eventually Nate tells Pinkerton that it is already in his safe (concealed) and so he does exactly what Nate wants; he opens the safe. Rika is bought in having been found and ‘captured’, but she finds a gun left hidden in the room earlier by Nate. And bingo. They escape with the Eye of Indra.

Sort of.

Rika runs off with it, leaving Eddy and Nate to bicker until the cows came home. The comic ends with Nathan sharing a beer with a guy (Victor “goddamn” Sullivan, no less) and discussing how all is not lost; he has arranged a meeting with a woman from a cable TV show which has agreed to finance his expedition to find the coffin of Sir Francis Drake in return for exclusive coverage, which it transpires, is why he was trying to make a quick buck in the first place.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

This picks up where The Eye of Indra left off, more or less. We join Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher (the woman from the cable TV show) as they are about to open a coffin that they have just raised from the sea bed. Nate crow bars it open, as Elena asks if he should really be “defiling your ancestor’s remains”? Nate replies that you can’t ‘defile’ an empty coffin, and flips the lid to reveal that no body lies inside; just a box containing a journal, which he doesn’t want her to see. Elena also tells Nate that she did her research (meaning she looked on Wikipedia, let’s be honest here) and it turns out Sir Francis Drake didn’t have kids, therefore Nate can’t be descended from him. “History can be wrong, you know,” is the truthful reply.

Anyway, along come the pirates (“the modern kind” that don’t take male prisoners) and they start to blow shit up. (Friendly side note; if you don’t like people blowing shit up, do yourself a favour and don’t bother with Uncharted.) Anyway, the boat Elena and Nate are on gets blown up, Elena rescues her camera, and Victor “goddamn” Sullivan (from here on known as ‘Sully’) rescues them both in a sea plane. Sully flirts with Elena. Nate looks exasperated. Get used to that, as well. Nate takes a look through the journal found in the coffin, and it pinpoints the location of El Goddamn Dorado.

So back on dry land, Sully convinces Nathan to ditch Elena as she will call in all her media buddies, and then it will be a mess for Nate and Sully, who just want the treasure and a quiet life. Nate isn’t too happy, but he sees the logic and off they go. Elena isn’t chuffed. The location noted in the journal is soon found by the duo, who only discover that some arsehole got there first, and dragged the treasure away – a massive gold statue. Clues left behind suggest that the perpetrators were the Spanish explorers. Following the trail leads them to a submarine (yeah, you heard right) stranded in the middle of the jungle. Nate gives Drake’s journal to Sully and goes exploring, and finds a Krieg’s Marine map on the long dead captain. Nate knocks a torpedo onto the floor and beats a hasty exit. Uh-oh. Sully is now being held at gunpoint by some baddies with foreign accents (another thing to get used to) who take the map and shoot Sully in the chest. Nate runs away because he doesn’t want to die.

He runs into Elena, who has been trailing the two ‘no-luck tomb robbers’. She punches him in the face, and that’s pretty cool. The two team up because they are the best they have got, and take Sully’s seaplane to the location indicated on the Krieg’s Marine map. It is an island; once a Spanish colony but now deserted.

But the seaplane is blown up.  And the two parachute to safety, but are separated on the ground. (By the way; Nathan parachuting out of the burning plane is worth the price of a second hand PS3 alone). While searching for Elena, Nathan gets somewhat shot at, but it’s OK because he gets the chance to somewhat shoot back, too. He comes across a drawing (on a wall) signed by Sir Francis Drake indicating where Drake went. So off Nate goes. When he gets to the location indicated by Drake, Nate spots Elena who seems wholly unaware that the island is full off baddies. While distracting the baddies so they don’t kill Elena, Nate is knocked out and stuck in a cell.

Nate comes to, and comes to the realisation that his captor is Eddy Raja. I told you no one messes with that guy. Eddy tries to strike a deal with Nate which boils down to “die now, or help you and die later.” Eddy is not impressed. He is even less impressed when Elena Fisher pulls the wall out of the cell with a jeep. If you don’t love Elena by now you are wrong. So anyway, the two escape, and Nathan wants to pack up and go home, because all this treasure hunting is too much for him and wah wah wah. Elena talks him into continuing; their ticket off the island (a boat) is in the direction they are going anyway.

Upon reaching the island’s Customs House, Elena and Nathan find evidence that one of the last things that came to the island was a large gold statue- presumably the one they are hunting. We also discover that Nathan is single and a bit shy. And proud of his ancestry. The ring he wears around his neck he says he “sort of inherited” from Sir Francis Drake, and through the inscription on the inside edge, it led him to the location of the empty coffin.

The two get separated but find each other again. Elena shows Nate some footage proving Sully is still alive and apparently helping the bad guys. Nathan is not happy, but is unconvinced by the idea of Sully as a traitor. Eventually they catch up to Sully, and there is more shooting. Turns out he’d put the journal in his top pocket, and it was just enough to stop the bullet. Sully wasn’t a traitor, but was ‘helping’ the baddies by sending them in the wrong direction, all the while waiting for Nate to show up and rescue him. Nate is still not over the moon.

So the three of them continue on their way but Sully is separated from Nate and Elena once more. The two continue on towards ‘the treasure room’, which they must be close to now, surely. Guess what, though? The treasure room is empty, except for the skeleton of Sir Francis Drake. Nate is pissed off because it looks as though Drake got so far only to fail, and so he leaves Drake’s ring with the body. It’s actually pretty moving (the scene, not the corpse) and you can tell Drake’s ‘failure’ really got to Nathan.

While trying to help Nate out of the room, along comes Eddy, who is still angry at Drake. They argue a bit and then a load of slippery naked guys climb out of the ground and try to kill them. In fact Eddy is killed. Yes, really he is. Nate tries to save him, though, because he isn’t an arsehole. Elena and Nate escape but they can’t get very far together. They seem to be in some kind of bunker. What is going on?! In his explorations and in between dodging slippery naked guys, Nate discovers that the creatures attacking him are mutated descendants of the Spaniards who have become cursed by the gold statue. Sir Francis Drake knew this and was responsible for destroying the colony to prevent the statue leaving the island. And I doubt Drake shed many tears over the dead Spaniards.

Sully and Nate reunite, and Nate recounts what he has learned. Navarro and Roman (the head baddies) are after the statue to use it as a chemical weapon. And they have Elena. The whole sorry mess culminates with Elena and the statue (which has been found) being dragged off by the baddies and Nate going apeshit about it. He, of course, saves the day and he and Elena almost kiss. I say ‘almost’ because along came Sully with a boatload (literally) of gold to interrupt and take them home. Oh, and Elena, having retrieved Nate’s ring, returns it to him. He is happy. And, I would guess, horny.