I won't be focusing much on the gameplay here. All of those parts work like they should. No real complaints there.
But my gripes have to do with the writing. Namely, that this game feels less like a proper sequel and more like a filler episode. The last game left things - Lara's mental state, Sam, etc, up for some potentially very interesting development. But this game not only fails to follow up on these threads, it seems to go well out of its way to avoid touching them at all. Wanted to see Lara's PTSD have effects on her? Eh, it's paid a bit of lip service, but she's otherwise the same as she was in the first game. Wanted to see the game stick it to Straight Male Gamers and have Lara and Sam hook up? Too bad; Sam is a non-entity here. Even the plot feels like a rerun of the reboot down to its characters, and seems far more interested in setting up a Myth Arc than developing Lara as a character.
The reboot was an extremely dark and unpleasant game at times with what it subjected Lara to. The payoff should not be just to see Lara survive, but evolve as the series continues. To see that this sequel chooses to rehash so many elements of the previous game, continue to wallow in self-serious darkness, and refuse to meaningfully develop her character further is saddening. I struggle to find a justification as to why. Was it because Square Enix demanded a trilogy out of an origins story, and left the developers scrambling to drag it out? A desire to keep the tone as far from Uncharted as possible? A misunderstanding as to what fans want out of the reboot series?
All the potential to take her and this series into territory that couldn't have been explored otherwise is going begging so far. A third game could fix all of this, mind you, but that is a lot of pressure to pick up the slack, and even more so given that this has supposedly underperformed in sales and the reboot was already under fire for merely sellingsix million copies.
Good gameplay, but utterly disappointing storywise.
I won't be focusing much on the gameplay here. All of those parts work like they should. No real complaints there.
But my gripes have to do with the writing. Namely, that this game feels less like a proper sequel and more like a filler episode. The last game left things - Lara's mental state, Sam, etc, up for some potentially very interesting development. But this game not only fails to follow up on these threads, it seems to go well out of its way to avoid touching them at all. Wanted to see Lara's PTSD have effects on her? Eh, it's paid a bit of lip service, but she's otherwise the same as she was in the first game. Wanted to see the game stick it to Straight Male Gamers and have Lara and Sam hook up? Too bad; Sam is a non-entity here. Even the plot feels like a rerun of the reboot down to its characters, and seems far more interested in setting up a Myth Arc than developing Lara as a character.
The reboot was an extremely dark and unpleasant game at times with what it subjected Lara to. The payoff should not be just to see Lara survive, but evolve as the series continues. To see that this sequel chooses to rehash so many elements of the previous game, continue to wallow in self-serious darkness, and refuse to meaningfully develop her character further is saddening. I struggle to find a justification as to why. Was it because Square Enix demanded a trilogy out of an origins story, and left the developers scrambling to drag it out? A desire to keep the tone as far from Uncharted as possible? A misunderstanding as to what fans want out of the reboot series?
All the potential to take her and this series into territory that couldn't have been explored otherwise is going begging so far. A third game could fix all of this, mind you, but that is a lot of pressure to pick up the slack, and even more so given that this has supposedly underperformed in sales and the reboot was already under fire for merely selling six million copies.