10 Great Video Games (With Terrible Storylines)

Developed by notorious Sony cohorts Naughty Dog and released in 2007, Uncharted: Drake’s Deception was a system-selling visual masterpiece meant to contend with Microsoft’s rival Halo franchise. Though the PlayStation 3 would go on to lose that generation’s console war by most accounts, the Uncharted franchise stood as something Sony fans could rub in the faces of their Xbox-owning counterparts.

While the first Uncharted title is by-and-large a great game, the plot leaves something to be desired. It feels like what may have happened if Steven Spielberg had to film the original Indiana Jones trilogy on a shoestring budget, complete with hoaky plot points and ridiculous cursed-idol MacGuffins.

Things really take a turn for the worse in the third act when Nathan Drake is handed an MP-40 and tasked with gunning down mutated Nazi zombies. Nobody seems to remember how off-the-rails the first Uncharted game’s plot was, and that may be for the best.

Subsequent entries in Naughty Dog’s famous action platforming series would fare much better from a narrative perspective, and we’re all better off turning a blind eye to that weird pseudo-survival horror segment.