Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is in These Lists
In addition to the similar games listed above, which have been linked to this game specifically in the database, you may find games with a similar theme to Uncharted 4: A Thief's End in the following lists:
The spaces and places that video games create are often designed with a particular interaction or way to progress through them. However, because games are open to the player, how you play, the direction you move and what you do in the game is up to you.
This means that you can often put video games to unusual uses. Photography is one aspect of this as Paul Buttle recently
highlight on Twitter. All modern video game consoles enable you to capture an image of the screen. At a rudimentary level this allows you to take pictures of your adventures. Beyond this, many games offer a Photo mode that allows you to freeze the action and take control of the camera -- even letting you control effects, depth of field and shutter speed in some cases.
This means you can take really beautiful and engaging pictures in the games you play. Some families have tasked their expert players with capturing a certain type of photograph as they play:
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Portraiture - capture images of the people you meet.
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Photojournalism - create a photo diary of the events of the game to be annotated later.
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Fashion - document the different outfits and wardrobe styles your character chooses.
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Sports - capture sporting moments, including not only players, but the crowd and coaches.
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Still Life - capture the inanimate, mundane and overlooked elements that make the game world what it is.
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Architectural - find ways to photograph the buildings in various states of build, decay and renewal.
Some examples of these projects include:
The Game Awards highlight the best video games each year. It's an award produced and hosted by Geoff Keighley. Games are selected by video game news organizations who then vote on the games to choose the winners in each of the categories.
Video games aren't high on the list of most people's spiritual spaces. However, many games offer experiences that invite you to explore buildings, worlds, cities and the countryside full of potential for spiritual reflection.
Games offer a unique way to encounter what is beyond us: other people, the world and possibly even the divine. They include themes of hope, loss and love. They invite us to reconsider how we see the outsider and the marginalised. They offer a chance for response and emotion to grow.
The games in this list have been the subject of a series of articles I have written about video games and faith. Firstly, from 2013-2015 for
ThirdWay magazine, and more recently for
Youth and Children's Work (YCW) magazine.
These are two publications for Christian audiences, that have invited me to shed light on what a range of video games might mean for those communities. I aim to make connections with faith, the bible and the experience of these video games. This is one way to interpret them which of course invites further and possibly counter interpretations from other perspectives.
YCW articles:
Firewatch |
Everything |
Bury Me My Love |
Abzu |
Wilmot's WarehouseThirdway Articles:
Proteus |
Joust |
Uncharted 3 |
Alan Wake |
This War of Mine |
Journey |
Limbo |
Spaceteam |
A Dark Room |
Altos Adventure |
A Year Walk |
Bioshock Infinite |
The Last of Us |
Disney Infinity |
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture |
That Dragon Cancer |
Spec Ops The Line |
Papo and Yo Sometimes you just want to play the hero. These games are violent and include shooting but, as with B-movies and 1980s TV series, it’s as much about the quips, characters and fantasy settings as it is about killing. The drama may be peppered with cinematic gunfire but, like those TV series, the real draw is spending time with the heroes every week.
These games are big, brash and popular. They have big budgets which means the visual and interactive quality is particularly high. They also have strong and wide ranging player communities.
We spend our lives in buildings every day. Our homes, offices, shopping malls, cathedrals, stations, bridges and even public toilets have all been designed. Video games mirror and magnify this built environment in different ways.
Some, like
Assassin's Creed,
Grand Theft Auto and
Forza Horizon recreate virtual versions of familiar places. Others, like
The Witcher,
Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess and
Eastshade, create their own cities and buildings. Then there are games like
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild,
Biomutant,
Enslaved or
The Last Of Us that drop you in a once-great but now ruined architecture.
Along with these pre-built spaces, there are also games that invite you to affect and rebuilt the architecture of a world. Games like
Townscaper allow you to easily create series of buildings and consider how one structure relates to those around it -- like a street-scene generator. Then there are games like
Animal Crossing, that offer a social context in which to apply your architectural and landscaping skills.
Then there are games that build spaces that would be impossible in real life. From the Escher-like
Manifold Garden to the scale-confounding
Superliminal, these games can play with perspective and movement to not only confuse the player but open new possibilities in perceiving buildings.
Finally, there are games with breathtaking architecture. Whether it's the atmospheric lighting of
Control, the climbable buildings of the
Uncharted series or
Shadow of the Colossus vast cathedral-like structures, video games often create original spaces that stop you in your tracks.
The video games in this list create space to notice, reflect and try your hand at architecture. They are fun, but they are also important because the design of the spaces we spend time in have profound effects on how we feel, think and move.
Of the different senses, it's easy to overlook the importance of hearing. We encourage children to read, watch and observe. But just as important is to develop more than just cursory listening.
Despite their name,
video games use sounds just as much as visuals to create their worlds. As well as this, audio is often a crucial aspect of interactions and clues for puzzle solving.
Because of this, video games (like walking in nature) are a powerful way to learn to notice and use the sounds around us. Playing a game with headphones helps the player focus on the sound. Doing this intentionally can help younger players discover a new world of sound in the games they play.
There are games like
Limbo,
Hellblade,
Overboard and
Super Mario Odyssey that use sound to set the mood and aesthetic of the play. This is more than just background music as it reacts and integrates with the sounds the player is making while they play.
Then there are games like
Uncharted,
Alba,
Fortnite and
Sea of Thieves that use audio to indicate things happening in the game. Not only what is happening, like the sound of someone boarding your ship, but where that is happening in relation to your character with spatial audio.
There are games where you create the audio with your actions. Touching petals in
Flower adds notes to the classical music. In
Mini Metro you add to the ambient sounds as you place stations and new tube lines.
Finally, there are games where sound is your main way of navigating the world. Games like
The Vale and
Frequency Missing can be played with just sound. This not only offers an accessible experience to those without sight but a chance to engage with a virtual world using just our hearing.
The British Academy Games Awards are presented annually to recognise, honour and reward outstanding creative achievement in Games. The awards categories reflect the wealth and diversity of the games sector.
The awards started in 2004 and are presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). For parents, they are a great way of discovering brilliant games to play in their family. The games included here are from these categories:
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The Family Games Award highlights games that will work really well for parents and children. These often include multiplayer features and feature a cast of family-friendly characters.
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The Games Beyond Entertainment award is also of interest as this highlights more unusual games with an emphasis on storytelling that addresses topics that parents may find appealing themselves.
We invited visually impaired video gamer, activist and campaigner
Dr Amy Kavanagh to compile a list of games with helpful, well thought out and intuitive navigation. As a streamer and disability consultant, Amy passionately advocates for gaming to be accessible for everyone...
One of the joys of gaming are the places you get to explore that you would never be able to visit in real life. This is particularly important to me as a low vision gamer. I often face barriers when navigating the world, so it’s thrilling when I get to experience driving a fast car in the dystopian London of
Watch Dogs Legion, swinging through New York as
Spider-Man or climbing a mountain on a secret pirate island as Nathan Drake in
Uncharted 4.
Studies have shown that gaming improves both spatial awareness and navigation skills. However, getting unintentionally lost in a game is an all too common and very frustrating experience. Not knowing where to go or feeling confused about how to move from one location to another can be a challenge for many gamers, including new or younger players, low vision gamers like me and those with cognitive impairments.
The games in this list make exploring a virtual world smoother and finding your next mission fun rather than frustrating! There are some important factors that make games easier to navigate and can support you to improve your way-finding skills:
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Maps: A great starting point for being able to find your way around a game is a clear and detailed map. As in games like Spider-Man, it’s important that the world map is available from the beginning and supported by an easy to follow mini-map permanently on screen.
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Head Up Displays: Heads Up Display or Navigational Display provides information about the relationship between your character or avatar and the space they are existing in. As in games like Horizon Zero Dawn features like a compass, distance counter or radar can all be used to indicate in which direction an objective is.
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Objectives: Giving objectives, missions, collectables or even key interactions different colours or symbols means you can learn your way around a game quickly. As in games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, it’s even better when you can customize these symbols so they are larger or appear more frequently. Alternatively, making objectives obvious using lighting, key colours or camera views can make a game more navigable without adding complicated HUD mechanics.
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Directional Cues: Once you have reached your destination, prompts or clues about where you might find what you are looking for are also important. As in games like The Last of Us Part II this can include a camera view that will snap in the right direction, arrows or pointers, haptic feedback, audio cues or dialogue.
Some of my favourite games bring together these elements to make exploring a virtual world a treat rather than a chore. The standout example has to be
The Last of Us Part II, designed with blind and low vision consultants, the game is possible to find your way through even with no useful vision. The combination of audio cues and haptic feedback means you can enable constant prompts to help you navigate a dystopian and sometimes terrifying world.
A game that combines a range of directional information into a fun experience is
Spider-Man and the sequel
Miles Morales. From the option to swing through the city in high contrast mode, to the large objective icons and pinging backpacks, it’s easy to find your way around the richly detailed environment of New York city. So now it’s time to voyage into the digital unknown, here are some easier to navigate game to help you on your way.
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