Here's how the Uncharted 4 multiplayer beta mixes in sidekicks and magic
Inspired by Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, The Wrath of El Dorado lets you toss out a gold statue that releases damaging ghosts. It's an instant fix for clearing out hunkered down opponents.
The Cintamani Stone from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves works like a healing grenade to quickly revive downed teammates. Doesn't seem to turn them into mindless blue brutes, either.
The Spirit of the Djinn from Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception gives you a speed boost, and even lets you become invisible while rolling or jumping off a rope swing. A perfect way to close the gap for melee kills.
The Staff of Ayar Manco lets you see all your enemies within a certain radius, though they can destroy it once they find it. It's from Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth (a standalone novel which I'd admittedly never heard of before this point).
Indra's Eternity (inspired by the Eye of Indra motion comic) lets you trap enemies in a sphere that both slows them down and pens them in. They're easier to clean up that way, but they're still dangerous.
The Savior will accompany you in battle, reviving you and your teammates when you're downed or distributing ammo when you run low. Just don't expect him to get you many kills.
The Hunter chases down the nearest opponent and puts them in a chokehold, leaving them vulnerable for a one-hit kill. Make sure you seal the deal before they break free.
The Sniper defends a set position with a high-powered rifle, though enemies will be able to see her laser sight. Fortunately, you can reposition a Sniper without having to buy her again.
The Brute dishes out and soak up a ton of damage, but he's slow. Deploy the Brute and his minigun wisely and change the course of a match, deploy him unwisely and your opponents will get a big cash bonus for taking him out.
I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.
The multiplayer beta for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End will only have a "fragment" of the full game's content, but it will still have plenty of new material to wrap your treasure hunting head around. Naughty Dog ran down all the magical items, helpful sidekicks, and (most importantly) customizable hats in a stream on Twitch.
First off, the beta will only have two maps, and it will focus solely on one mode: team deathmatch. The final game will include eight "brand new" maps at launch, and Naughty Dog community strategist Arne Meyer teased that Uncharted 4's post-release DLC may add more.
Much of the stream was spent exploring how Uncharted 4's customizable loadouts will function. If you played The Last of Us' multiplayer, you already have some idea of how you'll be able to allocate "Loadout Points" to items before matches. But The Last of Us didn't let you hire a minigun-toting goon or summon a haunted statue - the coolest new additions to the concept are easily the Mystical Items and the Sidekicks.
Click through the gallery above for more details on how the five items and four sidekicks featured in the beta will work, and check out the full stream archive below. And don't forget to play the beta from December 4 to December 13, assuming you bought Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection.
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