Uncharted Drake Deception

Plot

The story begins with Nathan "Nate" Drake (Nolan North) and Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Richard McGonagle) entering a pub in London to meet with a man named Talbot (Robin Atkin Downes), who is interested in purchasing Nate's ring. During the meeting, Nate and Sully accuse Talbot of offering them counterfeit banknotes, and a fight ensues. After fighting their way past Talbot's thugs, Nate and Sully emerge in an alleyway, where they are surrounded and subdued by Charlie Cutter (Graham McTavish), Talbot's cohort. They are then approached by Talbot's client, Katherine Marlowe (Rosalind Ayres), who steals Drake's ring. Nate attempts to go after her, but Cutter guns him and Sully down, seemingly killing them.

The story flashes back to 20 years earlier, where a teenage Nathan Drake (Billy Unger) explores a museum in Cartagena, Colombia, in search of Sir Francis Drake's ring, but is thrown out after guards suspect him of being a thief. Intrigued by the actions of Victor Sullivan, who he does not know at this point, Nate follows Sully to a keymaker and pickpockets him, before returning to the museum. He steals the ring, but before he can leave he is caught by Marlowe, her henchmen, and Sully, who was working for her. Nate flees with the ring, with Marlowe's agents in pursuit, but Sully rescues Nate from the agents and decides to act as a mentor to him.

Returning to the present day, it is revealed that the meeting was an elaborate set-up by Nate and Sully to get closer to Marlowe, with Cutter being an old friend of theirs. With the help of Chloe Frazer (Claudia Black), they trace Marlowe's car to a hidden library, where they manage to retrieve T. E. Lawrence's notebook and a map showing Francis Drake's secret voyage to Arabia, where he was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I to search for the lost city of Ubar which is only mentioned in the Quran. Using these items, Nate works out that clues to the city's location lie in Crusader crypts in a French chateau and a Syrian citadel. Nate and Sully head to eastern France and locate the long-abandoned chateau in a dense forest. They find one half of an amulet inside the crypt, but the two are ambushed by Talbot, who takes the amulet and sets the chateau on fire. Nate and Sully escape and quickly head to Syria, fearing that Chloe and Cutter, who traveled to the Syrian citadel, may have been followed as well.

In Syria, Nate and Sully meet up with Chloe and Cutter, who have learned that Marlowe is the head of an order dating back four centuries. The order seeks to gain power by exploiting the fears of their enemies. During their quest, Cutter gets shot by a dart containing hallucinogens, which forces him to give his gun and notebook to Talbot. The group reaches the second crypt and find the other half of the amulet, revealing the location of the next clue in Yemen. However, while trying to exit the citadel, Cutter is cornered by Marlowe and Talbot, forcing him to hand over the amulet piece. Although Nate, Sully, Chloe, and Cutter manage to escape, Cutter breaks his leg in the process, forcing him and Chloe to back out for the rest of the game, while Nate and Sully travel to Yemen on their own.

Drake reluctantly follows Sully's advice to meet with his wife Elena Fisher (Emily Rose), recently estranged. Though the two argue over the fact that Elena is still wearing her wedding ring, and how Nate seems to be obsessed with his quest, Elena still helps Nate and Sully, giving them a tour of the city. They eventually locate the underground tomb where they discover the location of the lost city, as well as evidence that Sir Francis Drake had also found the tomb, and that what he learned there caused him to abandon his mission. Back above ground, Nate is shot with a dart containing hallucinogens. After stumbling away alone, Nate wakes up outside a café with Marlowe and Talbot. Here, Marlowe comments on his past and his relationship with Sully, and even threatens Elena if he does not cooperate. When Talbot gets news of Sully's location, Nate breaks free and gives chase to Talbot throughout the city; however, Nate is then knocked out and captured by Rameses (Sayed Badreya), a pirate working with Marlowe. Rameses interrogates Nate for information about Iram of the Pillars. When Nate refuses to cooperate, Rameses claims to have captured Sully. Nate manages to escape captivity and eventually reach the cruise ship where Sully is captured.

Nate discover Sullivan sitting on a chair in the cargo hold with a fabric bag on his head, but discovers it is a dummy. Rameses and his men appear, and reveal that Rameses never had Sullivan. Rameses stumbles to safety after being shot by Nate. Nate then throws a grenade in the ensuing battle, which results in a large explosion rupturing the ship's hull. Eventually the excess water causes the whole vessel to roll 90 degrees and begin sinking. After navigating through the capsized ship, Nate finds himself in the over-turned ballroom. A mortally wounded Rameses re-appears and shoots the glass roof, resulting in water rapidly flooding in, killing himself in the process. Nate escapes the overturned ship and washes back onto the shore.

He is reunited with Elena, but she informs him that Sully was captured by Marlowe's men and was taken on a convoy into the Rub 'al Khali desert; but they may be able to rescue him if they stow away on a cargo plane due to deliver supplies to Marlowe's convoy. At dawn, the two of them infiltrate the airstrip, where they eventually reach a high wall. Nate gets to the other side but refuses to help Elena up, and claims he doesn't want to risk losing Elena again. She understands and accepts this, and eventually leaves using a nearby jeep. Nate tries to reach the plane as it begins its take-off run, but ultimately fails. Elena re-appears in the jeep and picks him up, allowing him to enter the plane through one of the landing-gear bay doors just as the plane lifts off. Nate is soon discovered by Marlowe's men on board, and a shoot-out ensues, resulting in a fire on board, leading to massive decompression, which tears the plane apart and sucks Nate out. Falling through the sky, Nate collides with a falling supply crate and deploys the crate's unused parachute; he is able to land safely on the desert floor. Nate finds a weapon in the wreckage and starts to journey through the desert.

After wandering the desert, suffering from heat exhaustion, severe thirst and experiencing hallucinations and mirages, Nate arrives at a ghost town in the desert where he is attacked by Marlowe's men. A troop of men on horseback, led by Salim (TJ Ramini), appear and ride to Nate's rescue. At the horsemens' encampment, Salim tells Nate that the city of Ubar was doomed thousands of years ago by King Solomon when he imprisoned evil Djinn within a brass vessel and cast it into the heart of the city. He agrees to help Nate and leads him to the convoy spotted by his scouts. Nate and Salim destroy the convoy and rescue Sully. Salim then instructs Nate and Sully to follow him into a nearby sandstorm, but the pair lose him amidst the dust and they realize that they have arrived at the gates of Ubar.

Upon entering Ubar, Nate and Sully come across a sophisticated water fountain that Nate drinks from. Suddenly Talbot appears and shoots Sully, apparently killing him. Overcome by rage over Sully's death, Nate gives chase and has to fight more of Marlowe's men, who seem to have been possessed by the Djinn, engulfing themselves in flames as well as showing the ability to teleport. Nate eventually comes to his senses and finds Sully alive. The true mystery of what happened to the people of Ubar thousands of years ago becomes apparent: when King Solomon cast the brass vessel into the depths of the city, it fell into the water and began to taint the water with a powerful hallucinogenic agent. The people were subsequently driven mad, and civilization within the city collapsed. Nate realizes that the vessel is what Queen Elizabeth had sent Francis Drake to find, but after learning the consequences of his quest, Drake abandons his mission and returns to England. Nate and Sully search the city and locate Marlowe, who is using a winch to pull the brass talisman from the water. Nate and Sully destroy the winch and the explosion sets off a chain reaction throughout the entire city, causing it to collapse. Nate and Sully attempt to escape the crumbling city, and encounter Marlowe and Talbot shortly before the floor collapses, throwing Marlowe into a pit of quicksand. Nate tries to save her but is unable to pull her out, and Marlowe is submerged in the sand, taking Drake's ring with her.

After desperately trying to reach the edge of the giant sinkhole that the city has now become, Nate and Sully are intercepted by Talbot, close to the exit. An enraged Talbot attempts to kill Nate and Sully, but after a brutal fight, he is shot by Nate and falls out of sight. At the city gates, Salim rides in on his horse and leads Nate and Sully to safety as the city is engulfed by the desert sands. Nate and Sully return to the airport in Yemen, where Sully explains why he took such an interest in the young Nate. He then gives back Nate's wedding ring, which he secretly kept safe when Drake and Elena separated. Nate turns to see Elena joining them. The two embrace each other, and the three fly back home on Sully's new sea plane.