The Uncharted series has been dormant for years by this point. And yet, it feels up to date for fans due to the great replay value the games carry. Nathan Drake is a protagonist who doesn’t have many haters thanks to his everyman persona. In fact, fans would love to see another game starring the character.
However, all this good press masks the truth that Nathan has done a lot of bad things in his time. Most of these can be considered heinous even, as they place Nathan’s actions in a very dark context. He might be the protagonist, but these things are very hard to justify.
10 Betraying Elena's Trust
Not for nothing is Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End considered as one of the best games of the last decade, as it puts significant focus on the story. Here, Nathan promised Elena that he was done with the dangerous life he once had, only to break the promise to go off on a treasure hunt with his brother.
Elena was seriously hurt by this, as she tracked Nate down and confronted him on this. Moreover, the fact that he didn’t trust her with the truth of him having a brother in trouble nearly broke their marriage. It was only because Elena had it in her to forgive him that they moved past it.
9 Abandoning Sully After His "Death"
One of the things the Uncharted series does better than The Last of Us is respecting the role of the mentor figure. However, Nathan wasn’t too big on this in the first game. After Sully was shot by Roman, Nate took one look at his body and fled. Although it seemed Sully was dead, Nate didn’t show any real sadness, even returning to his usual jovial manner after he and Elena escaped from the island.
Considering he knew that Roman and Navarro had left as well, it’s pretty awful of Nate not to have attempted to return and give Sully’s body a funeral. It was pure luck that Sully had survived which had nothing to do with Nate.
8 Putting Everyone In Danger Due To His Obsession
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception has the most difficult puzzles in the series. Nathan was told time and again by his partners that his obsession with finding the secret of Drake’s ring wasn’t worth it, yet he never listened and continued on.
This put the likes of Chloe, Elena, Sully, and Cutter in danger, with the latter two coming close to their deaths. It was only after his adventure was finished that Nathan let it go, but that was only out of necessity rather than it being his own decision.
7 Throwing An Innocent Man Nearly To His Demise
Sure, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the best PS3 game to be released, but there were definite moral failings on Nate’s end. He claimed he wouldn’t lethally harm the guards in the museum he and Flynn broke into, only to come very close to doing so.
At one point, Nate was hanging by a wall with a guard right above him. Nate then ever so nonchalantly pulled the man down and he fell face-first into the watery depths below. Although the man was seen swimming away to safety, Nate didn’t even look back to confirm the man didn’t break his neck or drown.
6 Attracting Lazaravic's Forces To The Village
Elena had warned Nathan not to follow the train that Chloe was on, as there was no way he could convince her to ditch Lazarevic and Flynn. Nathan still persisted and ended up destroying the whole train, then found himself at a village after Tenzin saved his life.
As Elana had warned, Lazarevic did catch on to Nathan’s trail and proceeded to completely demolish the village. Elena even mentioned that this was their fault, which Nathan had nothing to argue against as it was indeed his arrival there that prompted Lazarevic to attack the village.
5 Wracking Up A Huge Kill Count
Some might argue, but there’s really no contest between Lara Croft and Nathan as the latter has too much of a kill count. Lazarevic mentioned just this at the end of Uncharted 2, asking Nathan if he even kept count of the men he had killed that day alone.
It’s a valid question too, seeing as Nathan is shown killing hundreds of men over the course of each game. This means he must have taken close to a thousand lives, making Nathan something of a monster despite his nice guy attitude.
4 Ditching Elena And Stealing Her Stuff
The beginning of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune showed Nathan and Sully taking advantage of the funding Elena provided. They used her to get the information they wanted before ditching Elena and even taking her boat along with them.
It was only because of Elena’s tenacity of spirit that she tracked the boys down. Otherwise, she was left stranded on her own and robbed of her items. Not to mention that Nathan had promised Elena he wouldn’t betray her which was exactly what he did.
3 Destroying Shambhala
Nate argued that he had saved the world by putting an end to Shambhala. In actuality, he and the rest had been the intruders to begin with, meaning he had basically strolled into someone else’s land, destroyed the thing keeping them alive, and then bragged about it.
Lazarevic did force them to come to Shambhala, but he wasn’t the one to destroy it. It was Nate who shot through the Tree of Life and brought the whole place down. There were hundreds of guardians in Shambhala, all of whom met their demise due to Nathan’s doing.
2 Cutting Contact With Sully
A lot of the time, Nathan talks a big game about his friends, with Sully being at the very top. However, despite Sully literally putting his life on the in Uncharted 3, it’s revealed that Nathan hadn’t even spoken to him for three years at the beginning of Uncharted 4.
Had it not been for the adventure involving Sam, Nate would probably have never bothered to resume contact with Sully. This is the man who practically raised Nate, meaning he let go of the only father figure he had.
1 Causing Collateral Destruction
Using the many weapons at his disposal, Nathan has been shown to create catastrophic events in the areas he’s visited. Quite a few of them were public areas, meaning a lot of innocent bystanders ended up getting injured or probably even killed.
This is Nathan’s fault due to him willingly taking part in adventures that see him get into such situations. If he were to step back and leave that life, then none of the collateral damage would’ve happened. In essence, his mere involvement has brought a lot of ruin in places around the world.