Headscratchers / Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

• So the Nazis built this huge elaborate base on the Island, yet no one ever found any records back in Europe of them being there? That base must have taken years to build, hundreds (if not thousands) of skilled workers, and tons of material. Surely there would be records of these things going to the Island for the Allies to find after they defeated Germany.
  • My best guess would be that the mission was top secret, so the only documentation would be both limited and probably stored in Berlin. Considering how the Russians were out for the blood of basically every German they could get their hands on and more or less burned Berlin to the ground, it makes sense that the documentation would be lost, especially if the mission was considered a failure.
• Was it so imperative that Nate solve all the puzzles? They only led to places which had already been explored and which were already swarming with enemies.
  • Nate was following the treasure map. He was following an ancient path, discovered or established hundreds of years before. The puzzle were in the way to deter people way back when, and he's solving them because he doesn't want to lose the trail. As for his enemies, see below.
  • The enemy placement was perplexing at times. As an example, Sully said he sent his cohorts on a red herring on the other side of the monastery yet not only do we still find enemies patrolling nearby but they're in areas that were supposedly unknown to anyone but Nate's party.
    • As mentioned above, Nate is following the path set out by the map. His enemies, however, don't have the benefit of the map, and therefore are tearing the island apart trying to find El Dorado. It makes sense that while Nate is doggedly determined to following the trail of the map for fear of getting lost, his opponents would be more interested in scouring every square mile of that dinky little island. As a result, they're avoiding the obstacles; just navigating past walls and doors and such where they can. The game is actually pretty good about not having normal enemies in areas they haven't found yet.

• How did Drake not see the giant Nazi radio tower? It is the tallest thing on the island and would be clearly visible. When playing the game, it is usually off screen and you'd have to move the screen up to see it so the player is unlikely to notice it on the first run through, but in game there is no excuse.
  • People have a tendency to edit out things they don't expect. There's an experiment where people are asked to watch a video of a ball being passed from one hand to another, and count the passes to people in white shirt. After they're done, the experimenter asks them how many times the person in the gorilla suit crosses the screen. The subject often doesn't recall seeing them in the first place.
    • There's a difference between "not expecting something" and "paying close attention to something else". The argument you gave is the latter, the OP's question is the former. The mast should also stick out above trees, so just about every time Drake looks up, he should go, "Hey, what's that?" and not "edit it out", as you say.
    • Okay. Maybe he just thought it was built by the government for cell phones boat radios or something. I can't find any screenshots with the tower. Could someone post a link to a 'shot, or a video of a playthrough with a timecode? Also, for what it's worth, I watched a whole playthrough and somehow missed the tower. Then again, I occasionally miss things in real life that I've passed dozens of times, even when not distracted by folks trying to ventilate me.
    • The tower could be easily missed in a playthrough, and the camera might not even move enough for you to see it; the OP's got no problem with that. I think he's trying to get at something like "Drake sees radio tower, realizes there's buildings here more recent than the 17th century". Remember, Nate and Elena had no idea there was a Nazi base on the island before they were forced in there by the zombies.
    • I missed the tower on every playthrough of the game, and consider myself a pretty observant player - Drake probably missed the tower for the same reasons, i.e. that he was almost always being shot at or facing some other perilous danger. There wasn't any time for sightseeing and when there were moments of peace, he was in ruined cities or forests where there were plenty of other, more obvious, things to grab his attention.
    • Yes, because the camera is fixed in the third person. It points at Drake constantly. You can see the tower if you move the camera at the right time, but the fact that the player isn't going to notice it doesn't excuse why Drake doesn't. It should have been right in his line of vision.
    • So what? He has a lot more to look at. And the guy had no inkling at all that there may have been a Nazi base on the island, and we often miss what we don't expect to be there. I never saw the tower, and I made a habit of stopping to look at all the gorgeous scenery. If anything, Drake is more blind than the player because his viewpoint is closer to the ground, restricted to how far he can turn his head and can't be panned or zoomed.

• Seriously, how did that sub get up the waterfall. Wasn't the Nazi base at sea level? The seas would've have to have risen, what, something like a hundred feet for it to make it up there?
  • I might be forgetting something, but isn't it said in-game that it was carried there by a tsunami? At the least, I think Sully theorises as such...
  • This doesn't specifically answer the question, but a slight correction: the Nazi base was on a completely different island (for that matter, it's never stated that the first part of the game takes place on an island at all - it could just be some remote part of the Amazonian rainforest). Drake heads to the island after finding the map in the U-boat.
  • I'm willing to bet that it got scuttled there, and a freak-of-nature earthquake pushed it up a hundred feet.
  • Nate explicitly suggests it got stuck during flood season, when it would be possible for such a large boat to travel upriver. The crew must have been wiped out before they could leave at the next flood.

• Who was building the traps made out of the plane parts on the island? It wasn't Raja's men because he wanted to know, it wasn't Roman's men because he didn't know either, and the Descendants were too far gone to make anything that sophisticated.
  • Judging from the footprints around the traps (at least the one made of airplane scraps) it probably was the Descendants. Maybe they're smarter than they show us in the game.
  • Notice that the Descendants do actually wear loincloths and necklaces. Plus they appear to have stalked Drake for a while; after they encounter the trap Drake says "we're being watched", and you can hear them moving in a temple long before you actually see them. I think it's possible that the Descendants are actually sentient, but have an overpowering urge to protect El Dorado (or just really bad tempers) which makes them appear to be just animals.
  • Since the Descendants spend all their screen time trying to kill somebody, it's anybody's guess what they get up to when no one is around. Their most obvious trait is that they are suicidally determined to kill any non-infected human they come across. Setting traps seems to be another means of doing that.

• If Nathan Drake has any doubt about not being a biological heir of Sir Francis Drake then why doesn't he go back to that cursed island and take Drake's dead body back to civilization? They can run a DNA test on the body and see if it matches with his; or would finding DNA in a corpse hundreds of years old be too difficult?
  • If there's water where Drake's corpse is, it might make it exceedingly difficult. The theory of ancient DNA testing is split in half, one side saying it's possible, the other saying that it's impossible. There's been general infighting among the Egyptian Archaeological scene over the ability to test mummified remains, and Drake's corpse looks like it isn't a traditional, manufactured mummy.
  • Plus, Drake would have to convince so many people to do a DNA test on him and Francis to see if they matched. Plus, there's a good chance Nate isn't descended from Francis, so why ruin the fun and mystery of it?
  • The main reason is because a DNA test wouldn't have proven anything. Sir Francis lived several centuries ago, there's no way Nate and him share the same DNA. Tens of generations will have ensured that Nate and Sir Francis are as genetically identical as two random strangers on the street.
  • Uncharted 3 has made this moot since Nate is really some orphaned kid with no verifiable connection to Francis Drake at all.

• There is a door where you have to Shoot Out the Lock. Nate can kick the locked door all day and not have it budge an inch, but after shooting the lock, he kicks the door and it falls off its hinges. How did the lock keep the door secured to the wall?

• How exactly are the Descendants ... descendants? Did the Spaniards or the Nazis bring women with them in their units? Because I'm pretty sure those sorts of expedition crews were usually all men during both of those time periods. It doesn't help that all of the so called "Descendants" in-game appear to be universally male...
  • The Spaniards did. It was a colony before Sir Drake sank it.

• Some of the fetishes the descendants laid across the island were constructed with lever-action rifles. Weapons too advanced for 16th century pirates and too antiquated for Germans in the 30s and 40s. Either the devs didn't consider this historical factor or there was another group of explorers on the island in the Victorian era.