Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is an action-adventure game released for the PS3 in 2007, making history for Naughty Dog studio as one of the best adventure games that would soon become a prominent landmark in PlayStation’s history, turning the American developer into one of the most famous and innovative studios worldwide.
The game follows Nathan Drake, the descendant of explorer Sir Francis Drake, as he searches for the lost treasure of El Dorado with journalist Elena Fisher and mentor Victor Sullivan.
Treasure hunter Nathan “Nate” Drake retrieves the coffin of Sir Francis Drake’s series off the coast of Panama, after locating it through coordinates inscribed on a family heirloom, a ring Nate wears around his neck. The coffin contains the memoirs of Sir Francis, revealing the location of El Dorado. Pirates attack Nate’s boat and destroy it, but his friend and mentor, Victor “Sully” Sullivan, saves both in his seaplane, leaving Elena at the dock to avoid attracting potential competitors.
Nate and Sully discover a location once housing a large statue after following the memoirs to the indicated place, realizing that El Dorado is not a city but a golden statue. They also find a Nazi submarine containing a page from Drake’s memoirs, revealing that the statue was transported to a remote island in the South Pacific. However, mercenaries led by the criminal Gabriel Roman, owed a large debt by Sully, obstruct Nate and Sully’s path. Sully gets shot in the chest and collapses, but Nate manages to escape, meeting Elena and flying with her to the island.
On the way, anti-aircraft fire forces Elena and Nate to parachute and get separated. After replenishing supplies from the crashed seaplane, Nate heads towards an old fortress to find Elena. After being briefly captured by pirates led by his old colleague Eddie Raja, Elena frees him, and they escape to the old customs house on the island.
After finding records showing that the statue was moved inside the monastery, they find that Sully is somehow alive and accompanies Roman and Navarro. Nate and Elena find Sully and rescue him, who survived due to Drake’s memoirs that deflected the bullet, explaining that he was stalling Roman to buy time for Nate.
While exploring the crypt, Nate overhears an argument between Roman, Navarro, and Eddie, revealing that Roman hired Eddie to capture Nate and secure the island, with the reward being a share of El Dorado. After escaping, Roman doubts Eddie’s abilities, ignoring his claim that a cursed entity on the island kills his men, leading him to dismiss Eddie and his crew.
After regrouping, Nate and Elena find a passage leading to a treasure vault, where they find Drake’s corpse, assuming he died while searching for the treasure. They confront the terrified Eddie and one of his henchmen before being attacked by the mutated humans who kill the henchman; despite Nate’s efforts, Eddie is also killed when he is dragged into a pit.
Nate and Elena escape and find themselves in an abandoned German hideout. Upon entering the base, Nate discovers that the Germans were searching for the statue during World War II, but like the Spaniards before them, they were afflicted by the statue’s curse, turning them into mutants. Sir Francis, knowing the statue’s power, tried to keep it on the island by destroying ships and sinking the city before being killed by the mutants as well.
Nate returns to find Elena captured by Roman and Navarro. Nate reunites with Sully but fails to prevent them from reaching the statue.
Navarro, realizing the curse, tricks Roman into opening the statue, revealing it to be a coffin containing a mummy infected with an airborne mutated virus. As Roman transforms into one of the mutants, Navarro kills him and takes control of his men.
The group scolds Nate for their lack of creativity and plans to sell the virus as a biological weapon. Nate jumps on the coffin and rides it as it is airlifted onto a boat in the bay, engaging in a fight with Navarro and defeating him, managing to sink the coffin at the bottom of the ocean. Sully arrives, and after showing affection towards each other, they leave the island with many treasure-laden boxes.