Uncharted 3 Multiplayer Beta Walkthrough

Drake’s back this fall, and Naughty Dog are wetting gamer whistles this summer by letting them into a multiplayer beta for the game. There were multiple ways to get a key (including our beta key giveaway), and if you’ve got one, you should be getting your frag on sometime on June 28th. Unless, as was previously the case, the beta isn’t working.

Regardless of when Naughty Dog and Sony actually get their act together, and regardless of whether you have a beta key, you’ll be able to get an early taste of Drake’s Deception, thanks to our crack team of walkthrough videographers. Enjoy the videos below.

The Basics

Uncharted 3 has seen several changes in gameplay and, specifically, character customization from its predecessor. Knowing how your character plays and what options are available to you is more important than knowing the beta’s two (so far) maps inside and out. As you complete objectives, take out enemies and win matches, you’ll earn money that you can spend on making your character better.

The Customization screen is where this all happens, and you can set up to four character loadouts that you can switch between on the fly in-game. This lets you customize your weapons, bringing an AK-47 to the party as opposed to a sniper rifle, or vice versa. More importantly, though, it lets you customize your Boosters and Kickbacks.

You’ll unlock Boosters and Kickbacks as you level up, and you can purchase them for your character loadouts to give yourself either passive or active perks in-game. Boosters “boost” your character — awarding you with an additional grenade, for example. You’ll have to put some levels on your character get some decent boosters, but once you have them, they can greatly effect the way you play. You’ll also be able to purchase some Boosters during or at the beginning of matches.

Kickbacks, on the other hand, are rewards for playing. Knock out enough kills and you might earn your Kickback, which you can access when you want, on the fly, by pressing up on the D-Pad. The first kickback (and an awesome one) is an RPG — do well enough in a game and suddenly you’ll have a pair of rockets in your hand whenever you want them.

Spend Your Money

It may seem like a no-brainer, but especially early on, check back often on the Customization screen for places where you can spend your accrued cash. You collect money for every kill and as you level up, Boosters, Kickbacks and weapons mods will become available pretty regularly. It’s worth it to hop back into the menu frequently to find stuff to buy that will up your game — even if it’s as simple as modding your favorite gun to have a larger clip. That’s more bullets for you to kill the guy you’re fighting than he might have for you.

Earn Some Money

Something that’s receiving a lot of attention from Naughty Dog are the things that happen in-game that aren’t related to killing guys. Namely, scattered throughout every match at intervals are hidden treasures you can pick up. They’re marked on your heads-up display as a floating, bouncing treasure chest, and you’ll earn a small amount of cash if you grab them. They also earn you medals, which can go toward other perks and raise your overall score in a match.

Pay attention when you kill guys, as well. Sometimes enemies will drop treasures — snag these from their bodies (they’re marked, like the treasures that appear around maps) and you can put together sets over time. Unlocking an entire treasure set can unlock new weapons, items, Boosters and other goodies for you that other players may not have. It pays to pay attention.

Finally, don’t just concern yourself with killing. Kills are good, but if you’re in a Plunder (read: Capture the Flag) match, say, then retrieving the idol and bringing it back to the scoring location is worth much more money than racking up a few kills. Kills themselves, in fact, aren’t worth much at all — just $100. So make sure your priority is winning and completing objectives, rather than just running around, blasting people. Earning more money than the other guys not only levels you up faster, it also means you can purchase more Boosters and new Kickbacks more often, and those will make you a much more effective combatant.

Co-op Modes

The Uncharted 3 beta features cooperative play at the bottom of the multiplayer matchmaking menu. The first week of the beta, that mode was Survival, which was a slightly tweaked version of what was seen in Uncharted 2 (and found in the video above). In that mode, players took on wave after wave of enemy soldiers who got progressively more difficult to kill. The tweak is that each new round of enemies will require a different play style from the players — one round might require the players to hold an area King of the Hill-style, and in another they might need to capture a piece of treasure and transport it across the map to score points.

Since the modes are subject to change, we’ll start with some basic