The Uncharted games feel like a love letter to the distant past. In each game, protagonist Nathan Drake travels to some distant location in search of an ancient lost treasure. This takes Drake from the jungles surrounding El Dorado to the remote Pacific island housing the pirate city of Libertalia, somehow finding time to have shootouts with heavily armed mercenaries wherever he goes.
Many of the historical details in the game are fantastic. Other details have not been handled with the same respect for accuracy.
10 Right: Linguistics of El Dorado
El Dorado is famously known as the legendary City of Gold. Except it's not. "El Dorado" is Spanish for "the Golden One" and is actually abbreviated from "El Hombre Dorado," meaning "The Golden Man."
The entire premise of the first game is built around searching for a lost statue of gold, not a golden city. This is a nice way of setting the record straight.
9 Mistake: Parkour in Temples
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is really problematic in how it handles various religious sites. Buddhist and Hindu holy buildings and symbols are reduced to mere puzzles to be solved and dungeon-like platforming experiences to jump through.
The most egregious example takes place in Nepal, where there is a temple in the middle of a modern city with a secret chamber hidden below it. Not only are players expected to believe that no one discovered a massive subterranean chamber under the temple, but the entire chamber is designed to reveal complex clues to help find the Cintamani Stone--only if one can parkour through the massive room. This should go without saying, but Hindu temples did not emphasize the art of parkour as a way to achieve revelation.
8 Right: John Dee's Magic
John Dee may very well be the most famous English magician of the early modern period, having served in the court of Elizabeth I. His knowledge of spells was legendary. He is credited with unlocking the secrets of the Enochian language and spreading the understanding of Hermetic teachings.
His influence permeates Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. While there is not time here to break down the meaning of every sigil and inscription, the symbols associated with him--and the details of his life--are historically accurate, not to mention brilliantly portrayed in the French castle midway through the game.
7 Mistake: Fires in Ancient Tombs
A number of the tombs and dungeons explored in the games have torches or flames to light the way. Most of these places have been sealed for centuries. Some have been sealed for millennia.
It is patently ridiculous to think the resin on a torch would instantly catch flames after a millennium spent sitting in a dank dungeon, or that pulling a lever would ignite mechanical fires after centuries of disuse.
6 Right: Libertalia
Technically, Libertalia has never been proven or disproven to exist, so the fact of its existence is not what this is about. Rather, what matters is the game's creators chose to show the pirate city.
The Colonial architecture is perfectly in keeping with the time period, reflecting the buildings erected in the Caribbean and the North American colonies with their Georgian influences and neoclassical aesthetic. Furthermore, the cannons, furniture, and clothing all represent the styles commonplace among gentry and seafarers of the time.
5 Mistake: Marco Polo's Journey
There is a fair amount of speculation among scholars as to the details of Marco Polo's journeys. The Uncharted games posit that he made his way to Tibet and specifically to Shambhala. While he describes Tibet in the accounts of his journeys, it seems that a fame-seeker like Polo would have boasted about finding something as precious as the Cintamani Stone.
Additionally, the idea that his ships ended up in Borneo seems beyond the pale. Many of the details about Marco Polo's life referenced in Uncharted 2 just make no sense.
4 Right: The Crusades
The Crusades were one of the great events of medieval history, in which Western European cultures and Middle Eastern cultures established contact with one another on a scale not seen since the decline of Rome.
Uncharted 3 does an excellent job of showcasing Crusader castles, symbols, architecture, and routes (and though they create fictional castles, the real-life Krak des Chevaliers was the inspiration). It also connects some of the knightly orders of the Crusades to later medieval secret societies in England--something many historians believe (even if conspiracy theorists run wild with the concept).
3 Mistake: Crusader Globe Map
Within the subterranean catacombs beneath the Crusader castle in Syria, Drake finds a puzzle that recreates the shape of the Earth as a globe. This is problematic for a number of reasons.
For one thing, maps at the time were not that detailed. However, there are landmasses on the map that no Crusader would have known about, as only the mainland of Asia, Europe, and Africa were shown on surviving maps.
2 Right: Nazi Missions
The first two Uncharted games have the remains of dead Nazis in distant locales. First, there is a South American Nazi submarine in the jungles, and then Drake finds a group of Nazis in Tibet.
Both of these are based on real-life events. Many Nazis established headquarters and bases throughout South America, while Himmler personally ordered a group of the SS to go on a mission to Tibet in search of ancient Aryan mystical secrets.
1 Mistake: Irminsul
The dead Nazis found in the Himalayas have a book with them that shows an image which Drake identifies as the Irminsul. The Irminsul was the name of a sacred god-pole revered by the Saxon people.
However, the symbol is a recreation of one found at the site of Externsteine, identified by recent scholars as a Christian date palm. While carrying this book, Nazis would not have known the difference, it seems like the sort of detail Drake would almost certainly know.