A weird thing happened the other day while I played Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Somewhere around the halfway point of the game, Nathan Drake is forced to navigate a lost, half-submerged Spanish colony on a jet ski. Motoring around the waterways of this place causes its size to truly sink in. This is not a colony. This is a city.
A worthy comparison to this place would be the historical lost colony at Roanoke in North Carolina. What happened to the settlers of Roanoke is still, and probably will, remain uncertain. All that is known is that they vanished. This was a small colony of around 100 people who lived in wooden houses, nothing close to the stone architecture found in Drake’s Fortune. These two colonies are as different as two things sharing the same name can be. It's like comparing a mansion to a mud hut and calling them both houses.
Suddenly, it occurred me that this entire island is a treasure, more so than the shiny bauble waiting at the end of the journey.
If an archeologist were to see this place, his or her head would pop. An entire army of researchers could spend a lifetime combing over this location. A prime example of this is the cathedral. It seems to be just as big, if not bigger, than the one right down the road from me in Pittsburgh, Saint Paul Cathedral.
Nathan and Sully could live a life of fame and fortune for discovering the greatest find of the 21st century, a discovery of the same magnitude as finding Atlantis. Unfortunately, the ending where they ride to riches on a worldwide press junket and lead scientific digs isn’t as exciting as racing an enemy to a golden statue. The first option also becomes much less doable once it is discovered that the treasure at the heart of the island doubles as a powerful bioweapon. Nathan can’t go exposing the world to one of the deadliest artifacts on the planet.
Still, I just find it crazy that no one stopped to think that the surroundings made up a prize worth more than a gold idol. As the Egyptologist from The Mummy said to the American treasure hunters when they were disappointed to only find a book, “This gentlemen, this, is treasure.”