Drake's Fortune

Lore & Background

The legend of Francisco de Orellana haunts the annals of exploration. A Spanish conquistador of the 1500s, Orellana supposedly navigated the Amazon and stumbled upon a city of gold—the mythical El Dorado. Rather than return to Spain with his discovery, he vanished, leaving behind only a cryptic stone tablet that served as a map to his hidden hoard. For centuries the tablet's whereabouts were unknown, making Orellana's fortune the most coveted prize in the world of artifact hunting. Nathan Drake, a quick-witted and reckless treasure hunter, stumbles upon a fragment of Orellana's story through a series of clues and a chance encounter with journalist Elena Fisher. What begins as a straightforward expedition through the jungles of Peru quickly spirals into a deadly race when Drake discovers that the ruthless Gabriel Roman, backed by the treacherous archaeologist Atoq Navarro, is also hunting the treasure. The treasure itself is not merely gold. Orellana's cave-hoard contains a golden statue—but the true horror is what the Spaniards found inside it: a mummified, infectious curse that drives men insane with a parasitic fungus, turning them into aggressive, mutated creatures with visible physical deformities. The journey to reach it—through collapsing ruins, flooded tunnels, and a final descent into a vast underground chamber—becomes the defining adventure of Drake's early career. The fortune's discovery reshapes the lives of everyone who touches it, setting the stage for the larger conspiracies that will plague Drake in the years that follow.

In Their Own Story

The Amazon rainforest swallows sound. Rain hammers the canopy in sheets, turning the river into a brown, churning artery. Nathan Drake crouches on the slick deck of a barge, water streaming down his face, and watches the silhouette of a gunboat crest the next bend. Beside him, Sully's jaw works silently, a grin splitting the stubble. "So," Drake says, his voice barely above the engine's drone. "You want to tell me where the tablet actually is, or do I keep guessing?"

Sully doesn't answer. He just raises his rifle and points it forward, where the jungle wall ahead seems to part into a mouth of stone. The barge groans. The water below churns with something that isn't fish. Drake grins. He always grins. It's the only prayer he knows.

Reader's Guide

Drake's Fortune follows Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan as they pursue the lost treasure of Francisco de Orellana, a 16th-century Spanish explorer who allegedly found El Dorado. The central MacGuffin is a stone tablet left by Orellana that serves as a map to his hidden cave-hoard. The campaign opens with a high-octane barge escape in the Amazon, establishing Drake's skill and the game's action-adventure tone. Early on, Drake crosses paths with Elena Fisher, a journalist researching the same legend, and the three form an uneasy alliance. As they piece together Orellana's trail through Peru and deeper into the jungle, the true antagonist is revealed: Sam Drake, Nathan's older brother, who has been hunting the fortune for years and will stop at nothing to claim it. Key turning points include the discovery of the stone tablet, Sam's betrayal and the shift from a treasure hunt to a survival race, and the final descent into Orellana's hidden cave. The game resolves with Drake and Sully escaping with the treasure, but the experience leaves both men changed and the legend of Drake's name cemented in the artifact world. As the series debut, Drake's Fortune introduces the core cast, the tone of wisecracking danger, and the central theme of a treasure hunter whose own past haunts him. It sets up the broader Drake saga by establishing Sully as his anchor, Elena as a recurring figure, and the idea that fame and fortune come with a price that compounds over time.

Did You Know?

• Drake's Fortune was one of the earliest titles to showcase the PlayStation 3's hardware capabilities, featuring cinematic set-pieces that became a benchmark for the console's launch window.
• The opening barge sequence, in which Drake and Sully fight their way off a sinking vessel off the coast of Panama, was designed to immediately demonstrate the game's blend of shooting, platforming, and environmental dest
• The title 'Drake's Fortune' is a deliberate double meaning: it refers both to the Orellana treasure at the heart of the plot and to the surname of the protagonist, Nathan Drake.
• The game's antagonists are Gabriel Roman and Atoq Navarro; Nathan's brother Sam does not appear in this game and was introduced later in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.