
Nathan learns that the Cintamani Stone isn't actually a Stone but the hardened resin sap from the Tree of Life. Drake searches for the Stone and witnesses Lazarević's soldiers and the Guardians battling throughout the city.

The party enters Shambhala and are attacked by the unsuited Guardians, allowing Nathan, Elena Fisher, and Chloe Frazer to escape the fracas into the city. The Guardians are seen scaling walls and jumping long distances.ĭrake, with the assistance of Harry Flynn, opens the entrance to Shambhala and they are attacked by suited Guardians but Lazarević and his soldiers arrive, shoot the guardians down with powerful weapons, and reveal the Guardians of Shambhala dressed in costumes to frighten trespassers. Later, Drake and Elena explore the monastery and catch glimpses of the suited Guardians attacking and being driven off by Zoran Lazarević's soldiers, trying to prevent the discovery of the entrance to Shambhala under the monastery. More suited Guardians attack and the two escape on a lift up to a mountain vista overlooking a monastery. They continue and find a large underground ice temple to learn that Schäfer shot the men in order to stop them from using the power of the Stone. They fight it off and learn that bullets do not damage the beast. Later, the explorers are attacked by the yeti-like suited Guardian. While Drake and Tenzin scale a rocky wall, a Yeti-like suited Guardian hiding in the shadows behind them, watches them and quickly disappears. Nate and Tenzin find the dead bodies of Karl's crew lying in different locations of the caves. Seventy years later, Schäfer sent Nathan Drake and Tenzin into the Himalayan ice caves to find his expedition. Once he discovered that the it would transform those who consume the resin into the Guardians, he killed his own men, preventing the power of the Stone from returning to Germany and altering history. In Borneo, Marco Polo's crew was swept away by a tsunami, the survivors ate the resin they took from Shambhala in a bid to survive, but the resin transformed them as well, leading to the men killing each other off.ĭuring the World War II era, a German explorer named Karl Schäfer led an expedition into the ice caves of the Himalayas to look for the Stone. They were very determined fighters, risking their lives to kill the trespassers. The Guardians were intelligent, having their own form of communication (instilling fear) and constructed weapons. Outside of Shambhala, the Guardians used Yeti-like costumes to protect their identity, frighten trespassers, and to keep them warm in the harsh Himalayan environment. For generations, these transformed men protected Shambhala from trespassers who sought to use the power of the Cintamani Stone (unbeknownst to them, the Stone was actually accumulated resin from the Tree of Life). As a result, they were transformed into aggressive purple-skinned, black-teethed defenders with inhuman strength, resilience, and mobility, as well as a limited healing factor and unnatural lifespan.

Long ago, the Guardians were humans who ate the blue resin produced from the Tree of Life in Shambhala.
