Shadow of the Tomb Raider Shows How Lara Croft Can Be Smart and Resourceful

Square wants to make sure we know that Lara as not to be messed with

Like we didn't have two games to hammer that point across.

Sammy please stop 😂

Yeah but will we actually be infiltrating tombs/temples and solving puzzles, or will this be another shoot first raid later kinda deal...

And fake.

I ate some plants this morning to see if I could slow down time and all I got was the plaps. Of course, it did feel like I was on the toilet for ages so maybe time DID slow down.

If she was really so smart she wouldn't have accidentally unleashed the apocalypse in the first place!

@LaNooch1978 Oh yeah - hold down X for a courtesy fllush. They can reuse most of the climbing grunts for sound clips.

@doctommaso Don't worry, the 9,999 other trailers (sigh) showed massive tombs, much larger than any in the reboot trilogy thusfar and filled with complex traps, puzzles and what look like giant evil tie racks. There'll be at least eight of them in the game at launch, with even more added via DLC every month for six months afterwards. There's going to be plenty of tomb raiding to be done.

@Jake3103 The tagline in 2013 was "A Survivor is Born" (born = beginning) and I'm not sure how else to interpret the title for Rise of the Tomb Raider, other than her rise being in progress. It's a trilogy, we've known it's a trilogy since 2013, so that's a beginning, middle and end for Lara becoming the Tomb Raider. I'm not quite sure how much clearer SquareEnix could make it?

I'm continually amazed at the shade being thrown on this game. Of course it's gonna be more of the same; the previous two games were hugely successful, reviewed well and combine with Shadow to make a complete trilogy. Dozens of franchises have changed or added far less than Shadow is doing, and nobody gave them grief. As for the marketing approach, remember this game was only announced in April; they're spending a year's worth of PR budget in five months (and they're spending it really, really well). Other games have started to release multiple trailers, but they're longer and more spaced-out; Shadow's trailers are less than 30 seconds and more frequent, so they're punchy and perfect for modern YouTube attention spans. The only people I can imagine getting frustrated with them are games journalists expected to turn each one into an article.

As for what's revealed in this new clip, it's yet more progress with upgrades and skills far, far beyond what was available in the previous two games. Everything we've seen thusfar has either delivered requests from fans (remove the white paint, vocal immersion, free swimming, customisable difficulty) or just dialled everything up to eleven. I think it looks awesome.

I'm prepared to be wrong; looks can be deceptive, and it's all edited snippets after all, but I'd rather pre-judge with optimism than immediately condemn something before it's released.

@Jake3103 That's fair. Apologies, I think I let some of my frustration take over my keyboard back there.

I think a lot of people expect Tomb Raider to be this huge, blockbuster thing and in an age where failure and controversy sells copy and generates clicks, people are taking any edge of "it looks okay" and using it to predict disaster.

As always, everybody's own mileage will vary. Here's hoping those dropping a large amount of money on it (£80 for the Croft Edition; not quite CoD territory, but pretty close) aren't disappointed.

@kixem Yeah, whilst there were incremental changes in Rise, I don't think they made enough of an impact. I think I'd have been disappointed if I'd played it at launch; thankfully, I'm a PlayStation gamer, so I could only get it late, but with all the DLC, extra modes, bonus skins and whatnot. Made it feel like much more of a game than 2013, even if it was all post-release bells and whistles.

What's making me excited for Shadow is that all those bells and whistles seem to be present and correct at launch, and with a few more thrown in for good measure, too. I reckon handing development to Eidos Montreal might actually turn out to be a good thing, because they've got that external perspective on what's come before.

@LaNooch1978 Sales numbers aren't a test of quality, though. I see your point (because of the unfortunate nature of how the games industry, and society on the whole, gauges success nowadays) but just because other good games come out around the same time won't have any impact on Shadow's quality. The only concern is that journalists will rush through it and dismiss it off-hand because they're trying to focus on something they think is more popular, because then you've got the one-two punch of low sales and low Metacritic numbers.

There are strong rumours that there'll be a break for a couple years, then some remasters or remakes of older games will pop up (kinda like Anniversary). Regardless of how Shadow performs, I think that'd be a wise move for the franchise.

@LaNooch1978 That you did. My apologies.

I loved the first reboot, Rise not so much but it was alright. It being xbox only for a year killed my hype and enthusiasm. Plus the game went more... open world? Lots of fluff that ruined the pacing and got a bit boring but kind of bugged me to leave.

@RogerRoger Thanks much for the clarification! I am now officially really excited about the game, rather then pretty excited. I'm a huge TR fan from day one, so hearing the tombs have been altered to make for a more true-to-Croft experience is extremely encouraging. I'm actually looking forward more to this than to Spiderman now.