It’s finally here! The final part of Lara Croft’s origin story in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. From what we’ve seen everything from Lara’s latest adventure looks freaking awesome! The reboot of Tomb Raider has been very successful for new and old fans. The mix of exploration, emotional storytelling and epic action has blended beautifully and now we see the final phase for the origin story.
If you’ve not been convinced as of yet then here are five reasons on why you should be hyped for Shadow of the Tomb Raider!



1. More Tomb Raider

From early trailer and gameplay footage, we’ve seen that Lara will face her most challenging tombs to date. The first in the rebooted series offered some nicely designed tombs but a majority were too simple and short to finish. Rise of the Tomb Raider went in the right direction and expanded their designs and complexity. Now we can see that Shadow of the Tomb Raider will allow players to concur massively improved locations, with a higher level of polish, more complex puzzles and level designs which blend different elements of gameplay together.

This will be the defining moment when Tomb Raider takes back the crown from Uncharted, for most innovative and awesome Tomb designs.



2. Survival at its finest

Lara has been adapting with each new adventure and acquired skills which are vital for her survival. Shadow of the Tomb Raider will offer a wider variation of tactics and skills, which allow Lara to take on her enemies with brute force or elegant stealth.

Lara is able to use her bow to quietly take out roaming patrols and ensure the bodies are not found as she can string them up within the tree tops. She is able to take out enemies while using aspects of the level design, including foliage and water. The expansion of the level design means there’s more mechanics involved with Lara’s tactics and the stealth has been massively improved upon, making this a grander, more intense survival experience.



3. More like the old Tomb Raider games

Fans of the old Tomb Raiders games will be thrilled to see that Shadow of the Tomb Raider takes some pointers of the past games. There are tougher platforming sections, more exotic locations to explore and a story which feels more akin to the older games, involving the end of the world.

Lara will face an even tougher world design than ever before with a combination of set pieces, platforming sections and lateral elements which take inspiration from the older games. Plus the wildlife of the game is much more challenging to hunt and fighting dangerous animals will feel like a brutal reminder of what the older games did so well.

Not to forget that players can alter the difficulty for different aspects of the game. If you wanted to tweak the combat difficulty to be much harder or have puzzles be simpler, then you can do that with the new, in-depth difficulty options. You can make combat a breeze while having an intense lateral challenge. It’s really up to you.



4. Highly immersive world

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is pulling no punches in terms of its world building. Lara’s journey to South America is simply stunning, with an immense amount of detail and polish which makes the world feel highly organic. The environments harbour some impressive physics where even moving through mug looks pretty dam cool.



5. Hub world is much more alive

Lara will be venturing to different key locations on a massive map, but between those missions and venturing to dangerous sections, she will have some free time. Players can interact with the locals and find out important information regarding treasure and key points of interest. The merchant has been fleshed out to allow Lara to buy key items for her survival.

There’s also been an improvement for side missions and again they harbour more depth and complexity than the previous instalments. There are mini stories to these missions and seems like their layered to offer something more engaging as a side note.

There we go, 5 reasons to check out Shadow of the Tomb Raider which arrives on Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC on the 14th of September. Otherwise if you pre-order the digital deluxe edition of the game, you’ll be granted two whole days early access!

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