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1. METACRITIC SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER DEFINITIVE EDITION UPGRADE
2. METACRITIC SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER DEFINITIVE EDITION SERIES

Tombs will often have submerged areas, forcing you to dive to dislodge jammed machinery or locate items that have fallen into the depths. Swimming plays a bigger role in Shadow, with the addition of air pockets allowing for longer underwater sections. A welcome new feature in Shadow is being able to reduce or completely remove some of these elements, however, making exploring and puzzle-solving much more challenging and involved. But it can make exploration feel inorganic and prescribed, almost as if you can see the level designer placing each object.

This gives the game an undeniable flow, because you immediately know what to do when you see one of these cues. An object wrapped in rope can be pulled down or tethered to something. A smear of white paint indicates a surface that can be climbed or grabbed. If you see a pockmarked wall, you know you can use the climbing axe on it. Over the course of three games, the rebooted Tomb Raider has developed its own distinct visual language. But it’s the challenge tombs-big, fun, self-contained environmental puzzles with a prize at the end and a story to uncover through diaries and artifacts-that remain the most gratifying and worthwhile side activity.

METACRITIC SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER DEFINITIVE EDITION UPGRADE

There’s a lot of stuff to do in Shadow: killing animals to craft new outfits, scavenging for materials to upgrade weapons, uncovering hidden crypts. You can pick up side missions here too, helping locals with their troubles, but I never found any of them to be that interesting. The world-building in these regions is fantastic, and wandering around talking to people (and petting llamas) is a pleasant change of pace. There are also a few atmospheric hubs including a gorgeous, lively mountain city called Paititi. The world is large and interconnected, with areas that are inaccessible until you locate a certain piece of gear, and you have the ability to fast travel between campfires you’ve lit along the way. And the underwater stealth sections where you have have to hide from shoals of hungry piranha are every bit as terrible as they sound.

An enemy introduced later in the game turns it into a brainless, tedious shooter, loudly telegraphed by the abundance of shotgun ammo littered around the level. Playing it like a regular third-person shooter is much more difficult now, even when Lara upgrades her arsenal with shotguns and assault rifles, meaning stealth is usually the best option. But in Shadow the action set-pieces are well spaced out and, with a few notable exceptions, mostly entertaining. You'll naturally need a better GPU to play this at 4K.Īll the way through the previous game, Rise of the Tomb Raider, I groaned every time I had to slog through yet another boring gunfight. Some frame drops in really busy areas, but never frequent enough to make me lower any settings. Performance I played the game at 1440p/60fps, max settings, on a GTX 1080/i5-6600K/16GB RAM PC. Graphics options DirectX 12 (on/off), anti-aliasing (SMAA, TAA, SMAAT2x, SMAAT4x), texture quality (low-ultra), texture filtering (trilinear-16x anisotropic), depth of field (off-high), level of detail (lowest-ultra), tessellation (on/off), motion blur (on/off), screen space reflections (on/off), screen space contact shadows (off-high) It’s ancient history as taught by Indiana Jones, not Simon Schama. These exaggerated, dramatic structures could never exist or stay hidden in reality, of course, but their size, complexity, and theatricality give the game the feel of a pulpy adventure story. Every crypt, chamber, and corridor is decorated with detailed murals and elaborate carvings. The places you visit feel genuinely ancient, mysterious, and dangerous. The sense of place and scale in Shadow is frequently astonishing.

METACRITIC SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER DEFINITIVE EDITION SERIES

It triggers a series of devastating cataclysms, including a flash flood that destroys an entire city, and she travels to the jungles of Peru to try and stop the apocalyptic prophecy she unwittingly helped fulfil.Īnd it’s here where she finds those incredible tombs, temples, and towering tributes to the gods.

But the ornate dagger she plucks from a stone pedestal early in this game is a different story. Normally when Lara Croft finds an artifact it’s your reward for surviving a treacherous journey through a trap-ridden tomb.