Shadow of the Tomb Raider - our review

Everything ends sooner or later ...

The new life of the most famous archaeologist of all time is back to live her latest adventure, after the remake born in 2013.

Lara Croft is a kind of undisputed heroine in the field of video games, ever since she was a simple polygonal model that was particularly “generous” in size.

This chapter sets itself the difficult task of completing the trilogy that saw us "grow" together with Lara, following her in every possible and imaginable misadventure far and wide across the globe.

We grow, sooner or later ...

The most appreciated aspect of this trilogy by Crystal Dynamics and continued by Eidos Montreal and Square Enix is ​​precisely the psychological one of the protagonist, if in fact in the adventures of 2013 we had met an awkward and frightened Lara, 2015 led to a greater awareness of the archaeologist, to become the expert tomb raider we know today.

The effort of the two software houses, however, ignores the purely psychological aspect, in fact it is clearly understandable what other purpose is presented in front of gamers, the desire to offer an exploratory title mixed with a survival style, as visible from the fact that our heroine is expert in crafting like any bricklayer from Bergamo or the legendary Sister Nausicaa of Colorado.

That throne is mine ...

It is quite clear that the production wants to bring Lara to confront Nathan Drake, protagonist of the excellent saga created by Naughty Dog, a challenge that the undersigned considers particularly difficult. Although Croft is the undisputed godmother of games dedicated to adventure and exploration, Drake and the Naughty Dog team have blown her scepter and crown, thanks to a series in decline and the exceptional skill of the Californian team.

Screen

Shadow of the Tomb Raider starts with our very lucky heroine victim of a plane crash (I would recommend other means, but she would destroy them anyway), before we see the crash to the ground, the game drags us back a few days (what game would it be without flashback? ).

The flashback is set shortly after the events of Rise of the Tomb Raider and sees the protagonist talking to her inseparable companion in misfortune Jonah. Both are somewhere in Mexico and are looking for a Mayan artifact, but they are not alone in the search, in fact there is also the Trinity, an ancient secret society that since 978 AD has been investigating supernatural phenomena in order to increase its power.

This particular hunt between cats and mice takes place during "El Dia de Muertos" (a festival that has achieved growing notoriety, especially thanks to the cinema, in fact we can remember the beautiful Disney-Pixar film Coco and 007 Specter), this time, however, the Trinity arrives first, leaving a nice present for both of them.

Despite the unexpected explosion, Lara manages to collect some important information, which leads her to a precious and very dangerous artifact, a dagger that would have the power to upset the world, causing earthquakes, tsunamis and any other possible and imaginable disaster.

Our heroine, in order not to let him end up in the hands of the Trinity, decides to take him and run away, unfortunately once again, the "bad guy" of the game aka Pedro Dominguez reaches Lara and deprives her of the dagger, telling her a delusional vision of a better world, like every movie villain.

After this stumbling block, Lara in the throes of guilt, tries to run for cover by looking for Dominguez in Peru, where the latter is about to carry out his distorted truth.

Here I interrupt all communication regarding the plot, the beauty lies in the discovery and if I deprived you of this pleasure I would be the victim of numerous voodoo curses, I just have to tell you explore and have fun.

Analyzing the narrative plot, it can be safely said that it fully reflects many of the great American film productions, despite this Shadow of the Tomb Raider cannot keep the player's pathos high, alternating “light” situations with other hyperadrenaline ones.

Exploration is everything ...

A painful premise is necessary, as many will know by now, this Shadow of the Tomb Raider is quite short if you run wild, in fact the approach to Usain Bolt will lead you to live an experience of 10 hours or so. The essence of the game and myself advise instead to live and fully breathe the air of the Peruvian forest, in order to discover the secrets that have been hidden by those leaves for millennia.

The game will also provide you with secondary missions, but apart from rare cases they will be limited to fetch quests, the nice thing about these trivial missions is the fact that it will take you to explore every hidden corner of this mysterious territory, reviving the the player's dormant explorer, who, wandering among foliage and monkeys, will look for crevices and treasures everywhere.

And the graves?

There would be no Tomb Raider, without the exploration of ancient caves overflowing with traps and treasures, this iteration of the game also contains the tombs and crypts (the first are 9 in total, as in the previous chapter, they will seem more to you, thanks at an increased extent along with the challenge rate.

Combat System

Lara has learned a lot over the last few years, although the first few hours of the game don't show us any memorable fights in any way. The "shooting" system has not changed at all and the heaviness of the movements could become boring, but you will be overwhelmed by habit and by a growing invitation to use stealth.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider at higher difficulties leads you to appreciate a more silent style, although the enemies are not very awake, at the first opportunity they will fill you with lead the "Terminator" style will not help.

In addition, it must be added that Lara herself, thanks to some not bad guerrilla techniques, one above all is taken from the famous film Predator (1987), it is precisely the one used by Schwarzy in order not to be intercepted by the complex thermal technology of the alien, here the 'use is limited to shielding the visibility of the Croft, but it is nevertheless brilliant and satisfying.

Skill tree

To best take down the enemies and to face this adventure anything but rosewater, it will be necessary to improve the skills of our Lara, although she is no longer a beardless pivellina, certain environments require more tricks up their sleeves.

The skill tree has remained almost the same, giving it a new and particularly impactful graphic style in the first moments of the game, but which by unlocking the possibilities will enrich your lethal bow with arrows.

Artistic sector

The growth of the brand dedicated to the famous archaeologist sees one of its strong points in the artistic sector, in fact it is not possible to remain glacial in the face of a respectable graphic design that counts both polygonal models of very good quality, and breathtaking settings that will hardly come out from your memory.

High quality light effects and particles that make caves, tombs and forests almost photorealistic, at the limit of immersion. Despite the excellent work from the graphic point of view, the comparison with Uncharted 4 inexorably leans in favor of the latter.

As for the audio, the producers of Shadow of the Tomb Raider preferred to eliminate distracting background music by preferring the "noises of nature", which give their best in headphones, you will think you are right there in the midst of howler monkeys, jaguars and fish of any shape or color.

The PS4 Pro experience

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is at its best on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. Specifically, we had the opportunity to try the game on PS4 Pro as well. You can select two different settings. The first, allows the game to run at 1080p (graphically does not differ from standard consoles) with a framerate locked at 60  frames per second, favoring fluidity, while the latter tries to reach the resolution 4K (unfortunately it stops at 1872p) with 30 frames per second.

We tested the game in both modes (we preferred the one that favors resolution) and it seemed to run pretty well. Only in terms of framerate, we noticed some slight drops, both in the first and in the second mode, during the most excited situations, for example during some fights. As far as graphics performance is concerned, the game looks great on all platforms. On PS4 Pro, we really liked the compelling lighting system that can bring out any gaming environment.