To me, this was the equivalent of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, in that it tries so desperately to give nuance and perspective to a franchise and concepts that the designers are pretty obviously embarrassed about, but don't have the courage to confront head on. As a result, the game feels like a cowardly attempt to revise the franchise's reputation in what ultimately is a pretty bland effort to make a game about smashing and beheading into a Last of Us lookalike. To compound things, they added an upgrade system that is utterly uninspired, and a companion that barely does anything because God forbid we run the risk of making Kratos' son mechanically annoying.

Overall, an incredibly spineless work. The fact that it received nothing but accolades probably means it's going to get more and more tone-deaf from here, so get ready for another Tomb Raider trilogy situation!

Reviewed on May 31, 2021


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