A bit surprised with this one, given how bad I thought the previous two installments were, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is surprisingly more competent in it's narrative than it's predecessors.

However, glaring problems still remain, specifically in certain areas of gameplay and optimisation as well as some areas of the story that didn't quite feel as interesting as the rest of it.

It's hard to say whether the gameplay is better because it also felt a lot less present. It expands on nothing aside from two mechanics that aren't that prevalent and wouldn't have made much of a difference without. I still find a lot of the idle gameplay awkward and slow and I wish things were more smoothed out (such as being able to use comms without slowing down.) I also don't understand what certain traversal mechanics (accelerating up a rope) were completely abandoned in this installment.

The voice work is so much better than before and feels so much more serious and polished, the narrative has both some interesting and bad ass moments that also merge into some gameplay set pieces, but I think it falls off in certain areas (Paititi) that just feel like a sludge to power through.

In the end, they improved on things and unimproved on others. An almost good game that if handled a bit differently could have been something surprisingly very well done for this lack-luster reboot trilogy.

Reviewed on Jan 19, 2023


Comments