Rise of the Tomb Raider™

I came into Rise of the Tomb Raider expecting a competent follow-up to the 2013 reboot and left genuinely surprised by how much Crystal Dynamics had sharpened every tool in the box. The setup sends Lara Croft into Siberia chasing the legendary city of Kitezh while a paramilitary organisation called Trinity closes in behind her. The story is serviceable without being spectacular, the supporting cast is forgettable and the plot rarely strays from a predictable beats, but the world it uses as a backdrop is the real draw. Semi-open hub areas branch off from the main path, packed with challenge tombs, crypts, collectibles, and optional side missions that reward genuine exploration rather than marker-chasing. The moment-to-moment play lands well across the board. Combat gives you assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, the ice axe and combat knife for melee, plus a bow that does more work here than almost any other weapon in the genre. Stealth is meaningfully expanded compared to the 2013 game: you can crouch through vegetation, throw bottles to distract patrol routes, pick off targets silently with the bow, and clear entire camps without ever triggering an alert. The enemy AI uses a "lost target" system where alerted guards fan out searching rather than immediately pinpointing you, which gives the stealth the breathing room it needs to feel satisfying. If you prefer going loud, the same encounter works fine played aggressively, the choice is genuine, not cosmetic. Some critics noted that later combat sections trend repetitive, and melee in particular feels looser than the ranged options, but those are fair complaints about a game whose average quality sits well above genre peers. The challenge tombs are where the sequel most visibly corrects the 2013 original's mistakes. Each one is now a dedicated multi-stage space rather than a single-room physics puzzle, and the better ones genuinely evoke the puzzle-box feel of older entries in the series. Completing them hands you skill codexes and upgrades that carry real weight through the skill tree, the Survivor, Brawler, and Hunter branches cover crafting efficiency, combat perks, and resource gathering respectively. Crafting itself sits somewhere between essential and optional: you can upgrade weapons and craft improvised tools from scavenged parts, but the resource-gathering loop occasionally tips into busywork, particularly once skill tree unlocks trivialise hunting. It never breaks the game, but it does overstay its welcome. On PC specifically, the port delivered in 2016 and continues to hold up. The Siberian environments are genuinely striking, dense forests, frozen rivers, crumbling Soviet installations, and the game scales well across hardware. Controller support is solid and honestly recommended for the platforming, which relies on a satisfying jump-grab-slip rhythm that keeps traversal engaging even on straightforward routes. The 20-year celebration edition on Steam includes the story DLC, which adds several hours and the Croft Manor chapter. The main campaign runs roughly 15-20 hours with moderate side content completion, more if you're a completionist. This is the rare sequel that improves on its predecessor in almost every system without losing what made the original click. If you bounced off the 2013 game, Rise probably won't convert you, the formula is the same but more polished, not reinvented. If you liked even half of that game, this one is worth your time at nearly any price point.

Alex · Scout Team

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