Part of what made Tomb Raider such a revelatory experience was the way Lara was written and the characters she was surrounded with. If you miss an early tomb and head back with your grappling hook and explosive arrows, it might be a very different (and quicker) experience, and this helps make the game feel more like a breathing world. The puzzles are fun, too, and they're not magically immune to the systems the game has put in place, either. The way they're presented and spread out feels like the same way pharaoh tombs are distributed in Egypt The game has Lara searching for a lost city, and this city was once a flourishing place and the tombs are devoted to the people who helped make the city happen. The story, which I'll go into more depth on below, explains the presence of so many tombs so close together in a way that unifies them in both story and design. There was no moment during the development process where someone said, 'Oh we should probably put some tombs in this game too.' They don't feel like cheap last-minute additions, either.

They don't make up a majority of the time, but some quality time can be spent with them and they'll end up taking a few hours of gameplay depending on how fast you whip through them. Tombs are a big part of Rise of the Tomb Raider. Even without those, the way the tool changes basic navigation was refreshing for me, and made the already fun traversal feel fresh all over again. There are areas that are inaccessible without it, of course, and those moments are fun too, if a bit scripted. Ledges you might've missed can be grappled at the last second, meaning that you spend less time watching Lara's skull get dashed against rocks again and again. The grappling hook is required to get to some areas, but it affects the entire game. The best moment, though, came when I picked up the tool that turned the climbing axe into a grappling hook. While I think the tool was a bit underused, it was still a fun one. Lara finds yet another use for arrows in Rise as she picks up some industrial-strength arrows that she can bury in some surfaces to use as a climbing bar. Climbing that feels both organic and fun is probably a holy grail for these types of games and one we won't see achieved for a while yet, but climbing is as good as it's ever been here. Lara has her climbing axes from the start and never loses them.Climbing is more fun and dynamic as the surfaces you're climbing on are more likely to fall apart under you, even if it's still not terribly realistic. Right from the outset, climbing is more fun. The rope arrow is back and functions roughly the same as before, but there are a few new tools to enjoy, too. The areas in Rise of the Tomb Raider are well designed to take advantage of all of Lara's different abilities, and just enough areas are barred off by a lack of tools that it's worth going back with your new toys to explore once or twice after you've finished an area. That's not meant to take away from the combat or anything else, it's just that getting there is really fun. In Rise of the Tomb Raider, just getting there is at least half of the fun. Whether it's how much stuff there is to see or how you get there, the ride has to be good enough to stay fresh as long as you're playing. The most important thing about a game as open as Rise of the Tomb Raider is that it be fun to simply navigate the map. Instead, it's more of a refinement, and it's a damn fine one at that.Įverything that made Tomb Raider great has been improved upon and amplified. A huge overhaul like we saw with Tomb Raider wouldn't have made sense or maybe even have been possible at this point. Rise of the Tomb Raider just isn't a revelation.

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