The story is full of the right kind of danger and intrigue

The story is full of the right kind of danger and intrigue

Its story is full of the right kind of danger and intrigue, its tombs are dastardly, and I was as struck by its huge, romantic environments as I was as a kid playing the original. Although I could have done with a few more puzzles and fewer firefights overall, I enjoyed every rollicking, big-hearted second of it.

Like its predecessor, Rise of the Tomb Raider revels in an ever-so-slightly-sci-fi and ultimately very fun high-concept involving a hunt for an artifact that grants eternal life. It’s broad, Indiana Jones stuff that gallops along at a great clip through gloriously over-the-top sequences grounded with a strong emotional throughline.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is, at its core, about Lara and her late father, and actress Camilla Luddington’s thoughtful performance as Lara sells us on the complicated relationship she has with the ghosts he left behind.

Not that combat a chore. While its third-person shooting is the least inspired aspect of Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara can now build nail bombs, smoke bombs, molotov cocktails, and special ammo while on the fly, all of which can turn a mundane shootout into a pile of dead bodies in seconds. It’s a fun, vicious, and slightly ridiculous new ability which adds a great deal of variety to enemy encounters.

Rise of the Tomb Raider’s much-touted stealthy approach rather redundant. While you do get XP bonuses for stealth takedowns and you can hide in bushes and up trees, she’s such a potent fighter that I didn’t find any real incentive to avoid combat altogether. It was much more enjoyable to cause as much destruction as possible and gain bonuses for headshots and multiple kills using a combination of crafted items and Lara’s significant arsenal.

Happily, playing with the latter is still nice and crunchy. Weapons are upgradable based on parts you can find scattered throughout the world, which injects new novelty into combat every few hours. Like in the last game, I found myself gravitating towards the shotgun and bow; the former for its lethal incendiary bullets, the latter for its wide-reaching poison arrows. Lara’s as powerful as a Terminator by the end of Rise of the Tomb Raider on standard difficulty mode, however - something to be considered when choosing how you want to play.