EGX 2015 - Rise Of The Tomb Raider Preview

This is purely a short preview of my experiences with the Rise of the Tomb Raider 15-min demo. If you’d like to read a further detailed analysis of narrative and mechanical figures of this latest reboot in comparison to the original Tomb Raider games that built Lara Croft’s foundations, as well as extended thoughts on this preview, click here.

After an arduous couple of hours of reluctant queuing, there I was, pushing the joystick half-way through to make Lara walk and thus savour my precious instants with the second instalment in the latest Tomb Raider reboot. But just like after playing the first one, I was unsurprisingly crestfallen, being able to sum up my experience with that half-hearted joystick push.

The showcased demo started with a flashy cutscene summarising how Lara ends up in a car wreck somewhere near the Syrian border, because that’d prove that she’s braver and a bigger adventurer than any other archaeologist alive — although archaeologist would imply that what she does for a living is within the moral norm. The prodigious amount of pain and suffering inflicted on Lara is really the only empathy trigger of the game, besides being less of an asshole than any other character. And this seems to be also present in this latest instalment. In Rise of the Tomb Raider, choosing Syria as the location given the current situation also seems a bit problematic as it serves to remark on Lara’s self-adoring need for thrill. The same goes for raiding tombs and declaring yourself an archaeologist. New Lara’s intended relatability is way too shaky to consider raiding tombs legitimate.

I’m given control as Lara enters caverns in the mountains of Syria. An on-rails segment asks you to push the joystick forward for over a minute while Lara advances through a narrow crevice-like entrance to the system of caverns. She trips over, her chemical light stick goes off and as she breaks the next one, a scorpion on top of a skull tries to delight us with some mediocre jump-scares. And perhaps here lay my main problem with this game: its tendency to limit your control through scripts and short cinematics you have no partake in.

As we progress, I find collectibles and crates with coins and experience, in what it seems a series of dungeon-like crypts. Whereas collectibles are a good addition in order to enrich the narrative, experience is a trend-service RPG-style level up system that will eventually allow you to unlock certain weapons and upgrades. The intricacy of this system, compared to old Lara’s straightforward and varied arsenal makes new Lara give the impression that she’s trying to make up of some lackadaisical combat system which would otherwise get old too soon.

Coming back to the showcase, admittedly the visual design of the environments is on point in terms of how beautiful and impressive everything looks, with dust, light and water particles all about as you break a centuries-ancient mausoleum.The environment was littered with mummified corpses, impaled by every kind of bladed weapon, and it perfectly conveyed the desolation after the battle that had taken place hundreds of years before. It helps tell perfectly the story — or a glimpse of it — of the Order of Trinity, which is pursuing the elimination of certain prophet. Coincidentally, Lara’s intentions are somewhat aligned, seeking the aforementioned prophet’s tomb. However, the interactivity of this level of fidelity decreases in an inversely proportionate way. 

As I walked on, I solve platform puzzles in a very linearly-designed level — usually by shooting at some lever —, and I am drowned with a litany of in-game scripts that take control off of me for some seconds, only to return it when the ‘danger’ has disappeared. In some of these I found one of the most notable inclusions in this latest release: the swimming segments. However, as much anticipated as this addition may be, it can’t help but to fall short. Swimming at the surface can be a relatively painless affair, but diving underwater allows you to only swim at certain level, being impossible to go deeper to reach for the bottom.

And again, now wet to my toes, I solve a few more preschool puzzles to find the prophet’s tomb, now empty. As this happens, a SWAT team — or some lookalike commando team — blasts through the ceiling — redeeming Lara for the wreck she made —, and engage in an agitated argument with Lara about the location of the prophet’s amulet, while pointing guns at each other. “I thought you had it!”, “Me? No, I thought you had it”. “You are… Trinity”, says Lara. As Lara realises they’re the bad guys, in her all-ethical attitude, she decides to steal a detonator from these fellas and blow up the whole mausoleum. Oh well, we’ll think about the moral implications as we shoot our way out.

Look at her, poor Lara.