Shadow of The Tomb raider
Croft Unoriginal
RELEASED OUT NOW! Reviewed on Ps4
Also on Xbox One and PC
Publisher square enix
No great city was built in a day and, by the same logic, no pilferer of said city can be made over the course of one game. Lara Croft returns for the final expedition in her reboot origin trilogy, venturing out from the snow of Siberia for the plentiful vegetation of Peru.
As in the last two games, there are plenty of crypts to corrupt as well as combat that can be stealthed and stabbed or loudly shot through. The greenery you find yourself immersed in is key to exploration, which remains rewarding in part thanks to the many well-researched artefacts you can find, but it now affords even more stealthy cover. Daubing yourself in mud and disappearing into the foliage is the long game but also the more satisfying combat strategy.
Featuring the series’ largest hub areas on land and underwater, the world is beautifully realised, to the point of threatening to upstage Lara. Camilla Luddington makes the most of the material she’s given, reliably battling through the wooden lines of an overly self-serious script that leaves its characterisation treading water. Unfortunately, the virtual locales you shoot and loot through are far more compelling than the apocalyptic stakes of the story or the promised, though ultimately untapped, depths of Croft’s psychological landscape. If you’re up to date on the franchise, this will largely feel like a retread. But if you’ve been out of the loop on all things Croft, it’s well worth feasting your eyes on this action-packed adventure.
The locales are far more compelling than Lara
You’ll be imbibing well-researched nuggets on Mayan history, through over 300 collectables hidden around huge hubs.