Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

This game. This trilogy. First of all, I must say that I never played any of the older Tomb Raider. So I can only comment on the three most recent games.

But this is about Shadow. This have to be one the most gorgeous games I've seen in the last few years. The jungle and temples sceneries are beautiful, and even though it's mostly what you will see -jungle and temples-, the devs have detailed it very very well. And, it's one of those rares games where they actually included flora that move when you move through them.

The gameplay is fun, a lot more stealth oriented than the previous two games, although there is still combats and hunting. Some annoying moments, for sure, especially against a certain type of enemy. The puzzles and plateforms moments, although sometime very complicated (or I was very tired) were usually fun, more than a lot of moment in the previous games.

The story is good. Not the best in the trilogy in my opinion, but that's ok. I don't ask every chapter in a serie to be better than the last.

To me, this game is a solid 8.5/10. But, I think you need to at least have finished the previous two games, because as the closing chapter of the trilogy, a lot is build on the previous stories, and a lot of references are made.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☑ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☑ Can get annoying (some bugs)
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ Replayability }---
☐ One and done
☑ Maybe after a year
☐ Worth a second run
☐ Played it 20 times and still not bored

---{ Microtransactions }---
☐ None
☑ cosmetics and other stuff
☐ Slightly pay-to-progress
☐ Pay-to-win
☐ More shops than gameplay
☐ Casino Simulator

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

I just finished playing this absolutely amazing game. I would certainly recommend this great game to any and all Tomb Raider fans, the game doesn't disappoint. While I played the Definitive Edition, I played all of the DLC's and each and every chapter is a whole story all into itself also gives some side characters the ability to give you a few extra missions with really good gear and outfits to help you in your additional quests in the game. It is a heck of a lot of fun and the New Game plus let's you play the game with all your skills unlocked and you can play the game as many times as you want.

Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Definitive Edition is the most amazing game I have ever played I cannot to continue to play it again really soon.

Overview

Shadow of the Tomb Raider concludes the survivor trilogy, but I was honestly disappointed by it. The storyline is the weakest of the three, disjointed and inconsistent, making it hard to get into. But why do I still recommend this game even though it has the worst storyline in the trilogy? because of its improved gameplay, which I will discuss more in the "Gameplay" section. In my opinion, Mathias was the best antagonist in the trilogy. Konstantin was decent too. However, Dr. Dominguez felt underwhelming in comparison. I was hoping for a more intimidating villain, but it felt like a downgrade. They didn't change Lara's character model this time (which is a good thing), but the skin textures looked less detailed than Rise of the Tomb Raider. On the upside, there's noticeable improvement in hair rendering. Camilla Luddington delivers a decent performance, but the dialogue occasionally feels weak.

Gameplay

This game focuses more on exploration and has less combat compared to the previous one. Though I had fun exploring Peru, as the world-building and environment are gorgeous, and I believe they have been very consistent with it throughout the trilogy. It turns into horror for a bit, with an eerie atmosphere executed effectively. Combat mechanics are largely similar to the previous game, and I had fun taking the stealthy route. Lara can camouflage herself with mud, use fear arrows to turn enemies against each other and perform brutal stealth takedowns from trees or underwater. The expanded skill tree offers diverse playstyles, and weapon customisation remains robust. The best part of this game are the tombs, there are a total of 16 challenge tombs (including DLCs) in this game. They are more elaborate and challenging than Rise of the Tomb Raider, often requiring players to engage with multiple mechanics and think critically to progress. The increased difficulty and depth of these puzzles offer a more rewarding experience. Additionally, the atmospheric design and the environmental storytelling contribute to a more immersive and engaging experience. "Howl of the Monkey Gods" was my personal favourite.

Downsides

While this game excels in atmosphere and exploration, the narrative execution was quite bad (as mentioned in the "Overview" section). Other than that, there's not much to talk about here, except some occasional texture pop-ins and camera glitches.

Conclusion

Personally, the trilogy could have ended in a better way. The tombs were amazing, I would go so far as to say one must play Shadow of the Tomb Raider once, just to experience the tombs. With the new Tomb Raider game being in development for quite a while now, I hope we get some updates soon. Until then - keep exploring!

After playing Tomb Raider, Rise Of The Tomb Raider and Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, I can say that this series improves with every addition. Shadow Of The Tomb Raider will remain as the best within the series. Showcasing Lara Crofts past and choices leading to many lives being saved. The exploration was the most noticeable improvement and combat mechanics. Great game and series and I would highly recommend this series to anyone looking for an adventurous time.

Honestly, this might be the worst in the series. Long story short:
If you like harvesting worthless resources for a broken upgrade system, buying worthless items, being told you can't wear half your outfits in certain areas for unknown reasons, and cutscenes that feel like pure padding, then you will like this game.

However, the jungle setting is fantastic. The game is worth it just for that. It's a shame all the other, many changes only hurt the game.

Can never go wrong with this franchise. Some of the puzzles are kinda lame, but great game, as always.

This is an amazing game if you use it with mods. I haven't tried a VR setup with this game, but if my laptop running an RTX4070 can handle it, then I'm sure it will be even better.

The game is gorgeous, the combat is fluid, the stealth is good.
The extra tombs that you can explore are intriguing and fun, I loved the challenge they offered.
The game can become a bit more annoying when playing on the highest difficulty, but I must admit that even then it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

All in all, it is a nice way of tying the trilogy (10/10).

bad game, waste of time on lots of walking talking climbing, low action, puzzles are un understandabel, rise of the tomb raider was the best game full of action, weapons, crafting, but shadows is a complete shit

This game is worse than the previous game. The cutscenes are even longer, they made every side character annoying and they somehow made discovery and exploration uninteresting. Which sucks, cause this is arguably the best setting yet.

Once you find the lost city, you are somehow immediately trusted by one of the factions there and despite looking different than everyone else and everyone commenting on this fact, you somehow are able to stay in disguise around the enemy faction. This shit is so dumb and far away from the lone wolf feeling of the first reboot game and the original games. Also, why does Jonah look completely different and why is he an annoying passive aggressive bitch this time around?

At least the stores make sense in this one.

I'm not done with it yet. I'll finish this damn game and update my review but I'm not gonna be happy doing it, that's for sure.

After being pleasantly surprised by 2015's Rise of the Tomb Raider, a game that built upon the foundation laid by its own predecessor by including more exploration elements from the original games and adding to the combat and platforming, I decided to give Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the final instalment in the Survivor trilogy, a go. I had seen reviews that this was the worst of the three, but had figured it would be fairly consistent with the other two regardless, but somehow, this game, which also builds on the platforming and combat of Rise while including more elements from the classic games, is a huge step down in quality.

In some ways it is consistent with the previous games. Platforming is about the same level of quality as in Rise, with extra focus on the grapple axe and the new additions of rappeling and overhead climbing. Precision jumping is still impossible, but the platforming is actually a nice diversion. Lara's combat moves are essentially the same as in Rise, with a dodge scramble, no being stuck behind cover, and unlockable new abilities like a Batman style takedown from tree branches, meaning the foundations for a fun shooter are there on the player's side. The setting and environments are also great, this game taking place in the Amazon, giving some great MGS3 jungle vibes, especially with changeable costumes and the ability to cover yourself in mud to aid in stealth. Graphically, the environments and art direction are very strong, though not every character model has the same love put into it, with Lara, Jonah, and Dominguez being obvious favourites.

So if the game has a better setting and the same core gameplay, what went wrong? Firstly, the stronger elements from the original game aren't followed through properly. Lara spends much of her time in Shadow exploring temples, shrines, a church, and at one point, even breaks into a Tomb, like the name of the game, but these are so simplistic and linear it begs the question of what the point really was. For the most part, puzzles were more complex in the previous two games, which already had highly simplified puzzles compared to the original, and there are no locked doors in any of them, just simple puzzles to progress to the next room, with no enemies in many of them. Some of these areas only require platforming to get through without any puzzle solving. It genuinely makes me wonder if the team had played the first Tomb Raider or not. In that game, Tombs take up whole levels and are filled with Zelda/Resident Evil style key hunting and puzzles that ask you to understand 3D space to navigate. Even the first Tomb in Tomb Raider 1 is more complex than the temples in Shadow, and it's made up of a handful of rooms, later tombs are sprawling behemoths to navigate. So yes, the inclusion of temples and shrines as part of the main plot in Shadow is welcome, but the execution is highly lacking. I understand that fans of the previous two games potentially would only play for the combat and be put off if this game suddenly forced them to complete Zelda style dungeons, but if the reasoning was to allow for more combat, I have more questions.

Combat is the big elephant in the room, and it's time I addressed it. Shadow of the Tomb Raider fails to live up to the shooter gameplay of its predecessors because it simply doesn't have combat in it. I am of course exaggerating, there are some combat encounters here. But for over 5 hours, I did not come across a proper combat arena (excluding the Jaguar fight, meaning with human enemies) like in the first two games, and only a handful of small skirmish encounters, many of which were clearly scripted to allow one highly easy way through. In the early game, the stealth that was such a big part of approaching groups in the previous games also didn't seem to work; on one encounter, which I restarted multiple times to test this, I would wait until the Survivor Instinct told me a lone soldier was not being viewed by his comrades, then headshot him with the bow, a silent weapon, and every time I did this, every enemy in the area somehow knew exactly where I was and I had to play through the scenario as a shooter, without stealth, despite the game telling me stealth was possible. In fact, it wasn't until a story development where Lara lost all her weapons except for her knife that stealth seemed to work. After I got my weapons back, it gave me encounters where enemies permanently viewed one another and all wore helmets, rendering stealth impossible again. The game pretends to give you a wealth of options in approaching encounters, but really every encounter it has a set way it wants you to play. At the same time, enemy AI seems worse than in previous games, with enemies all just rushing you once they know where you are instead of using cover and forcing you to move around like in previous games most encounters. And after all this, there are only a few combat encounters in the whole game. The late game combat sections are like the early game sections from the first two. Half the time NPCs actually do the combat for you, such as in the Unuratu prison break section in which I killed two guards (who were positioned perfectly for stealth kills with no effort from me) and she killed the other four. Such a disappointment.

If the temples are watered down and there's no combat in it, all the game really has to grab you with is its story, which is really bad. It's essentially a retread of Rise's story, with Lara going up against Trinity, except this time it's the leader of Trinity and he actually has reasons for wanting to reshape the world, Lara finding a secret civilisation, there being ancient magical creatures to protect the plot macguffin (that you fight once in the whole game) and even an early game fight with wild animals. If the gameplay was actually existent, the plot would have been serviceable enough if a worse retread of the former game, but as it stands it just drags, and at a scene by scene level the writing can be summed up by one scene where Unuratu gives Lara a key and tells her to take it, they both walk down a corridor together, and at the end of that corridor Lara uses the key to open a door. Pointless. I did like the elements of Lara becoming a darker and more vengeful person, but they didn't commit to that, and that was also due to the actions of a guy who they build up as a major antagonist only for him to be killed in a cutscene by an NPC. It's weak stuff, and that's without even mentioning the number of obnoxiously long forced walking sections that suck all the joy out of some of the well crafted areas in the game like Paititi.

It's a shame because I like Tomb Raider and I wanted to like this one just as much as Rise, but the pacing and the actual balance of the gameplay itself is completely wrong. Save your money and play a different Tomb Raider game instead.

definitive edition stills pack with glitches and crash.

if you enable dx12 your game will crash every 5 mins with this: Crashing with DXGI Error it was a in the base game and still in definitive edition
The graphics are ok but so many hair glitches, rope glitch that the game doesn't feel polished.
You can enable an option call Voice-over immersion. basically, this will make people speak their native language. However, it is very stupid to keep Lara to speak only English they interact with people in the middle of the jungle of Peru that speaks Spanish. Either Lara speak Spanish, even a broken one would have been so much better for integration than one speak English and the other Spanish.
Gameplay: Nothing has change here
The game needs to throw a Cinematic every 5 mins. it feels the game is slow and sluggish.
The climbing and parkour are just not as exciting and fresh, and inconsistent in terms of execution. Sometimes you don't even know if it's a bug or not.
Traveling and exploration is a chore, and only for the sake of collecting stuff.
The change of Look of Lara is also very annoying.

Story after 4h is ok but not really great. I will probably just rush through to get conclusion or watch it on Youtube.

1. This game = Story driven + Badass Main Character + Action and/or Stealth gameplay + Tombs exploration & its puzzles.

2. This game is very good sequel to previous tomb raider games but I liked the first two games of this series far more = i.e. "Tomb Raider 2013" and "Rise of the Tomb Raider 2015."

3. I liked this game but it has too much side content that you get side-tracked very easily which I didn't like.

4. This game have semi-game breaking bug in this DLC = "the monkey one with huge drums" and the somewhat glitchy DLC = "pillar type one where we have to use lots of fire arrows".

5. This games takes less than (20 hours to finish = if only doing the main story) but with + [all the side missions and challenge tombs it takes less than 45 hours to finish].(on normal difficulty)

6. For me this game was = 8/10.

7. Recommended to buy and play this game.

Doesnt work, black screen after 30 min gameplay

Even though it’s a bit repetitive compared to its prequels, I still think it’s a game worth playing.

While I like the setting the rest is utter shite, annoying and a downgrade from the first two games.

Worse puzzles that suck balls.

Worse climbing that is not responsive.

Less cool stuff to find in tombs.

Worse combat and gunplay when it happens which is not that much.

Melee is totally useless.

The story is worth finishing but if it was not for that I'd pass, if you really want to play get it off a CD key site for practically nothing, vert happy I did that.

Same great tomb puzzle/exploration experience, but with a very ubisoft open world of do some thing every 10 feet. The survival crafting addition to the series is a major downgrade to the overall game. The good bits are still good, but now there are a lot of tedious bits.

Great game! Still roll my eyes as some parts are simply impossible to do stealth, especially once you are seen. Trying to lose line of sight of basically impossible, so the rifle comes in handy. Thats being said, some sections were very fun to do stealth.

It's absolutely beautiful and has so much of the adventure and exploration that Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider had. If you liked those, definitely play this. My only two complaints are 1) that it doesn't have as much soul as those two games, but honestly that might just be a me thing and 2) I wanted to punch Lara so much for continuing to meddle after her initial meddling messed up like everything. I get that without it there would be no game, but I found her so unlikable due to her blase attitude regarding it all. I do like that she has development regarding that, but by then I had spent so much time mad that I struggled to make the turnabout to liking her again.

I liked a lot of this game, but the micro timing needed on some of the climbing parts made it frustrating and even when you think you timed it perfect it still failed. I have now completed the game and will not play it or another tomb raider again.

So... this is it then. The final coming of the reboot trilogy of the Tomb Raider Franchise developed by Éidos Montréal and Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. And my opinion on this game ends up the same as I feel about the second part of that trilogy: Of all the games of all time, this certainly is one of them. But for a bunch of different reasons. Let's do a bit of a deep dive.

Aspect one: Gameplay
In terms of a gameplay loop, this game works along the same formula as the previous two parts:
Shoot all the bad guys -> collect their resources -> listen to someone talking -> solve some sort of puzzle -> repeat.
However, a new part of that loop gets introduced in the form of regularly ocurring escape sequences. Don't get me wrong, the basic idea of those escapes was already present in both predecessors to Shadow of the Tomb Raider (abbreviated SOTTR from here on out), but they were definitely not as regular of an ocurrence as they are in this game. And even though slightly frustrating if you keep getting stuck, they are extremely fun if you get them right. Apart from that, we get new mechanics in the form of the wall running jump and rappelling from rock faces, by hooking your climbing axe into the rock and decending from there. Nice addition in theory, slightly problematic in practise as those mechanics often end up bugged until you reload from the nearest campfire. Whether you get the momentum from those swinging movements or not is too often a roll of the dice.
Shooting the bad guys is as fun as ever, and you finally get accurate hit feedback through your HUD, which was not present before. It's such a nice breath of fresh air. Although I just can't help feeling like the variety in previous games with the different types of weapon inside the same class is gone. Sure, you still get different weapons in the same weapon class, as we are used to from Rise of the Tomb Raider, but their differences are a lot less noticeable. A rifle is now always the high fire rate but low damage per bullet type, just to name the most obvious difference (just as a reminder: we had basically a sniper, a classic rifle and an MP fit the same class in the second part), and that type of change has been done to all four classes. The play style is a lot less uniquely yours.
Stealth has received quite the upgrade from the rather rudimentary "don't run and no one will notice you if you're lucky" of the second part. You can now hide a lot more reliably in brush, overgrown walls and mud, and the enemy seeing you is a lot more predictable and a lot less luck-based. And while there were a few stealth-only sequences that kind of drove me bonkers, I am fairly positive that those were less based on the game not working as intended and a lot more on my own skill (or lack thereof). My only gripe with the system was that you still don't control yourself when Lara crouches in a bush or stands tall, and that repeatedly got me discovered.
The game still isn't completely bug-free. In quite a few places I just jumped to my death again because I couldn't control where Lara jumped accurately enough, and even if that happened a lot less frequently compared to the rest of the trilogy, it was still frustrating. At two points I had to restart the game because it just wouldn't let me advance to the next story location through a cutscene that would not start the first time around. And the door puzzle (if you know, you know) had me searching for a way to decrease the frame rate of my game, which for some reason was too high. No, this is not supposed to flex how good my computer is, I feel the graphics settings are sorely missing a way of limiting the framerate. But, to its credit, this game is less buggy than the previous two entries.

Aspect two: Story
Most improvements in the gameplay section make SOTTR feel the nicest of the trilogy. But then we get to the story. Which lives up to the Tomb Raider Standard (tm) that I established in my Review about Rise of the Tomb Raider - starts with a myth founded in real life and turns off towards fiction and supernatural at around the halfway mark. This game however commits one of the biggest mistakes that can ever be committed in telling a story: the first chapter is by some margin the best chapter. Nothing lives up to Lara discovering that she may or may not have doomed the world in the small town of Cozumel around the Día de los Muertos. Sure, that first chapter is a wonderful composition of cinematic presentation, carefully detailed environment and a story that by Tomb Raider Standard (tm) is believeable, but after that I feel the story and cinematic presentation drop a little bit too much. And although the cinema comes back towards the end, the story does not. It's not bad per se, but it is not as well-put-together as the second game was.

Aspect three: Graphics and sound design
This is probably the biggest upgrade over the last entry. The graphics show - impressively - that this game is the newest Tomb Raider game on the market right now. It was nominated for the Annie Award for outstanding Achievement for Character Animation. Deservedly so. It does not feel like it has already been on the market for six and a half years. All areas of the game take place in the same overarching kind of surroundings, and yet every area has its distinctive features so you don't get lost on where you are right now. You have the option to completely disable the proverbial guy that runs around the world before you enter it to paint every climbable edge white, which adds to the immersion in the world. As does the sound design.
Holy man, this sound design is wonderful. Unlike the last two entries, the sound design has actually gotten some much-needed attention. The peruvian Jungle comes to life in a way only the new and improved sound design can, when there's not a single second of complete silence. Hitting enemies with melee attacks gives off realistic sounds, and finally all guns now have the audible punch I sorely missed in both previous games. No longer am I restricted to a shotgun if I want to hear some nice shooting sounds.
And the soundtrack is a lot more memorable than the stuff I can't even remember from the previous games. The music is on par with the sound design in that it finally sounds like it has gotten some more attention. It is good. Really.

Conclusion
Graphically, sonically and gameplay-wise this game is a straight upgrade over Rise of the Tomb Raider, making it the reboot trilogy's absolute zenith. It feels good, it sounds great and it looks phantastic. The story is a bit of a letdown with its strong start and steep dropoff towards the end of the first act. I can see myself returning to this game however, based purely on the gameplay alone - shooting bad guys is fun. As is running away from big danger and executing a perfect escape sequence. And the hit feedback is wonderful.
If you can look over the story dropping off the further you get into the game, I can only recommend you buy it. Also, you can find and learn many things about native south american civilizations around the time of the conquistadores. I did fact-check a few things I found via internet research, and what I found matched the stuff the game showed. So... education, I guess. If you're only here for the story, I feel you could just as well buy other Tomb Raider titles, this one is more focused on the gameplay.

7/10, I recommend. If it's on sale, it's worth its money.

The story is a little weaker than the past two games in the trilogy but the balance between exploration, combat and puzzles is a lot better. The new game+ mode adds a little more replayability, it's a shame they didn't bother with extra game modes like Rise had.

Lara, Breaks into ancient tombs, triggers 12 traps, survives a jaguar attack, dies from a 3 foot fall and solving 2000 year old puzzles is easier than jumping in a straight line. Game of the year.

its so good and fun i finished the whole game in less than 2 days! this is my first ever story game ive played and yes i will be buying more Tomb Raider has 100% made me want to get into more story games!!

Must own if you if like Tomb Raider but it honestly looks dated as of 2025.

Si te gusto los previos juegos, es la misma mecanica con algunas cositas nuevas pero en una nueva historia...
y Lara sigue siendo bbdlc

I have enjoyed the game. I am 79 years old. But having a little problem with some of the screens. Wish i could find a walk through like for the last Tomb Raider Game I purchased.

I loved loved loved the trilogy. Visually stunning and so fun to play. I feel this game has the best story and the most content of the three reboot titles, but it's a shame to say it was also the buggiest.
If you ever get stuck on a puzzle for no apparent reason, might be Vsync settings messing with you, and this one specific laptop you'd usually shoot without a thought can literally crash your game when broken. I mean I didn't feel like any of the bugs were game breaking cuz there were always workarounds, and honestly I'm too biased towards this game atp, i'd still give this game 9/10. My fav in the trilogy in story and gameplay.

Next TR game when?

9/10 Solid game. Enjoyed it, more tombs this time compared to 'Rise of the tomb raider'. NICE!

Great game. Interesting and tense story. Side content is a little repetitive, often fetch quests that lead to a crypt or tomb. The story definitely pushes you with a sense of urgency that adds thrill to the game. Definitely worth a play!

Game breaking bug with the columns that dont move. Not sure what is Square Enix is doing. I had to lower my fps to 30 to make them move. When i thought a game that came out in 2018, the bug would at least be fixed by now.

in short, its different. if you want a longer review, the game doesn't follow the previous tomb raiders functions. perks cost different amounts, weapon upgrades don't carry over, merchants exist, the sound design has been overhauled and more. its a good game. i don't like it as much as the others, but still.

its a good game.

The trilogy’s finale is an excellent conclusion, and the journey itself is quite captivating. However, I must mention that I found the outfit situation rather frustrating. The game forces you to wear specific outfits for more than half of the gameplay, which can be quite inconvenient.

Search oriented towards hidden relics and uncovering mysteries.
Really great gameplay and fight mechanics.

Unfortunately I can not recommend this game. The game is amazing, it is a lot of fun, but so far there are just way to many issues with it.

I have a 5090 and 9950x3d. I was trying to play with maxed out setting and in the benchmark got over 300 fps. Unfortunately in game if you have ray tracing on it crashes non stop, you have to turn ray tracing down to medium to reduce the crashes but even then you get several.

Later on in one of the tombs there is a puzzle where you have to rotate dials to open a door, unfortunately, you have to get under 90 fps to be able to actually turn the dials otherwise it does nothing...

I am still going to try to beat the game, and if you can deal with the bugs it is a fun game, but if you have a high end pc, you will not be able to take advantage of the perfermance you can get.

This game has a serious problem of immersion. You're just starting to feel the adventure the game promises, but it's suddenly punctuated by a deluge of tedious acrobatic endeavors and time-consuming puzzle-solving arrays. Combat or action sequences are undermined by unengaging exploratory sequences, which, in turn, make the game monotonous and mediocre.

Despite looking gorgeously lush, with beautiful cinematography during cutscenes, Shadows is unfortunately underbaked. The platforming controls respond poorly, combat is tedious and punishes stealth, environmental lighting and animations break frequently, and many puzzles are poorly designed and require the player to mash the interact key on every rock Monkey Island style. Too often I've had to watch a gameplay video to figure out which rocky ledge on a wall is climbable and which one is just set dressing. It's clear that whoever was in charge of this game simply rehashed the old engine and phoned it in. An unfortunate waste of money.

Worth a play through... Excellent story and good gameplay.

The graphics are great, but this game is flawed in so many ways I can't really recommend investing so many hours in it. The story is very boring, complicated and uninspiring. Some of the puzzles are good, but there is too much repetition. There's so much climbing around and trying to get from point A to point B, it gets a chore after a while. Combats are relatively easily and fewer than the previous games, which is weird because you'll spent MUCH MORE time in the game gathering resources, advancing skills and upgrading your weapons than actually spending... shooting things. I got all the skills but I don't think I ever used more than 30% of them. That being said, I still enjoyed some aspects of the game but it's just too long to really recommend it as a whole. It's easily my least favorite of the Survival trilogy and ranks low compared to all 13(?) titles of the series. In my scale it's better than No 3, 5 and 6 but worse than the rest.

Absolutely!! I'm having a Blast!
This is a Very Challenging Game! The Climbing, Jumping & Grappling takes a lot of Practice!(Be Prepared to Die Several Times while attempting these Maneuvers!)

It felt like a chore trying to finish the game and the cut scenes are boring and uninteresting. The UI when upgrading gear is buggy,, sometimes icons won't show up, only the boxes. Glad I've finally finished it once and for all.

Worth a play through... Excellent story and good gameplay.

a nice ending for the story of lara croft. graphics are amazing and optimized but the only issue i have are glitches. its nothing crazy tho just phasing through solid objects and had trouble building momentum with the rope and so on. 8/10 would recommend

buggy mess

** Couple game breaking bugs. Only way around is setting your graphics to lowest and frame rate to 20fps to get past the puzzles look at steam FAQ as this is a common issue***

now for my review:

if we forget about the issues above this was another great Tomb Raider game. So beautiful in places. The story was good and interesting. I wanted more of it all the time. The combat was good too and loads of options for weapons and clothes to choose from depending on your play style. The challenge tombs where a bit hit and miss. Some good some I just watched a Youtube vid just to get it over with and move on. Overall not as good as the second game IMO but still a great game to get!. 85/100

---{ Graphics }---
☑ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Meh, so-so
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☑ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if you care about Leaderboards/Ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average (I low-key did only the main campaign and some exploring, which took me roughly 12 hours)
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If you have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

Comparing it to the former Tomb Raider games, it's infinitely more mature than the previous two games. Especially in terms of writing and storytelling. Gameplay-wise, still on par with the former two, combat as well as stealth feels just as good as the first one and way better than the second.

Easy purchase.

I love the gameplay, and for an old game the graphics are a delight.

Beautiful graphics, decent combat, fun puzzles