Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

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

Very tedious at times. The game slows you down too often. Also there is not much point to upgrading guns when you are forced to only use arrows much of the time.

Good story game from the tomb raider franchise. nice graphics and rich sotry

The first one was great. The second was okay. The last is just bad. Combat is awful, climbing is somehow worse than the previous games and the story is uninteresting.

With completing Shadow of The Tomb Raider, I have now played the entire trilogy.

It is a fantastic experience from start to finish. With each game they kept what worked and improved on it.

Highly recommend if you like puzzle/adventure games. With a fair bit of combat/steath fighting thrown in for good measure.

10/10

Jungle is claustraphobic but tolerable and painfully linear. So tired of the native music. Prefer open spaces in between all the tombs but oh well. The AI is stupid of course. But, still a fantastic game supported by a few mods for aesthetics. Story is a little droll and predictable. It's all about Laura and challenging your brain to figure out puzzles for me -- game is outstanding for it. Side quests are well done so many hours of fun for the price.

I started playing this 2018 game in 2025 as the first Tomb Raider game I've ever played. The graphics are excellent. I would give the game a 3.5/5.0. I'm only 23% into the game, but I feel the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot is better. Worth playing and very enjoyable, but I do find I get stuck wondering what I'm supposed to do to progress sometimes.

Good game, still looking great in 2025. It's definitely worth playing. The main version of the game is not optimized for AMD GPUs. DX11 run poorly and DX12 is broken (hard crashes and Adrenaline App ending up broken somehow, reinstall and repeat - very nice...). But thankfully, Steam lets you use beta versions of the game, which solved all my problems and after that it runs smoothly without any crashes. Thanks to the beta, I can recommend the game.

I enjoyed the story immensely and collecting all the story and lore items was fun and expanded the story for me. I thought it was a great way to end this trilogy.

Great game play, beautiful levels, enjoyable puzzles. Boring mediocre story sadly...TR 2013 & Rise both had excellent stories paired with great game play and cutting edge visuals for each respective time of release. Shadows improves on the graphics, adds new mechanics and is a lot of fun don't get me wrong, but in my humble opinion, it drops the ball with story telling and voice acting.

It's very Tomb Raider.
It's very video gamey.
It's very jungle.
It's very pretty.
It's very big.

It's also inconsistent and buggy.

I enjoyed it a lot.

As of this Review I haven't gotten far, so far almost around 30% Completion of the Main Story but I have to say this is an awesome game, the mechanics are amazing as always, the puzzles are fun to work through and the story is quite intriguing so far, I definitely think that more people should check this game out, its a ton of fun, and I hope they make more!

i would LOVE to get into this game, the story hooked me but this thing crashes at certain points without fail for no god forsaken reason, if i would have known this i would definitely not played on Deadly Obsession difficulty, no checkpoints and only saves at campfires, as it just results in me losing progress for no reason, not even my own fault

Not the best one but still good enough to make me try to 100% it!

Graphic is so good, game play, control, cinematic cut scenes, blood, pretty face, can't wait for more TR games like this

After all the countless glitches, especially the map that re-highlghts tombs already completed..its still fun...sometimes I guess.

shadow of the tomb raider is a 2018 action-adventure game that is the finale of the survivor trilogy reboot. this is undoubtedly the best entry in the series thanks to the more mature story & modernized gameplay focusing on puzzles and exploration. they took some of the cool improvements from the second game and added some extra additions and mixed it all with a story that was engaging.

the entire series as a whole has it's flaws, sure, but at the price point you can buy these for, they are WELL worth it!

I will definitely appoint Shadow of the Tomb Raider as the best game in the franchise, it was very entertaining and delightful to play this game. The mechanics haven't changed much which isn't a problem, it's the game-play, the story and geographical setting, and most importantly the several small additions added to the game that has increased the experience significantly. This game in particular really reminds me of the OG Tomb Raider with the ancient history of tribal folks, the Maya civilization and the Inca empire, their architecture, artifacts, tombs etc. Very refreshing and interesting. Loved the little break where you could play as young Lara and solve puzzles in the Croft mansion. There were instances where you have to play in an almost 2D platform setting, which initially was very cool but the movement was very wobbly leading me to jump in an unintentional direction causing death several times.

I've always been fascinated by ancient history and Tomb Raider, although being mostly fantasy based, still managed to make me live this fantasy of being in the jungle to explore and discover secrets in caves and tombs and "finding a hidden city" without actually doing it irl because I would get deleted in 1 nanosecond.

- The graphics: the jungle, the trees, the wind, animals, the surrounding ambient sounds like small rocks falling, sound of water drops, water ripples when swimming, the traces of Lara's footsteps after walking in mud and also camouflaging herself with mud, beautiful scenery. All these small details really adds to the experience and is very appreciated.

- Side quests: the side quests have increased in this game which was very pleasant to complete. Being able to interact with NPCs and members of the societies really adds to the story, making you more involved with everyone around. Most of the side quests don't end when you finish the task, it expands and continues giving you more tasks to do.

- Challenge Tombs: Also increased in this game, they were indeed challenging but also very enjoyable to complete. I especially loved the Mother Protector challenge tomb as it really reminded me of OG Tomb Raider with spikes on platform that were time limited, moving things around etc.

- The monoliths: This time the monoliths had riddles to them in order to find them. This was a very surprising addition making you think what the riddle means in order to solve it to finally find it.

- The difficulty levels: You could customize the difficulty to change different aspects of combat, exploration and puzzle, great addition to the game. I played the entire story in the hardest difficulty, which is deadly obsession. In this difficulty you can't get any sort of hints with senses of where to go and what to interact with, neither are the walls painted white as an indication of where to go or jump. If I'm not mistaken you could still use senses as a guide in the hardest difficulty in Rise of the Tomb Raider (and the walls were painted white) so it was very appreciated that I mostly felt clueless and had to figure things out myself in deadly obsession difficulty.

Overall, wish it had more DLC's like in Rise, also wished there were still enemies randomly roaming after finishing main story. The final boss fight could have been better. Still amazing game with great puzzles, loved the story and was hooked and invested the entire time, recommend it definitely.

Kind of in the air with this most of everything is good accept how story was executed. I liked the idea how Lara would dress up and blend in. Although the story falls flat in an incredibly boring way. The new stealthy combat was a nice touch and puzzles were fine. The story was just boring and frustrating. Like Lara is always a third wheel. Having nothing better to do then to solve everyone's problems. Which isn't a bad thing but just felt unnecessary and out of place. Like she is constantly poking her nose in everyone business. Like she has nothing better to do. Just constantly got that vibe and Npc were just not engaging at all.
First game was the best imo, most of that entire game she was just trying to survive. Which kept me engaged not knowing what mess she was going to get herself into next and it was brutal.
A part of me could really feel her struggle and determination in the first game.
They need to make another similar with survival functions like Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater had. Which had a very detailed system in repairing injuries.

I've played the first game and Rise, I can say that even Rise is still the best of the trilogy but this installment is still great.

Fantastic game. Great story line and adventure. Runs really well on the MSI Claw U7

Some real stunning visuals in SOTTR - but to be honest - got really really boring quickly, it mostly felt like one big QTE interactive movie. Story was good - but that totally "on a rail" vibe felt off and against the whole TR thing. Great work by the dev Team tho - highly polished and refined.

Many fans have noted that Lara is the least realistic of the reboot trilogy, and I would agree. However, it's obvious that the dev team put all that energy and love into the world itself, which was breathtaking. I liked this story the most of the trilogy and enjoyed the flashback to Croft manor when Lara was young. If you liked the first 2 games in the reboot franchise, I recommend you buy this one too - especially if it's on sale. I enjoyed playing this very much.

Crash sim with poor puzzles and a story that makes me want to start counting sheep

The whole survivor trilogy is very good and I recommend it. The 3rd part is even the best one in my opinion, due to the jungle setting and the best puzzles in the trilogy.
Furthermore Lara is simply the most sympathic "archeologist" from all the other action heroes. ^^

While I didn't love it as much as the the previous game in the trilogy, this is still an outstanding ride full of great puzzles, exploration combat and top tier presentation across the board. This is a fine end to one of the best trilogies ever made. GG!

The best and last part of the trilogy so far great story mode graphics and gameplay the only minus from time to time the action button E didn't show on the screen overall 10/10

What was once a fresh formula with the first two games now feels a bit dated. The platforming is boring, the story is quite dull, and the locations are few and uninteresting.

My god i hate the perfomance issues firstly, how can this be more demanding to run on my system than cyberpunk 2077. Then there's this game, a poor character masked by nostalgia a sense of purpose lack of accountability and dumb decisions. Like who literally gives the evil guy a weapon that can end all life on earth except his for fucking Jonah that was the dumbest thing i have ever seen Lara do she look so stupid, did she think her and Jonah would be stared while everyone else died. This is a worse Chekhovs gun writing, plus the ui design is ass so is the upgrade system, they could have copy pasted the one from the previous game and i would have not minded but now its this semi open world nonsense with stores and bullshit with skill points towards store stuff and a less approachable game system than the last games. There's a whole lot more i don't like about it but i'm just too tired to care ... Uncharted is better.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider review

Lara Croft, the first love of male gamers who were involved with video games in the 90s, was dragged to very different places over time and appeared on dozens of platforms including mobile. Later, with the Eidos and Crytal Dynamics team taking over the series, the Tomb Raider brand was remade for the new generation of gamers. The first game, which received praise thanks to its gameplay mechanics that were likened to Uncharted, and the second game that followed in the footsteps of the first game, managed to reach not bad sales figures. However, did we feel satisfied with the idea of ​​making a third game using the same mechanics again? Let's take a closer look together.

Lara Croft, who went after Trinity in the second game, continues her adventure exactly where we left off in the third game. Lara Croft, who wants to stop Trinity, who has been after mystical historical artifacts for centuries with the aim of controlling the world, and to avenge her father, starts her adventure in Mexican territory. Lara, who goes after Pedro Dominguez, the name that manages Trinity in the introductory part of the game, unfortunately loses the historical artifact called Key of Chak Chel to Trinity after finding it. In order to stop this event that started the Mayan apocalypse, our hero Lara takes on the responsibility of hitting the road in Peru to search for the Silver Box of Ix Chel historical artifact.

With the help of her close friend Jonah Maiava, we travel to Lara's childhood as she sets out to search for a grave in the wild forests of Peru. In these parts, which are likened to the childhood of Nathan Drake, whom we can control in Uncharted 4, we can witness events in Lara's past that remained a secret. As the story progresses, we can discover places with magnificent views such as Paititi, but unfortunately I have to state that there are a few logical errors in the game. For example, in addition to the fact that the people of Paititi, who have isolated themselves from the world, speak fluent English, it was very striking that Lara sometimes jumped from very high places and did not die as per the script, despite dying at the slightest hit.

The third game, which follows the traces of the first two games in terms of gameplay mechanics, unfortunately does not contain many innovations. The developers, who transferred the conflict mechanics to the third game as in the first two games, have added almost no innovations to this aspect of the game. However, I have to emphasize that Shadow of the Tomb Raider is better than Uncharted 4 in terms of stealth. If you want, you can pass all the combat sequences with stealth, and the designs of the sections we are in during the stealth sections are also very well designed. As an additional innovation, Lara's body and part of her face are covered in mud and hidden in the walls, which is a nice detail.

The puzzle parts of the game are sometimes more successful than the first two games and the Uncharted games. While some puzzles are very easy to solve, you have to rack your brains to solve some. You encounter these puzzles, which remind you of old adventure games, in Mayan temples. In fact, I can say that you will spend more time with the puzzles than killing enemies in the game. On the other hand, it is also possible to adjust the difficulty of these puzzles. If you choose the easiest part from the puzzle difficulty menu offered by the game before starting the game, the game shows you where to go, especially in the puzzles that you have to climb. In fact, I personally find this a nice feature. The developers, thinking of players who get bored with puzzles and want to get straight to the action, have added such a convenience to the game.

Moving on to the character development screen of the game, if you played the first two games, I can say that you will not be unfamiliar with Shadow of the Tomb Raider in this section. You can strengthen Lara Croft depending on your playing style from the character development screen consisting of three parts. We can customize our weapons again by the fire with the help of the small equipment we collect during the game. However, it is worth mentioning that the weapon development screen is superficial.

As another detail, the developers have added survival mechanics to Lara Croft this time. Thanks to the features we acquire during the game and the materials we collect from the environment, our main character can heal herself in moments of conflict, while in the wild, she can quickly find materials that will be useful with these instinctive features. In addition to all these, it is possible to change Lara Croft's clothes in the character development menu, as in other new Tomb Raider games. While some clothes provide additional features that will strengthen Lara Croft, it is possible to reach Lara Croft's PS1 appearance thanks to some clothes.
The game's sounds managed to be another striking element. You can understand why Crystal Dynamics, who announced that they worked specifically on the sounds and music compared to the other two games, made such ambitious statements during the game. With instruments specific to the Mayan culture, the game can sometimes become quite tense.

In the end, we can say that Shadow of the Tomb Raider will not satisfy players looking for an innovative TPS action game, but it will satisfy hardcore Tomb Raider fans. In addition to its structure that is very similar to the first two games, we recommend the game, which has a simple storytelling, only to players who love this genre.

In Short:

Unsophisticated, simplistic, predictable, formulaic... in other words -- boring.

This time around, they missed the mark for me.
So I'd recommend going for a different TR release instead.


[hr][/hr]

In Long:

I've played a number of them through the years, but this release in the Tomb Raider series was "meh" for me. It was far too formulaic. Predictable, simple plot that has been used over and over, combat was unfulfilling and didn't quite work well, whether you chose stealth or frontal assault, level design was simplistic, and I encountered a few bugs here and there, too. I also found the (unchangeable) keys used for some things were rather annoying. It had an odd gameplay mechanic, too, where you had to be wearing certain attire just to talk to a group of people, but to change your clothes you have to find a base camp first. Unnecessary things like that just irk me. There were also a few points in the game where I had to sit there and wonder what it wanted from me, because it simply wasn't clear; whereas other times, it would incessantly direct you by repeating the same audio line over and over every time you went into "eagle eye" type vision. I think that was supposed to be helpful rather than annoying, but, enh! Not polished!

It just lacked sophistication, or missing that "love" put into it that the others seemed to possess. I found that by 30-50% through I was feeling like I just wanted to finish up because I am a completionist player, NOT because I was excited to see what was around the next corner. As in "blah blah blah, c'mon, let's just get this over with, and do without the soap opera dribble and dialog that doesn't really add much useful to the plot or characters." Characters made choices that didn't feel realistic, as in, Lara would never have done that! She's smarter than that! Yet you're forced into making dumb "decisions" (there is no choice, its just the way it goes) and then you have to act out through the consequences of them. (Side-note: Which kinda describes a certain presidency right now (2025)...)

Leading up to the final fight was probably the best part where I started to feel a small bit of interest with I think the only thing like a plot-twist there was in the game; but then it was a typical whittle-them-down-X-times while throwing more enemies at you each time you come close to killing them type of mechanic for final boss fight, which I don't typically find enjoyable either; has to be done in a certain manner that serves the plot of a game, not just some silly rules to play by.

So... sigh. I was disappointed. And I truly hate to say that, because I can still tell there was a good amount of work done by many people on the team to produce this, and I don't mean to devalue that; in fact I respect that! But something enjoyable was definitely missing from this one.

Overall, it's a great game. Good graphics, good optimization, not the worst storyline, atmospheric locations. But, unfortunately, it does have it's flaws. Especially, if you have played the previous two parts. At the middle of the game the story becomes a little boring, and the game itself is too long. Boring AI-dialogues and side missions. Too much resource looting (why do we even need this), skill-weapon upgrades etc. that just distracts. The jump mechanics are still not fixed in many cases. I don't feel that devil spirit of Trinity anymore. Combat is boring. And so on.

Since I've got this game on a BIG sale, it's worth it. Otherwise, it's not. So only buy it when it's on discount.

RTX4070ti Super.
Bugged Puzzle due to high fps. Not solvable so the game is bricked unless you install some 3rd party programs.

*Shadow of the Tomb Raider* is a solid, if not groundbreaking, end to Lara’s origin story. The game looks absolutely stunning, with some of the best environments in the series, and the tombs are bigger, deadlier, and way more fun to explore. The stealth mechanics are a nice touch, letting you play more tactically, but the overall gameplay feels a bit too familiar if you’ve played the last two games. The story tries to go deeper into Lara’s psyche, which is cool, but the pacing is hit-or-miss. Still, if you’re into action-adventure games with a mix of puzzles and exploration, it’s definitely worth playing.

Very fun. Big fan of the climbing. Swimming levels aren't bad and gunplay is decent. Puzzles are interesting and strike a balance between challenging and clever.

I have mixed feelings about this game. I'm still giving it a good recommendation because it is a fun game that's worth the small price, but there are a few things that I hate about the game, especially while trying to earn all the achievements. For starters, the good stuff. The graphics are really good, the world is really fleshed out, there's a lot of collectibles and challenges, so if you're someone like me who enjoys that kind of thing, you'll have a great time. The puzzles are challenging, but not too difficult, and the skill and weapon upgrade system is really nice, with the improved UI being very clean as well. Now the things I hate. I don't like how badly the game is integrated with Direct X12. This is one of the minor nitpicks, because it doesn't affect the game that much, but for some puzzles you have to turn off Direct X12 for some reason, otherwise the puzzles won't do anything. The movement is a bit weird sometimes, especially when jumping from ledges or climbable walls at weird angles, and that results in either death, or frustration for the player, especially while playing on the Deadly Obsession difficulty. Speaking of Deadly Obsession, near midgame when a new type of enemy is introduced, you will be 2 shot by them. It's extremely annoying, but maybe that's just me. The last (and most major) of my nitpicks is the story. The other 2 reboot games don't have a very emotional story, and this game tries to change that. It has a few emotional moments that start to get across well, but the feeling of that emotion doesn't stay long. The story is still at least coherent, but it's very basic at heart. Overall I'd say this is a 7/10 game. Gameplay is great, but the story just isn't very engaging. If you're looking to 100% like I did, have fun, it'll be a ride for sure.

Graphics: 7/10
Combat: 5/10
Exploration: 7/10
Story: 4/10

I was initially excited after enjoying Rise of the Tomb Raider, but this game ended up being surprisingly frustrating. While there are a few standout moments, the experience is weighed down by long, repetitive climbing sequences, excessive (and often unskippable) cutscenes, and slow crawling through tight spaces.

fun end to the trilogy. first is still the best one. some of the controls are a bit wonky. skipped almost all the side quests and challenge tombs and just focused on the main story. Honestly, I was glad when it was over.