10 Things About Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is about to get released and while at the origin it might look familiar. However, there are so many questions and there are some things that you should definitely know before taking the dive. Therefore, here are 10 Things About Shadow of the Tomb Raider you should know before you buy The Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

10. Story

Shadow of the Tomb Raider picks up two months after the events of the previous game Rise of the Tomb Raider. Lara is hot on Trinity’s heels trying to make their job a living hell sending their plans left and right wherever she can. At this point, Lara is in Mexico on an expedition to uncover a Mayan relic which is somehow related to her father’s research. Furthermore, of course, Trinity shows up, shoots everyone and messes up the whole plan.

And there’s also a clash of ideals with one of the supposed leaders of Trinity and some shit goes down. With all that happening in motion Lara and Jonah set off to try and change the world, it’s really interesting as hell. What else can you expect, there’s a dash of new character building with Lara coming to grips with her obsession.

9. Location

You need to know that the Shadow of the Tomb Raider will feature a new hub in a new location. Also, this one will apparently be the biggest in the series to date. This new area the hidden city of Paititi is divided up into districts and serves as the game’s primary hub. Furthermore, it is filled with NPCs to talk to, to flesh out the world, merchants to barter with, and trade items with a new barter system.

Also, a slew of quest giver stands that point you in the direction of the games various side activities. Which help us learn about the world, explore, earn new items, and level up Laura and gain new abilities. The previous two Tomb Raider games have been filled with sad almost kind of lifeless little survival villages. Therefore, I’m just curious to see how much was like a vibrant city really shakes things up.

8. Stealth Features

The modern Tomb Raider games have always had sizable stealth element but there’s definitely more importance on it in this game. However, previous games had you crawling through bushes and sneaking up on guys through ledges and trees. Shadow of the Tomb Raider adds new options like covering yourself in mud to avoid detection. As well as the ability to like creep along vine and brush covered walls and surfaces to sneak past enemies right in plain sight. Furthermore, closing the gap for more stealth kills.

It’s like the predator and it seems like a pretty badass addition to the game. Along with that encounters are set to just give you a bit more freedom. The game clearly gives you a bit more choice in the options to run and hide after you’re spotted. I don’t know exactly how they change that from previous games. Until we get our hands on it, we’ll have to wait and watch.

7. Different Difficulty levels & Immersions

We got more options for immersion some people want a fun blockbuster video game just want to be along for the ride. Others to want a really immersive experience and thankfully you can seemingly get both in the Shadow the Tomb Raider. For starters, there are options to remove things like glowing hints and such other options. As well as removing environmental context clues for traversal and exploration.

This game like the previous games can seem pretty easy from the outset. However, it gives you the ability to take away some of those options. An interesting example in the previous games where there was the white mark on the wall. Where you could DoubleTap the jump button to climb it, but by turning on these specific difficulty options you can get rid of them. It also allows for a more immersive exploration experience where you’ve got to really think outside the box.

what I really like and I think it’s cool is that you can choose an immersive language option. This allows NPCs to speak in their native languages with subtitles, which is a nice touch. If you’re into leaving out that option I guess kind of like Lara Croft the ability to do that is really cool.

6. Accessibility

As far as Accessibility options go for this game there’s actually quite a few and it’s pretty impressive. For starters, the difficulty settings have been removed so instead of just having an Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty scheme you can actually change the difficulty of combat, puzzles, and exploration traversal independently. Therefore, if you have a hard time with combat but still want a really challenging brain-busting puzzle and traversal experience you can modify the experience to your needs. I think that’s pretty interesting just as someone who studies and talks about games all the time I’m curious to see how this difficulty system is actually gonna work out mechanically.

Furthermore, for possibly disabled folks who use different types of controllers, you can replace the standard button mashy QuickTime events with the option to just hold a button down. Also, there’s also a slew of language and subtitle options as well. It’s really nice to see the developers make an effort to add more choices to open it up to more players.

5. Game Plus Mode

It’s worth knowing that once you finish the story, Shadow of the Tomb Raider will offer the option to go back in with a new Game Plus Mode. This option is something that a lot of us are waiting eagerly to play. Playing with the new game plus mode will obviously start you back at the beginning. But with all of your acquired skills, weapons upgrades, gear, and outfits.

Also, it’ll unlock three new paths that you can unlock based on your play style. It could be stealth, combat, or traversal focused. The new paths will unlock these new rewards that complement that specific playstyle as well as unique weapons and outfits. This should work out well with the larger environments and more challenge tombs. That was totally our favorite things from the previous games and honestly anything that adds up to replayability we are in for it.

4. Lara’s Negative Role

With things having an apocalyptic vibe to the game, Lara is said to take a darker tone in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. According to statements made at the Tribeca Film Festival by the game’s lead writer Jill Murray. Lara will be “fighting not to become the enemy she hates and in many cases, we may see the enemy in herself. She’s going to make a lot of mistakes and deal with a lot of complicities. depending on your perspective, a hero can also be a threat, and in this game, Lara has to decide which path she’s going to choose.”

This tone carries over to the gameplay where Lara will viciously take down her enemies in gruesome and incredibly violent ways. What we’ve noticed is the gameplay previews is that she now has a giant nasty combat knife. And she has no problem just literally placing it into a guy’s head. The previous two games did have moments of real gore and brutality, but Lara feels like a vicious killer now thanks to new animations. Whether or not the story will actually directly acknowledge some of that we’re gonna have to wait and see. However, it sounds like it’s good so far.

3. Graphics

let’s talk about the NVIDIA RTX stuff. Shadow of the Tomb Raider was one of the first games used to showcase the newest generation of Nvidia’s graphics technology with the RTX line of cards. As such the game is one of a handful to support real-time ray tracing out of the gate. Also, for layman’s terms that basically takes the advantage of the newest lighting and shadows technology for the most realistic out there.

Furthermore, the game is also on the short list of games to take advantage of Nvidia’s deep learning super sampling technology. It is said to give image quality enrichment by using the Turing sensor cores to better smooth out sharp edges and elements to generally produce a better image. The last Tomb Raider games have been pretty great demonstrations of new tech from upgraded consoles. The hair effects and other details can be noticed. Therefore, we’ll see if the Shadow of the Tomb Raider can keep that trend up. It seems like if you’re playing on PC you have a lot to look forward to.

2. DLC and Season Pass

We have to grind down some future plans and some DLC content. There is a season pass and it will include seven new pieces of content called paths. Square Enix said that each new path adds new narrative, mission, challenge tombs, weapons, outfits, skills. And one of each being exclusive to the season pass.

Now, all that is well and good. but the real interesting bit comes in the reveal that some of the new challenge tombs will feature co-op play. This is a first for the series, I honestly can’t really imagine what that’ll be like. However, we’ll have to just wait and see. Generally, the baba yaga DLC from the last game with solid stuff is worth revisiting. Therefore, I really hope they can keep that trend up here.

1. Release Date and Platforms

The Shadow of the Tomb Raider is dropping September 14th, 2018 for PC, Xbox One, and PS4. Nintendo Switch just isn’t in the cards for this one. Therefore, if you were leaning towards that, it is time to figure out a different choice. Because they’ve said it ain’t happening, and as for how the PC version goes they

 Recommended System Requirements

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.4GHz or AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz
• RAM: 16 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 6GB Video Memory
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB
• DX: DirectX 12
• HD: 40GB

And here are the system requirements for the game. Obviously like we mentioned earlier you get added benefits with the newer RTX cards.