Lara’s back and Shadow of the Tomb Raider promises to be her most challenging adventure yet. As Lara’s character arc comes full circle with the third entry, Deus Ex developers’ Eidos Montreal prepares to take the series in a dark direction. At Square Enix’s reveal event this past Thursday, the MonsterVine crew was invited to play the gameplay demo and chat with Jason Dozois, the game’s narrative director and Heath Smith, the lead game designer on what this all means.
At first glance, the key art alludes to these changes with a gritty, jungle motif foretelling the danger to come. The apocalyptic, world-ending proclamations of the Maya civilization is the ideal location to serve the game’s tone and narrative. Lara’s hurt, beaten down, but her struggle this time around focuses on her morality and consequences as she becomes the Tomb Raider. In the demo, this takes effect in how Lara effects her friend Jonah. After chasing Trinity leader Dominguez and inadvertently setting off a freak tsunami, Lara’s pursuit to stop the proverbial villain puts her at odds with Jonah’s instinctive need to help those affected by the disaster. “It’s not about you,” Jonah defiantly says to Lara. Here we witness Lara’s selfishness unraveling relationships those closest to her and hopefully these moments continue to be an ongoing theme in Shadow.
In the hour long demo we played, we were given a tasteful appetizer of various gameplay segments including platforming, puzzle solving, stealth combat, scripted set pieces, and even underwater swimming. Beginning at a courtyard in Mexico, in pursuit of the sinister Trinity organization leader Dominguez. This section felt Uncharted-esque, roaming a cultural celebration and interacting with the city inhabitants gave the setting a bit of world-building akin to Deus Ex’s hubs and social interactions which will be a new addition for the series. Following that, we traveled to some Maya ruins to re-familiarize ourselves with platforming and exploration. As with Rise [of the Tomb Raider], there will be sections gated off until you have the right equipment but the rewards for backtracking are said to be worth it. “So it’s about incentivizing the player, through tantalizing the player,” lead game designer Heath Smith says. While there wasn’t much to dive into, the inclusion of underwater swimming brings a new depth to the environment and finding elusive treasures. Just remember to grab some air along the way.
The challenge with Shadow of the Tomb Raider focuses on the difficulty of tombs this time around. While Rise might have invited players to explore its tombs, Shadow does the exact opposite. The tombs here are difficult to reach and complete. “We’ve taken the tombs, which were these sort of hopeful, beautiful discovery spaces in Rise [of the Tomb Raider], and we took them and we went more to a place of deadliness and death and danger, so the tomb itself is trying to kill you,” Smith says. Moving on to the combat, it looks as though the environment will play an important role in enemy encounters. With the jungle backdrop, Lara can effectively stealth her way by hiding in vines or causing distractions. This sort of environmental manipulation, which the developers call “fear tactics” looks to be a more rewarding playstyle. Once I encountered a shootout and alerted some mercenaries, things became more mundane as going from cover to cover and picking off enemies coming in my direction felt blasé than thrilling. Hopefully Eidos Montreal leans into its Deus Ex roots as inspiration with varied, creative encounters and multiple entryways of wetwork.
Edging near its September 14th release on Xbox One, PS4, and PC, I wrapped my head at the possibility of this tug and push narrative that Eidos Montreal has committed to and what consequences this brings for Lara’s evolution as a character. The grimdark, hopelessness of the task in front of her has the potential for a great payoff. Along with social interactions and refinements to the gameplay, there’s is much that lies beyond that I’m curious to learn more about in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
