by Jonah Besenty | staff writer

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an adrenaline inducing action-adventure game that explores different landmarks around South America and is the 17th installment in the very successful Tomb Raider series. The game’s central focus is around the lost Incan city, Paititi, a real location that lies east of the towering Andes Mountain Range. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a sequel to the previous game, Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Lara Croft remains the main protagonist. Her and her friend Jonah Maiava have been time-tracking and stopping the activities of cells that belong to the paramilitary organization known as Trinity.

The missions and side-quests give you an insight to the history and background of Paititi. A bunch of new features come with this installment, including a new barter system that allows the player to trade for resources with npc’s and salvage items and parts that lie around Paititi. The game has also focused on making the experience more immersive, changing previous mechanics so now the player can rappel down a cliff with a rope more realistically. Following with the immersion theme, natives in all locations can now speak in the language of the area, instead of an in-game voice over. The stealth system has been modified as well. If you’re in combat, you can disengage very easily by either covering yourself in mud, hiding in foliage, or behind a wall.

Of course,  you can still craft items with resources that have been collected, just like previous games. Players can now make the game as easy or hard as they please thanks to a new feature that allows users to change the difficulty level.

The best parts of the game are the new features, new location, and overall interactivity between the game and the player. There’s a small amount of non-game breaking bugs and glitches, such as graphical glitches, ragdoll bugs, and others. However, these don’t affect the overall game or the player negatively, and at times can be amusing. 

Overall, my rating is an eight out of ten.