It was always going to be a tall order resurrecting one of the biggest sex symbols of the 21st century as an almost entirely new character, but with the reset button-named Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics took one look at Uncharteds more grounded-in-reality success (save for a certain amount of crazy blue people in part 2) and reapplied it to Lara, toughening her up immeasurably in the process. For many the past introduction of slightly misguided elements such as slow-motion bullet dodging in Tomb Raider Legend, or the Devil May Cry-esque twin-targeting system of Underworld that took away from the more explorable nature of the character, although the more literal tomb raiding sequences in this 2013 addition are few and far between, overall this feels like a more confident step in a direction that lets Crystal Dynamics tell a whole range of characterful tales going forward. With a plethora of upgradeable weapons and a surprisingly engaging story that tells of how a young Lara developed her thirst for temple-plundering, theres a much heavier reliance on fighting enemy soldiers as oppose to the local fauna this time around, leaning just enough into the more fantastical elements that cropped up in the Raider games of old.
