written by Anonymous on 2026-Mar-22.

I popped this in after completing Watchdogs (gave it 8/10 cool game). The graphics are ok. This feels like the game that transitioned laura to full circle Drakes Uncharted. Tonnes of QuickTime events, scripted scenes and white paint telling you where to jump up. I played for about 15 minutes and the entire thing was on rails apart from a little section where I had to jump from a ledge onto a crane to raise a flaming bunch of garbage. It was insane but slick in it's execution. The early game is sectioned off so it auto saves often which means that there is not much freedom to mess up during this early tutorial section. We will see if it opens up as we go along.

Even in the early game there are popups for progression for basically doing nothing - wish I could turn these off. This is a bad sign but I should not be surprised as this game probably started this modern trend. I even took a look at the achievements which was basically "kill 30 enemies", "craft 20 weapons", "hunt 2 large animals". lol, this game feels like it is going to be a gigantic waste of time. But we will see.

The game is pretty straight forward with lots and lots of little cutscenes/QTEs as I mentioned before. The game funnels Lara into a constant mix of awful situations. There is jump paint, animals to harvest, scrap to collect so you can upgrade weapons and skills. The skill tree is gated so that you cant "over power" anything too soon. In so doing it ends up being a liner checklist of things to click on - which sucks.

It's a collect-a-thon game that is fluid and most jumps are easy to make without worry. The game feels like Uncharted + Horizon Zero Dawn mixed with Banjo Kazooie. This is why I play on easy. The bow feels nice. I am mostly using the bow. Silent and deadly.

The game is good, the flow is good, the bow is deadly. Some areas have a bunch of enemies but not to an extreme. The game flows nice without many road blocks in the way. Its just one torture scene after another. I dont know how laura or any woman could survive this all. But this is video game logic.

I like the sections with fire. Fire in this game looks really good. Though the fire sections are few and far between - they are impressive to look at. The game does not balance very well for the bow, so you might get forced to use the guns in a few spots - especially if you are not efficient with your arrow consumption. This is disappointing because I had planned to use the bow throughout my entire play-through.

Conclusion

Good game. 8.5/10. Worth the time. Innovative. Nice set pieces, nice fire. Lots of stuff to collect. I might buy Rise of the Tomb Raider to see if it holds up. The game is fun on easy with nice set pieces and not too much bloat. Would recommend. Must have in any collection. Going to play Aliens vs Predator next.

Strategy

Play on easy, bow and arrow all the way. I completed the game first time with a 75% completed. So the game is not a collect-a-thon. You can replay the game afterwards to collect everything you missed if you so desire. Playing bow only feels good and is a bit more stealthy if thats what you are into. I only upgraded the bow to 100% and ignored everything else. Had 5000 scrap left over in the end.

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