What is available is so thoughtful and fun that it feels like a bummer when you realize you've solved every problem there is to solve, and have no reason to revisit the ice caves, Byzantine ruins and abandoned Soviet bases. It's more frustrating than it is game-breaking.

While the first open-world portion of the map is admittedly enormous - and features multiple puzzles that can't be solved until the end of the game - all of the other areas are relatively linear. The mountain Lara is trapped on feels small compared to the expansive island of 2013. Putting her on the same badass plateau of action as heroes like Batman has finally managed to elevate Lara Croft Over the course of the 16-plus hours of gameplay, Lara acquires more and more equipment (such as grenade arrows, poison arrows and sturdy arrows meant for climbing) that allows her to access more and more of the small map. Rise of the Tomb Raider fixes all the little problematic bits, and delivers one of the best Metroidvania experiences on current-generation consoles. Borrowing heavily from the playbook of the Metroid, Castlevania and Batman: Arkham series, it blended gunplay and platforming nearly perfectly. The reboot of Tomb Raider was one of the best games of 2013. That's way different! Lara Croft and the Refined Gameplay Here, the fabled source of immortality is developed in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. At least Rise of the Tomb Raider doesn't go for the low-hanging fruit of the Arthurian Holy Grail. If that plotline sounds familiar, it's because we've seen it plenty of times before, usually with more Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.

Rise of the tomb raider lara croft