Shadow of the Tomb Raider Reviews
Lara Croft still does not make the most coherent decisions (let alone the wisest ones), but at last she shows a bit of that vulnerability that they had shown us, hand in hand with their more visceral aspect.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Review in Italian | Read full review
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a perfect example of a modern AAA video game. It has all the polish and extraordinary visuals you'd expect from the third entry in a huge franchise, but it's also held back by uninspired writing and an emphasis on archaic video game conventions like boring gunplay. These weaknesses detract from the overall experience, but it still manages to be a fun, polished, and absolutely beautiful game.
Devoid of context, this is the action-adventure title of our dreams, executed on an astonishing technical level.
That being said, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is still absolutely worth playing, and it's an easy recommendation. There's challenge to its gameplay, of which every facet feels great to control.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an enjoyable action-adventure for the most part, yet frequently falls victim to a haphazard narrative and structural pacing that stops the trilogy's finale from truly standing out.
The ability to play your way, no matter what, make Lara Croft's latest journey worth taking.
With Shadow of the Tomb Raider, we get one of the best episodes of the whole franchise. It doesn't intend to revolutionize the formula the reboot put in place in 2013, but it has a quite interesting story and a dashing setting, offers a well balanced experience and has a huge amount of challenges that will surely please a lot of virtual explorers.
Review in French | Read full review
Shadow of the Tomb Raider ends the series reboot, and it serves as a wonderful final chapter, bringing back all of the things that made the franchise a hit, while adding so much more.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a bit like an enormous box of Celebrations. There’s loads to binge on and you’ll really enjoy gourging on most of it – but there’s also mini-versions of Bounty bars you’ll have to suffer through here, too. Yet, while every chocolate connoisseur knows that chocolate and coconut make as much sense together as lions and head rubs – basically, when you come across some of Shadow’s more eccentric passages – you may wish you were dealing with a smaller, less ambitious box; despite this being one you’ll get much more use out of than the Chocolate Orange that was given and gone within any day-long celebrations.
There is a noticeable emphasis on the narrative. Although Shadow of the Tomb Raider modifies what we've grown accustomed to within the franchise, the change of pace is welcomed. You'll find pockets of open-world to explore, with tons of side-quests and interactions with NPCs. Don't expect guns-a-blazin', but do expect getting more than you bargained for from this Tomb Raider experience.
Playing more like a massive expansion to Rise of the Tomb Raider rather than a new entry in the series, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is still a solid, if derivative, game.
Lara Croft is no more, and the Tomb Raider takes her place. This latest entry is a wonderful cap on this rebooted series that delivers on both the promise to refresh the character of Lara Croft and to bring the action of old Tomb Raider games to the modern era. It was a fun and visually stunning game from beginning to end.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider would be a perfect game if no one spoke.
Few games manage to pipe so many jaw-dropping sights into your eyeballs and even fewer deliver such complex, enjoyable puzzles and traversal challenges. Shadow of the Tomb Raider does all of this and more, its exhilarating predatory combat the icing on the cake.
All new Tomb Raider games were good, but Shadow of the Tomb Raider – despite some flaws – is the best of them all. It's the most balanced game in the series, with all the things Croft’s fans hanker for (with emphasis on fantastic exploration).
Review in Polish | Read full review
Lara is the main reason you'll play this game, and as long as you go into with the right expectations, you won't be disappointed.
Overall, you get a bigger adventure with Shadow of the Tomb Raider, as well as a bigger world to explore. To cap it all off, the story does the character justice by pushing Croft towards a more mature and badass persona through her obvious and logical flaws. It hits all the right notes and tries new things to give the series a different direction. In the end, it's an impressive upgrade from the last game.
Give me a female lead who wakes up, pisses out her diaphragm and does a shot of Jager while she's still on the toilet. Give me someone who is messy, who makes mistakes not out of a misguided and entitled sense of right and wrong, but because human beings are flawed and have complicated motivations. It's a tall order in an atmosphere where AAA games are designed just as much by their investors as they are their writers, but in the case of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, I still wish they'd actually get their hands dirty.