Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: crystal dynamics, eidos montreal, embargoed, shadow of the tomb raider, Square Enix, Tomb raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Will Release on September 14, 2018

Square Enix, Crystal Dynamics, and Eidos Montreal have finally revealed more details on their upcoming game Shadow of the Tomb Raider. As you can see above, this installment in the new Tomb Raider series is much darker, with a much more dangerous Lara than we've seen previously. The new Lara was a huge part of the reveal, with new combat abilities and even tougher tombs. The game got two separate reveal events, one in Montreal and one in LA, both of which included a live presentation, a playable demo build of the game, and a whole lot of scenic ambiance.

The presentation in Montreal was given by Daniel Bisson who spent much of his time on stage discussing the gameplay pillars of the franchise and how they've been used to prop up Lara Croft's journey throughout the trilogy. "Finally, Lara becomes the Tomb Raider that we all know and love," was a common refrain for what fans can expect from this new game. So this is Lara Croft's final form, at least for now.

The gameplay pillars for Shadow of the Tomb Raider have changed a bit. We aren't just getting to know Lara, or watch her find herself, no. We get to watch Lara Croft become a predator. She's no longer surviving through Trinity's actions and figuring out how to save the day, she's going after them. To that effect, she's got some new stealth capabilities- costumes she can don in order to disappear more easily into the jungle environment, the ability to blend into vegetation, to almost utterly disappear.

Of course, she won't spend her whole time in the jungle, because this is a Tomb Raider game, thus there must be tombs. And the tombs in Shadow are more dangerous than ever before. They've levelled up about as much as Lara herself has, becoming more difficult, more complex, even more likely to kill you, and involve much deeper puzzle solving.

And if all that weren't enough, Lara's also going to be confronted with the consequences of her own actions when she accidentally sets off a Mayan Apocalypse prophecy in an attempt to get a step ahead of the evil organization. Which makes this the most emotional of the three stories we've seen in the rebooted franchise so far. "Lara goes on a very emotional journey" Bisson said. And we could understand how accidentally ending the world would be an emotional thing.

Finally, Lara's character design has been changed a bit to make her seem more capable, more confident in herself and her abilities. But don't expect that to go unchallenged.

You can check out the trailer here:

Shadow of the Tomb Raider will release on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 on September 14, 2018. Pre-orders for the game are now live.

And because it wouldn't be a proper reveal without gameplay, a new sizzle reel was shown at the event, which gives us some clues as to what new abilities Lara will get further into the game. That trailer is set to release today, so we'll have it for you when its live.

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