Rise of the Tomb Raider is featured on the cover of Game Informer’s next issue, and enjoys a pretty extensive coverage in the magazine itself. Now that the digital edition of magazine is available, one reader has gathered up all the information he could find an posted it online.
According to NeoGAFer JehutyRunner, Rise of the Tomb Raider will take place in at lease two different location across the globe, one of which is the Siberian wilderness. These harsh environments will have hub areas two or three times bigger than those in Tomb Raider, and will act as the game’s antagonist, alongside the secret society Lara came across in the previous game.
Each location might bring a new type of climate, but the weather won’t stay the same throughout Lara’s visit. A weather system will affect humans and animals alike. There’s also a mention of animals reacting to the time of day, so that may hint at a day-night-cycle.
Humans and animals also react at being shot at, and Rise of the Tomb Raider gives you more weapons to shoot. Each weapon type, including the bow, will have a bigger selection to choose from, depending on the attributes you look for in a weapon. Lara will also have special items sh can use to lure enemies away from or to a specific location. Combine that with the fact she can now hide in tree tops or bushes and even swim, and you got yourself a new stealth mechanic that will allow you to plan how to approach any given combat situation. Game Informer mentions the combat is somewhat similar to that in The Last of Us.
If the fighting gets a bit too rough, the details suggest can lose enemies after engaging them, and take the time to craft a healing item from cloth and herbs, or some other useful item.
As for the puzzles (because you have to have puzzles in a Tomb Raider game), Crystal Dynamic promises to have greater emphasis on puzzles this time around. There will be “nested puzzles”, which basically means multi-stage puzzles, as well as puzzles that incorporate combat and traversal into their solution. The developer hope to create puzzles that “make sense in a realistic setting.”
Oh, and Jonah, the big guy with the mohawk from the previous game, is back.
So far we’re pretty excited about Rise of the Tomb Raider. It seems to stick with the many of the great things that made Tomb Radier such a successful reboot, but also tries to work towards bringing back the tomb-raiding side of Lara Croft. We can’t wait for find out more about the game later this year, and finally play it come holiday 2015.
