Info about Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition:

Official game description:
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Reviews & Accolades
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_“The strongest entry in the trilogy”_ - GamesRadar+  
_“Arrestingly Beautiful”_ - Polygon  
_“Crisp, addictive, and deeply satisfying”_ - Nerdist  
_“Looks absolutely incredible”_ - Destructoid  
_“A truly immersive experience.”_ \- Bleacher Report  
_“9 out of 10”_ - Worthplaying  
_“Exploration is absolutely vibrant”_ - GameCrate  
_“A tremendous thrill ride”_ - Digital Trends  
_“9 out of 10 - Better than ever before."_ - Outright Geekery
Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition out now for macOS and Linux.
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About the Game
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In Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition experience the final chapter of Lara’s origin as she is forged into the Tomb Raider she is destined to be. Combining the base game, all seven DLC challenge tombs, as well as all downloadable weapons, outfits, and skills, Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition is the ultimate way to experience Lara’s defining moment.  
**Survive and Thrive In the Deadliest Place on Earth:** Master an unforgiving jungle setting in order to survive. Explore underwater environments filled with crevasses and deep tunnel systems.  
**Become One With the Jungle:** Outgunned and outnumbered, Lara must use the jungle to her advantage. Strike suddenly and disappear like a jaguar, use mud as camouflage, and instill fear in enemies to sow chaos.  
**Discover Dark and Brutal Tombs:** Tombs are more terrifying than ever before, requiring advanced traversal techniques to reach them, and once inside they are filled with deadly puzzles.  
**Uncover Living History:** Discover a hidden city and explore the biggest hub space ever found in a Tomb Raider game.

Release date: 14 Sep, 2018

Categories: Exploration, Single-player Story, Puzzle Solving, Stealth Gameplay, Platformer, Character Progression, Crafting, Dungeon Crawler


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Stunning Visuals, Engaging Gameplay (weight 0.96): The game received widespread praise for its overall high quality, engaging gameplay, and breathtaking graphics. Reviewers frequently described it as 'beautiful', 'amazing', and 'fun', noting impressive views, lighting, and cinematic moments that keep players deeply immersed and entertained throughout the experience.
- Focus on Classic Exploration (weight 0.72): The game successfully returned to the roots of the classic Tomb Raider experience by heavily emphasizing exploration, challenging puzzles, and intricate tombs. Players appreciated the reduction in forced combat and the increased focus on archaeological adventure, fostering a strong sense of discovery and immersion in ancient cultures.
- Lara's Mature Character Evolution (weight 0.72): Players highly praised Lara Croft's character development, highlighting her emotional depth, vulnerability, and transformation into a determined, legendary 'Tomb Raider'. Her nuanced portrayal, including internal conflicts and enhanced stealth abilities, made her a relatable and compelling protagonist. Camilla Luddington's voice acting and detailed facial animations contributed significantly to this immersive experience.
- Abundant Engaging Content (weight 0.52): The game offers a substantial amount of content beyond the main story, including well-integrated side missions, numerous collectibles, and challenging DLC tombs. This wealth of engaging content, combined with a rewarding New Game+ system, significantly enhances replayability and overall playtime, providing excellent value.
- Intricate Tomb & Puzzle Design (weight 0.47): Reviewers consistently lauded the game's tomb and puzzle design, calling them the most complex, creative, and challenging in the trilogy. These segments provided a satisfying sense of accomplishment and discovery, often featuring multi-step environmental challenges that truly tested players' observation and logical thinking.
- Strategic Stealth Combat Rewarding (weight 0.45): The stealth mechanics were significantly improved and highly praised, allowing players to utilize the environment for tactical advantages such as mud camouflage, wall-hiding, and unique environmental takedowns. This emphasis on stealth provided a refreshing and satisfying predatory combat experience, balancing action with strategic depth.
- Optimized Performance & Superb Audio (weight 0.33): The game was highly regarded for its stable performance, good optimization across various hardware configurations, and minimal bugs. Additionally, the magnificent sound design and atmospheric soundtrack significantly enhanced immersion, contributing to a rich and polished overall technical experience.
- Compelling Story & Character Growth (weight 0.23): The narrative was found to be engaging, well-written, and emotionally resonant, effectively concluding Lara Croft's origin trilogy. The plot delved deeper into her psyche, exploring themes of guilt and responsibility, which added significant emotional weight and made her journey more personal.

Common complaints:
- Unpolished & Disappointing Experience (weight 0.99): Players widely feel the game is a significant downgrade from previous entries in the trilogy, citing a general lack of polish, inconsistent quality, and a sense of regression in many core aspects. The overall experience is described as janky, frustrating, and often boring, falling short of expectations for a AAA title and a trilogy finale.
- Inconsistent Lara Character & Plot (weight 0.79): Players expressed significant dissatisfaction with Lara Croft's characterization, finding her inconsistent, selfish, and less engaging compared to previous installments. Her character development felt regressive or stagnant, and many reported issues with her movements, inconsistent behavior, and appearance, diminishing her appeal as a protagonist.
- Weak & Predictable Story/Pacing (weight 0.51): The game's story and narrative received widespread criticism for being weak, cliché, unoriginal, and predictable. Many players felt the pacing was uneven, characters were underdeveloped, and the plot failed to provide a compelling or satisfying conclusion to Lara's trilogy arc, often feeling short or rushed.
- Critical Unresolved Bugs & Crashes (weight 0.5): The game is severely hampered by numerous critical and unaddressed technical bugs, including frequent crashes, freezes, and progression-blocking glitches in both main and side quests. Many players reported losing significant progress or being unable to achieve 100% completion due to these persistent issues, which some indicate have not been fixed years after release.
- Tedious & Unrewarding Side Content (weight 0.36): Side quests, collectibles, and many puzzles are criticized for being repetitive, uninspired, and often feeling like filler content designed to pad game length. Players found these elements tedious and unrewarding, detracting from the overall experience and often disrupting the main story's pacing without offering meaningful engagement.
- Unintuitive & Repetitive Puzzles/Tombs (weight 0.33): Puzzles and tombs are frequently criticized for poor design, being unintuitive, overly dark, and often requiring external guides due to unclear solutions or buggy mechanics. Players found them repetitive, either excessively difficult for the wrong reasons or too simple to be engaging, often feeling like artificial padding rather than genuine challenges.
- Underdeveloped & Scarce Combat (weight 0.28): The combat system is widely perceived as underdeveloped, clunky, and significantly reduced in frequency compared to previous titles. Many players found combat encounters unsatisfying and unimpactful, rendering weapon and skill upgrades largely useless due to the scarcity of opportunities to engage in meaningful fights.
- Frustrating Platforming & Exploration (weight 0.26): Players frequently reported frustration with platforming and exploration mechanics, citing unresponsive controls, clunky movement, and inconsistent hit detection that led to unfair deaths. Repetitive climbing and swimming, along with poorly signposted puzzles in overly dark areas, often broke immersion and made traversal a tedious chore rather than an engaging adventure.

Gameplay feedback:
- More Exploration, Less Combat (weight 0.55): Players found the game shifted focus from constant gunfights to extensive exploration, platforming, and puzzle-solving. Stealth mechanics, like mud cover and hiding in foliage, are heavily emphasized, allowing for a predator-like approach to reduced combat encounters.
- Lara's Dark Origin Story Conclusion (weight 0.32): The game concludes Lara Croft's origin trilogy, portraying her as a more vulnerable and morally complex character. She accidentally triggers a catastrophic event and grapples with the consequences, showcasing her evolution into the Tomb Raider while exploring themes of obsession and responsibility.
- Robust Progression & Crafting (weight 0.14): Players engage with a detailed character progression system featuring a three-branch skill tree (exploration, combat, stealth/survival). Crafting is essential, allowing for new weapons, special ammunition, and outfits with stat bonuses using materials gathered from hunting and looting.
- Abundant, Challenging Tombs (weight 0.13): The game features the most challenge tombs in the trilogy, offering complex vertical platforming and water-based puzzles. Side quests and DLCs often revolve around these tombs, providing rewards like outfits, skills, and lore, and encouraging extensive exploration.
- Flexible Difficulty Options (weight 0.1): The game offers multiple difficulty levels that are highly customizable, allowing players to independently adjust the challenge for combat, puzzles, and exploration. Higher difficulties remove hints and increase enemy strength, providing a significant challenge for those seeking it.
- Evolution of TR Formula (weight 0.08): This installment maintains the general Tomb Raider formula, drawing elements from its predecessors while introducing new mechanics and refining traversal. Players noted a shift from the more action-packed 2013 game towards a greater emphasis on puzzles and exploration, akin to older TR titles.
- New Game Plus Carries Progress (weight 0.05): The game includes a New Game+ mode where skills, weapons, and upgrades carry over from the initial playthrough, offering additional skills exclusive to this mode. This allows for replaying the game with enhanced abilities, though some found it made the main mission too easy.
- Immersive Mayan/Inca Setting (weight 0.03): The game's setting in South American jungles, combined with a strong focus on Mayan and Inca civilizations and mythology, resonated positively with players. This cultural backdrop enhances exploration and puzzle-solving, immersing players in ancient history.
- Mixed Story Reception (weight 0.03): Player feedback on the story is varied, with some rating it as 'okay' or around 7/10, while others did not provide strong positive or negative sentiments. Many reviewers noted they had not finished the story yet or offered a neutral opinion, suggesting it's not universally praised or condemned.

Performance notes:
- Good Performance on Diverse Hardware (weight 0.13): Despite widespread issues for some, many players experience smooth and well-optimized gameplay on various platforms including Mac, Steam Deck, and mid-to-high-end PCs. The game often runs well on high to ultra settings, delivering stable frame rates for these users, sometimes exceeding 60-90 FPS.
- Puzzles & Systems Require Workarounds (weight 0.08): Several gameplay elements, particularly puzzles and interactions, are bugged and necessitate specific settings adjustments (e.g., V-sync, resolution changes, FPS caps) to function correctly. Audio and collectible tracking bugs also exist, often fixable by restarting the game or toggling specific settings.
- Varied Hardware Requirements & Usage (weight 0.07): The game's performance varies across different hardware configurations, with specific recommendations for VRAM (e.g., 2GB for low textures, 4GB+ generally) and RAM (e.g., 12GB+ for seamless loading) impacting stability and texture quality. While playable on weaker PCs, a dedicated gaming PC is often suggested for the best experience, with some setups noting significant PC heating.
- FPS Impacts Gameplay Experience (weight 0.02): Players observe that differing frame rate ranges directly influence the visual fluidity and overall gameplay experience. This includes noticeable effects on aiming precision and the visual quality of dynamic elements, with higher FPS generally making combat easier.
- Troubleshooting Launch Issues (weight 0.01): Players encountering problems with the game launching, such as black screens or immediate crashes, have successfully resolved these by reinstalling graphics drivers or verifying the integrity of game files through their respective game platforms.
- Paititi is Performance Benchmark (weight 0.01): The in-game Paititi area is consistently identified by players as the most graphically demanding section of the game. It effectively serves as a crucial benchmark for evaluating a system's overall hardware capability and stability under load.
- Customize Audio Dynamic Range (weight 0.01): The game features high-quality audio mixing, and players recommend adjusting the dynamic range setting for optimal sound. Specific suggestions are provided for different output devices, such as headphones versus independent speakers, and varying ambient noise environments.

Recommendations:
- Generally Recommended & Worth Playing (weight 0.55): Many players express strong positive sentiment, recommending the game for its overall enjoyable experience and solid adventure. Reviews frequently suggest it's a must-play for fans of the genre, despite some perceived shortcomings.
- Best Value on Sale (weight 0.52): A significant number of players advise purchasing the game primarily during sales or at a deep discount. While generally recommended, many feel the full price might not align with the game's value for everyone.
- Weakest in Trilogy for Some (weight 0.2): A notable portion of the player base considers this the weakest installment in the reboot trilogy, often preferring 'Rise of the Tomb Raider.' Criticisms include a boring plot, frustrating gameplay for completionists, or a perceived lack of innovation compared to its predecessors.
- Ideal for Puzzle & Exploration Fans (weight 0.15): Reviewers consistently point out that the game excels for those who enjoy methodical exploration, challenging puzzles, and immersive adventure. It's less suited for players seeking non-stop action or purely cinematic combat.

Other player notes:
- Divided Fan Reception vs. Prior Games (weight 0.22): Long-time fans express strong opinions, often comparing this game to its predecessors, particularly Tomb Raider (2013) and Rise of the Tomb Raider. There's no consensus on the best installment, with some preferring earlier titles for their story, mechanics, or environment, while others still enjoyed this game.
- Darker Lara Croft Development (weight 0.2): Players note Lara's character journey is darker and more introspective in this installment, showcasing her transformation into a formidable explorer. While generally appreciated, some minor criticisms exist regarding repetitive dialogue or her appearance, alongside specific feedback on Jonah's character.
- Eager for Future Game Innovations (weight 0.18): Players are actively looking forward to the next Tomb Raider installment, hoping for more combat, diverse new settings (e.g., India, Africa), and novel stories and weapon types. There's also a desire for potential new mechanics like dialogue options.
- Variable Playtime & Completion Effort (weight 0.14): Player playtime varies significantly, from 10 hours to over 80 hours, depending on whether side missions and collectibles are pursued. Achieving 100% completion requires considerable patience due to numerous optional tombs, challenges, and thousands of collectibles.
- Minor Bugs & Narrative Issues (weight 0.07): The game is noted to have minor bugs that can be annoying for some players, though some acknowledge it's an older game. Critiques also point to a narratively clumsy story and unengaging collectibles, which some players found skippable.
- General Critique of Modern Games (weight 0.01): Some players expressed a broader dissatisfaction with the quality of modern games, feeling that this generation of games is inferior to previous ones and lacks similar compelling experiences.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.26): Players experienced satisfaction from the game's overall high quality, including stunning graphics, engaging stories, and well-designed puzzles. They appreciated the balanced gameplay, effective stealth mechanics, and the rewarding exploration of tombs, often considering it a fitting conclusion to the trilogy and good value for money.
- Frustration (weight 0.17): Frustration primarily stemmed from numerous game-breaking bugs, poor optimization, and technical issues that hindered progress or caused crashes. Players also found certain gameplay mechanics, such as unresponsive platforming, imprecise controls, and excessive unskippable cutscenes, to be irritating and disruptive to their experience.
- Disappointment (weight 0.16): Disappointment arose from the game being perceived as inferior to its predecessors, particularly in story quality, character development, and overall gameplay innovation. A short main story, unpolished features, and recurring bugs also contributed to players feeling let down by the game.
- Excitement (weight 0.07): Players felt excitement due to the game's thrilling narrative, intense action sequences, and visually stunning environments. The challenging puzzles, engaging exploration, and the feeling of returning to classic Tomb Raider elements also generated strong anticipation for future installments or replays.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.04): Enjoyment was driven by the game's fun and immersive gameplay, which blended engaging exploration, challenging puzzles, and satisfying stealth combat. Players also highlighted the beautiful graphics, compelling story, and the overall adventure experience as key sources of their enjoyment.
- Appreciation (weight 0.03): Appreciation was expressed for the game's high production value, including its beautiful graphics, immersive sound design, and successful cultural integration. Players valued the detailed character development of Lara Croft, rewarding exploration, and thoughtful additions like customizable difficulty and New Game+.
- Joy (weight 0.03): Joy originated from the game's incredible blend of adventure, challenge, and storytelling, often leading to a desire for 100% completion or replaying the entire trilogy. Players particularly loved the engaging puzzles, beautiful environments, and the overall positive and immersive experience it provided.
- Anger (weight 0.03): Anger was directed at developers for unfixed critical bugs that persisted years after release, leading to lost progress and unplayable sections. Players also expressed anger over the game's poor optimization, perceived low quality, and unhelpful customer support regarding technical issues.
- Admiration (weight 0.03): Admiration focused on the game's breathtaking graphics, innovative puzzles, and the deep, nuanced character development of Lara Croft throughout the trilogy. Players also praised the cultural research in the setting, excellent optimization, and the game's overall technical and narrative accomplishments.
- Annoyance (weight 0.01): Annoyance was caused by frequent bugs, unskippable cutscenes, and weak or repetitive side quests that felt tedious. Players also found certain gameplay design choices, such as ineffective stealth against armored enemies, uninteresting lore, and awkward writing, to be bothersome.
- Boredom (weight 0.01): Boredom resulted from repetitive gameplay mechanics, slow pacing, and tedious exploration in similar jungle environments. Players also found the story to be unengaging and the experience to feel like an interactive movie, leading to a loss of interest.
- Enthusiasm (weight 0.01): Enthusiasm was characterized by strong recommendations for the game, often citing its phenomenal quality and status as the best in the trilogy. Players were eager to share their positive experiences and expressed high hopes for future installments in the franchise.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion stemmed from illogical plot points, inconsistent character motivations, and unexpected shifts in Lara's facial features or game genre. Technical issues like inexplicable crashes and unclear puzzle progression also left players perplexed.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.01): Nostalgia was triggered by the game's resemblance to classic Tomb Raider elements, such as exploration-focused gameplay and tomb raiding, evoking childhood memories. Long-time fans appreciated callbacks to older games and a perceived return to the series' roots.
- Love (weight 0.01): Love was a strong emotion directed towards Lara Croft's character, her development, and the overall Tomb Raider series and its atmosphere. Players expressed deep affection for the game's beautiful scenarios, immersive world, and the adventurous experience it provided.
- Awe (weight 0.01): Awe was inspired by the game's magnificent visuals, detailed environments, and grand scenes, particularly when traversing ancient tombs or witnessing dramatic moments. Players were captivated by the stunning graphics, immersive atmosphere, and intricate archaeological artifacts.
- Engagement (weight 0.01): Engagement was driven by the game's compelling narrative, challenging puzzles, and the atmosphere of jungles and ancient temples. Players felt hooked by Lara's character development and the addictive nature of completing all missions and exploring ancient ruins.
- Disgust (weight 0.01): Disgust arose from the game's perceived cringeworthy story, contradictory character portrayals, and specific disturbing or intentionally unpleasant design choices. Players expressed a strong negative reaction to the overall game experience and elements like excessive collectibles.
- Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement came from quirky and unexpected game details, humorous descriptions of challenges, and the absurdity of some physics or logic within the game. Players found humor in various aspects, including Lara's death animations and the dumb enemy AI.
- Mild disappointment (weight 0.01): Mild disappointment arose from a short main story, a lack of significant innovation compared to previous titles, and Lara's character sometimes being portrayed as unintelligent. Players also noted occasional pacing issues and a perceived lack of environmental variation.}