Speaking with Game Informer, Noah Hughes, creative director for the Tomb Raider franchise, recently discussed how Rise of the Tomb Raider will improve upon the first game, which recently hit 8.5 million copies sold, becoming the highest-selling Tomb Raider game to date.
Hughes says that Crystal Dynamics are effectively doubling down on the Metroid and Zelda elements from 2013’s Tomb Raider. Additionally, the team is making an effort to tie the different gameplay systems more closely together. One example of this is how the weapon upgrade system works.
Certain weapon upgrades in Rise of the Tomb Raider will require hunting specific animals. Meanwhile, rare upgrades will require tracking down rare animals, and their appearance depends on a multitude of things such as time of day, location, weather conditions, and so on. More skills and gear will also be available for Lara to unlock this time around, and there will also be many approaches to how you can deal with enemies.
While combat is still a major part of Rise of the Tomb Raider, you will now have the option to avoid combat in many situations by moving across rooftops or from tree to tree, or even diving underwater. At the same time, Hughes says that the game will also feature more secret tombs and crypts for players to discover, so if you don’t like the combat aspect, you can always bias your experience with the game by focusing on other things instead, and attempting to avoid combat situations.
In terms of Lara as a character, Hughes says that she’s more experienced than she was in Tomb Raider, but that doesn’t mean she’s grown to enjoy killing. Lara is put in high-stakes situations where killing might be her only option if she wants to survive, but her first choice will always be not to kill. Since she’s more experienced than she was in the first game, it’s important for her to be up against greater odds in Rise of the Tomb Raider, so that she can still grow as a character.
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