For a while I had been under the impression that Rise of the Tomb Raider would follow a Man of Steel-esque story arc. In Man of Steel, Superman is implicated in what must amount to billions of dollars worth of property damage, not to mention an exorbitant amount of civilian deaths as a result of his battle in the middle of Metropolis with General Zod. Such was the extent of this mayhem that it became one of the biggest complaints viewers had with the film, as its “happy ending” seemed a little far-fetched considering he’d left his city a crumbling, post-apocalyptic wasteland and its residents left to piece together their lives in its aftermath.
Judging by the trailers and previews we’ve seen of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it seems that director Zack Snyder is going to address this by acknowledging the amount of devastation caused by Superman, and using it as a plot device in order to have Batman jump onto the scene with a “Hey, Clark, buddy – stop fucking up all these people’s lives with your superpowers ‘n’ shit, yeah?” This drew parallels with what I expected from Rise of the Tomb Raider, after I came away impressed by the game that was being hinted at in its E3 2014 trailer.
That trailer (which you can view above) hinted at an intelligent narrative that would see Lara Croft struggling with the events of Tomb Raider 2013, which followed a young Lara swiftly and rather unbelievably transform from a young adventurer blindsided by the violent acts being committed by the malevolent cult members hunting both her and her friends, into an experienced mass murderer in her own right. It featured Lara sitting in her therapist’s office, with him helping her deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the accompanying flashbacks she had been experiencing as a result of what she had endured in the first game. It felt like an interesting way for developers Crystal Dynamics to address the complaints regarding Lara’s sudden willingness to engage in the violent nihilism of her surroundings, and while it wouldn’t have stood to make the tonal shift in Tomb Raider any less nonsensical, it would have still made it a damn sight more forgivable.
But earlier this week the game received a gameplay demo during Microsoft’s Gamescom press conference (which, again, you can view above), and now it’s all but confirmed that the game won’t be taking this thoughtful approach to the story of Lara Croft, and will instead make her more jarringly bloodthirsty than she was even in the 2013 reboot. The trailer highlights a variety of methods to brutally take down enemy guards, along with graphics animations that accompany them showing Lara hacking away at one poor soul’s neck, drowning another, and stabbing one particularly unfortunate fellow in the face with a broken bottle. If Rise of the Tomb Raider is to feature a Lara who is undergoing therapy for the violence she had committed in the last game, then her therapist is likely going to be unhappy that his patient is foregoing her recovery by going around shoving glass into people’s faces.
I personally found Tomb Raider 2013 to be a decent game when I eventually managed to resign myself in the knowledge that it was basically not a Tomb Raider game at all, and rather a worthwhile deviation from the Uncharted mold that just so happened to star Lara Croft. I forgave it for its considerable lack of both tombs and raiding, because Crystal Dynamics were clearly trying to do something new with the series and, though there were a variety of missteps, they were an inevitability given the drastic change of direction for the series. Even though Tomb Raider failed in making Lara’s sudden change of heart in regards to violence believable, it was at least commendable that Crystal Dynamics tried to make this a facet of the story in the first place, given most just assume that the player is willing to take control of a mass-murdering protagonist no questions asked.
But Rise of the Tomb Raider’s Gamescom demo indicates that what we are going to see in terms of Lara’s odd relationship with violence is basically more of the same only dialed up to 11, and though it’s far too early to judge whether or not Rise of the Tomb Raider will be a good or bad game, as a fan of the series I feel that I am well within my remit to point at it and say “that isn’t Tomb Raider.” I have no qualms with games not strictly adhering to their lineage, but what I have witnessed in both Rise of the Tomb Raider’s E3 2015 trailer and Gamescom 2015 demo has NOT been the Tomb Raider I played on the PlayStation, PS2 or Xbox 360. It has been Uncharted with a stronger emphasis upon gratuitous violence.
While Uncharted’s not exactly a bad series to borrow mechanics from, my quibble rests with the series’ identity having been unceremoniously removed thanks to it mirroring this fixation with gore that game developers seem to have. Tomb Raider 2013 teased us with a story that could have seen Lara facing a moral dilemma in regards to her reluctance to commit acts of violence, but then decided to quickly do away with that idea by having Lara throw herself in the bloody deep end. Rise of the Tomb Raider’s early trailer suggested it was going to get all subversive, but now it’s looking likely that, actually, it’s probably going to feature even more incongruous violence than before, with just as little justification for it.
This is the point where I should clarify that I do not have an issue with violence featured in video games, as I’m sure a few commenters will accuse me of having (there are probably some who will have already left comments telling me to “go play a Nintendo game” after having only read the first two paragraphs of this article, and you should promptly SHAME THEM for doing so). As someone who is very rarely squeamish, I actually enjoy the over-the-top violence in games that keeps parents awake at night. But violence only works when applied within the right context, with this being something that Tomb Raider 2013 failed at conveying and, judging from the intense violence featured in the Gamescom demo, Rise of the Tomb Raider will struggle with, too.
Why would Lara go from abhorring the violent behavior displayed in the opening of Tomb Raider 2013 to being completely at ease with actively taking part in it in Rise of the Tomb Raider, even going so far as to go out of her way to make her killing of these men more graphic than is necessary? How on Earth could Lara be so traumatized by the events of the first game that she had to see a therapist for her PTSD, but she then goes about stabbing guys in the neck with no hesitation?
I get that video games and realism don’t exactly go hand-in-hand, but Rise of the Tomb Raider is clearly intended to be a more realistic take on the Tomb Raider franchise compared to the days in which Lara gunned down a t-rex. But whereas Crystal Dynamics have opted for a more grounded story compared to the old entries in the series, they’ve nonetheless decided that the game should boast over-the-top violence despite it being jarring to witness within the context of the game.
Unless we are to believe that Lara has suddenly transformed into a psychopath between the events of Tomb Raider 2013 and Rise of the Tomb Raider, her actions seem at odds with her personality, as the demo depicted her mercilessly dispatching men with gusto. I get that they’re bad guys and everything, but it hasn’t been that long since Lara set out on her first archaeological expedition, and now she’s suddenly turned into transformed into a one woman army with the survival instincts of a green beret.
I am content with stretching my imagination to some degree, but Lara Croft’s story arc is seemingly asking me to play dumb and simply accept that while her dialogue suggests she isn’t comfortable with the bloodshed surrounding her, her actions dictate that she is more than willing to get her hands dirty and slit an incalculable amount of throats during her travels. Gamescom all but confirmed my suspicions that Crystal Dynamics are looking to differentiate its new Tomb Raider series from Uncharted by making it ultra-violent, regardless of whether or not doing so actually makes sense within the context of the game.
There was a separate trailer unveiled at Gamescom that was more promising, featuring Lara Croft actually raiding some tombs, but with this gameplay being so disparate from the bloody combat included elsewhere in the game it feels as though Crystal Dynamics have failed to capitalize on making Lara a distinct character in her own right, and have instead decided to make her every video game hero that has ever existed, complete with the utter disregard for human life that her soulless peers typically possess. Rise of the Tomb Raider initially seemed like it would offer something a little bit different, and would feature a hero in the form of Lara Croft that would actually boast a conscience. Unfortunately, as Crystal Dynamics continue down this violent path for the series, I find it difficult to be as excited for the game as I was following its E3 2014 reveal.
