Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider launched first as an Xbox timed exclusive in November 2015 before reaching Steam a couple of months later, and it picks up directly where Crystal Dynamics' well-received 2013 reboot left off — a harder, more grounded Lara Croft, now chasing a lost city in Siberia rather than washing ashore on a mysterious island. The review sample here is large and detailed, and it converges on a clear picture: this is a gorgeous, mechanically satisfying sequel whose biggest departure from its predecessor is also its most divisive.

Visuals and traversal that still hold up

The praise for how this game looks and plays is remarkably consistent even a decade on. The most upvoted review in this sample opens with blunt, specific praise: "Gorgeous graphics, well optimized. One of the best looking games around," alongside "tight controls, platforming is very satisfying." A separate reviewer, someone who explicitly says they've completed the game five or more times, still returns to it years later, and multiple reviewers specifically credit whoever handled the game's performance optimization, with one simply writing: "Whoever optimizes these Tomb Raider games, keep them, whatever it takes." Fewer quicktime events compared to the 2013 original is another change reviewers repeatedly welcome, framing this entry as trusting the player's own input more than its predecessor did.

A wider world, and a real cost to focus

Where the review sample splits is on what that expanded, more open-world structure does to the story. Several detailed reviews make essentially the same argument independently: this game widens the scope of exploration and crafting at the expense of the tighter, more self-contained narrative that defined the 2013 reboot. One reviewer describes the open-world design bluntly as "Open World Busywork," arguing players can "completely lose track of the story" while fast traveling back and forth "so you can gather 50 rabbit skins for a new bow grip." Another agrees the game is still a strong overall experience, but specifically flags that its main antagonist and supporting cast are "generic, forgettable characters," where "the story has a few memorable moments but overall it falls flat." That's a consistent enough pattern across independent reviews to treat as a real structural trade-off rather than one reviewer's taste.

Two specific, checkable marketing concerns

Beyond the story-versus-scope debate, two more concrete findings are worth flagging directly for anyone comparing store listings. Multiple reviewers specifically warn that despite this game's VR support being advertised on its store page, that content is limited entirely to the separate Blood Ties DLC's Croft Manor sequence — a non-combat exploration area with no puzzles, fighting or main campaign content in VR at all. "This game is NOT a vr game as advertised," one reviewer states plainly, a specific, checkable claim any VR-motivated buyer should verify before purchasing on that basis. Separately, and more recently, the game was updated to require a login through Epic Games Services, and multiple reviewers object specifically to that addition on a game they bought through Steam, with one writing simply: "I bought this game on steam I want to play it on steam. This is not cool." That's a real, corroborated technical and privacy concern distinct from the franchise's core gameplay, worth knowing about going in.

Isolated but serious technical reports

Most of this review sample describes a well-optimized, technically solid game, which makes the small number of dissenting technical reports worth noting rather than dismissing outright. One detailed reviewer lists a specific, reproducible set of freezes — at campfires, when accessing the upgrade and skill menus, and during jumping and running — alongside frame drops and stuttering, describing it as the worst technical experience of the games mentioned in their review. That account sits at odds with the majority praise for the game's optimization, and this review can't independently confirm how widespread that specific freezing pattern is versus the much larger volume of reviewers reporting a smooth, well-performing experience, but it's a specific enough account to flag for anyone experiencing similar issues after purchase.

What the completion data adds

Steam's achievement statistics offer a rough independent read on engagement here too. Several early milestones sit above 80% of the tracked playerbase, a high starting completion rate consistent with an accessible, easy-to-begin campaign, but that curve falls away sharply toward the harder, presumably late-game or full-completion achievements, several of which sit close to 1% of the playerbase. As with a number of other titles in this catalogue, the achievement schema here returns only generic internal identifiers rather than readable names, so this review can describe the general shape of that drop-off without tying it to specific story chapters, tombs, or difficulty settings.

The middle chapter of a trilogy

It's worth placing this game within the wider rebooted trilogy it belongs to, since several reviewers explicitly frame their assessment that way. Rise of the Tomb Raider sits between the tightly focused 2013 original and 2018's Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and at least one reviewer who played the games out of order specifically credits this middle entry as the strongest of the three, even after enjoying Shadow's setting and tone. That kind of trilogy-wide comparison recurs often enough in this sample to suggest the games are frequently judged relative to each other rather than purely on their own terms, which is worth keeping in mind for anyone deciding where to start or whether to play all three in sequence.

Where it lands

Rise of the Tomb Raider earns its Very Positive reception through visuals, traversal and technical polish that reviewers still praise years after release, expanding meaningfully on the 2013 reboot's core systems. The recurring critique that its open-world scope comes at the cost of narrative focus is corroborated across multiple independent, detailed reviews, and the specific VR-marketing and Epic Games Services login concerns are concrete enough to check before buying rather than discover afterward. For fans of the series' traversal and combat who don't mind trading story focus for a bigger world, this remains a strong, visually impressive sequel.