The developers of Shadow of the Tomb Raider have given the game a huge graphical boost so fans can now enjoy the game in all the glory of 4K resolution on PlayStation 5.
This was revealed along with the news that Shadow of the Tomb Raider would be among the list of free games available to subscribers of PlayStation Plus for January 2021.
The title was initially released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in September 2018, then on macOS, Linux, and Google Stadia in November 2019, and now on Playstation 5 and PlayStation Plus in January 2021.
It is an action-adventure game following the life and antics of Lara Croft, an archaeologist from the United Kingdom. She is intelligent and exceedingly brave and likes to spend her time dungeon crawling and tomb raiding to find valuables and forget about lost relics.
The Tomb Raider games have been viral since the original was released back in 1996. Since then, the franchise has ballooned to include 20 titles, plus another one planned for release in 2021 titled Tomb Raider Reloaded.
There have also been three films released so far based on Lara Croft with a third, untitled movie planned for sometime in the next couple of years and an animated spinoff television series titled Revisioned: Tomb Raider. There is even an official slot game available on many popular online casinos in India such as 10Cric and LeoVegas, called Tomb Raider: Secret of the Sword.
It makes sense to remaster the most recent addition to the franchise for 4K and PlayStation 5 to keep fans’ appetite when they wait for Tomb Raider Reloaded to drop sometime later in the year. It keeps the title fresh in everyone’s minds despite there being no new content, and it has to be said that it looks stunning. The PlayStation 5 handles it without a hitch.
The game is played from a third-person perspective, over the shoulder of Lara Croft. This not only allows the players the best possible to tackle the tricky environments, but it also provides plenty of opportunities for epic long shots of the surroundings, which the games use to beautiful effect.
Stealth is essential in the game; there are many encounters where too many enemies can brute force your way through. It is expertly done and fits Lara’s narrative because, thematically, she is renowned for outsmarting opponents rather than bulldozing them.
The game’s plot begins two months after the conclusion of Rise of the Tomb Raider, the previous game in the franchise, with Lara Croft and her friend Jonah Maiava having sworn to bring down a paramilitary organisation called Trinity.
This adventure takes the pair to many exotic locations such as Mexico and the Amazon Rainforest as they search for a way to bring Trinity down. The game also explores some interesting themes of good vs evil as Lara and Jonah begin to drift apart because of some of Croft’s decisions to beat Trinity.
The game was very well received by fans and critics on its original release in 2018, with IGN giving it a 9/10 and it has a weighted average of around 78/100 across PC, PS4, and Xbox One on Metacritic.
It picked up five major gaming awards including the Gamers’ Choice Award in 2018 and Best Original Sound Track and Best Cinematic Cutscene at the 2019 GANG Awards. This 4K remaster will do nothing to hurt those ratings and the beautiful vistas and locations throughout the game make it well worth creating a super high definition version like this.