Shadow of the Tomb Raider Continues Modern Legacy of Beloved Character

Here at RogerEbert.com, we’ve been attempting to discuss video game culture that has close ties with cinema. There are many, many games that owe a great deal to their movie influences, and vice versa. If you don’t think hit games have impacted the blockbuster market, you’re not paying attention. And so we’ve looked closely at incredibly cinematic franchises like “Resident Evil,” “Uncharted,” and “Assassin’s Creed” in an effort to examine these ties between the two mediums. One of the most film-influenced franchises, and one that has been adapted with two different leading ladies already, is “Tomb Raider,” which returned last week with a third new game in its modern iteration, the (mostly) thrilling “Shadow of the Tomb Raider.” A few difficulty spikes and repetitive mechanics hold the game back from the very high achievements of the 2013 reboot of this franchise and the 2015 sequel “Rise of the Tomb Raider,” but this is still a wildly entertaining game that owes a great deal to Indiana Jones, superhero movies, and even the cinematic incarnations of Lara Croft to date, played by Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander.

Lest you’re completely unfamiliar, “Tomb Raider” is old enough to drink. Premiering 22 years ago with the first Eidos Interactive game for the Sega Saturn and PlayStation, “Tomb Raider” was an instant hit. In 1996, games were still largely linear affairs, moving from point A to point B, and a world that felt at least a little like it allowed exploration was revolutionary. "Tomb Raider" sold seven million copies and was heralded as one of the best games of all time. It would become a template not only for action-adventure games but influence action-adventure films as well, and spawn a nearly-annual franchise. “Tomb Raider II” followed in 1997, “Tomb Raider III” in 1998, and so on and so on. The franchise lost some of its steam in the ‘00s, first rebooted really in the unique-to-the-franchise “Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light” in 2010.

The true reboot came in 2013 with the phenomenal “Tomb Raider.” Developer Crystal Dynamics went back to the drawing board, reimagining the origin of Lara Croft in a game that deftly blends action and puzzle-solving into a perfect blend. I don’t have enough time to play games I often want to play but “Tomb Raider” is good enough that I played it twice. And 2015’s “Rise of the Tomb Raider” nearly matches it.

Which brings us to “Shadow of the Tomb Raider.” If Lara and this world is starting to feel a little stale, it’s still a game filled with remarkable set pieces and gorgeous visuals that recalls classic action cinema like “Indiana Jones” and the serials that inspired it. It picks up two months after the end of the last game as Lara and her colleague/friend Jonah continue to alternate treasure-hunting with stopping the nefarious activities of the paramilitary group named Trinity. There’s an interesting through-line in these modern games in that the writers get around the potentially problematic idea that Croft is pillaging other cultures by suggesting, well, she’s doing it for the right reasons. Lara is the classic treasure hunter in the Indy model, the one who comes from a lineage of historians who seek to preserve instead of destroy.

“Shadow of the Tomb Raider” gets a little more biblical than some of the other games in the series. In a tomb near Cozumel, Lara discovers evidence of a hidden city and finds a dagger in a place that suggests the apocalypse will befall the world if anyone disturbs its placement. Lara does anyway, and, well, things start to fall apart. There’s a tsunami sequence in Cozumel that recalls the horror of the main set piece of “The Impossible,” as you have to dodge waves of water, jumping from debris to debris as you try to get away. There are several of these escape sequences in “Shadow,” and they’re among the most well-designed and heart-racing gaming moments of the year.