New for this outing is Lara's ability to craft combat tools on-the-fly. Aimed correctly, and you can down even heavily armed guards with a single salvo. I especially enjoy the feel of the rapid fire skills, which let you instantly fire off fully charged follow up arrows after your initial shot. Having to draw back and charge shots provides a nice rhythm to the combat, especially in conjunction with some of the skill upgrades available as Lara levels up. Once again, though, the bow is star of the show. Pistols feel lightweight and clinical, while the pump-action shotgun is a chunky and gratifyingly deadly option. Most feel good to fire, the panicked inaccuracy of the automatic rifle being the only real exception. Lara has access to a small selection of weapon types-pistol, rifle and shotgun-with a variety of styles available in each category. While things quickly spiral out of control, particularly after the appearance of militaristic cult Trinity, she's no longer an unwilling participant in events. There's an important difference in the plots of RotTR and its predecessor.

Lara is on the hunt for the Divine Source, an artifact that her father had obsessed over before his death. Lara's latest adventure opens in Siberia, and-aside from an early sojourn in Syria-that's where it stays. They're all still there, but take up significantly less of 15-or-so hour running time. There are fewer slow-mo QTE sequences, fewer awkward conversations, fewer by-the-numbers miniboss fights. It's not that Tomb Raider's missteps have been eradicated, but they've been dramatically reduced. There's a level of artifice to these sequences, but they operate within the framework of established interactions. There's still plenty of set-piece spectacle, but these pace-breaking action segments trust you to read the visual clues of the environment and react using the appropriate controls. From then on, Rise of the Tomb Raider sticks to a mostly consistent level of interactivity. The opener is frustrating, but over quickly.

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