The recent release of Tomb Raider has been met with good critical and fan reception. Our own team here at Explosion has also given the game a favourable review here. With this in mind, and considering sales have been decent too, there’s a very high chance of seeing a sequel to this game. It is highly likely that gamers will want to see Lara again given her positive impact so far. So, here’s a list of improvements that would merit an even better reception for a sequel.
Tomb Raider 2013: 5 Ways To Improve The Sequel
5) Lara Should Gain More Abilities
Honestly, some of this may just be nostalgia talking. Lara gained a number of skills and gears throughout the 2013 reboot, but more can always be added. Primarily, I’m thinking of classic abilities like dual wielding weapons, swimming and acrobatic maneuvers that Lara used to have anyway. Couple that with all new abilities, and seeing Lara again won’t seem like a simple cash-in on a sequel. Of course, the game will need to utilise these abilities well and balance them within the game. With the quality of Tomb Raider 2013 though, I’m positive the developers can pull it off.
4) More Villain Encounters
Tomb Raider 2013 has a good number of supporting cast members to help or hinder Lara in her adventure. For the most part though, the supporting cast were friends of Lara. While this isn’t bad in itself, none of them bar Roth really felt like they were equal to Lara, and even then Roth was a kind of ‘father’ figure to Lara. Villains on the other hand, can be great adversaries of equal strength to our heroin. In this reboot, we don’t really encounter the main villain much throughout the game. I feel that this is a missed opportunity. I do definitely appreciate the scattering of documents and journals that provide more insight into people including the villains, but there should be more encounters to build up momentum and hype.
3) Harder Puzzles To Solve
The puzzles in this Tomb Raider reboot were fairly straight forward. Maybe gamers are just getting better at solving puzzles, but even then, the lack of tension as you solved puzzles made things even easier. A sequel should definitely look to incorporate harder brain teasers and also make sure there are more consequences for failing to solve puzzles timely. The older Tomb Raider games had spikes and boulders and all sorts of traps just ready to punish a misstep. That sense of tension excites gamers, so including it will make the sequel better.
2) Bigger Tombs To Raid
I personally feel that allowing players the option to explore puzzle-oriented tombs vs action-oriented story missions is a good idea. It allows the gamer freedom of choice where earlier games in the Tomb Raider series and even the Uncharted series do not. That said though, the size of the optional tombs available should be much bigger in the sequel. The optional tombs in Tomb Raider were laughably small. Remember if you will how much better the tombs (Lair of Romulus) were in Assassin’s Creed 2: Brotherhood. Those were great diversions and Tomb Raider should try to emulate some of that, while maintaining its own identity.
1) Actual Boss Fights
Probably the biggest disappointment personally in the recent Tomb Raider game was that there were no real boss battles. The gameplay in Tomb Raider is pretty good, so boss battles should accentuate that, not rely on cutscenes or QTEs. The boss battles in Tomb Raider (if you can call it that) were tepid. Boss battles are a huge part of gaming. Games like Metal Gear Solid, Dark Souls and Shadow Of The Colossus all thrive and are memorable to this day due in large part to the boss battles and their impact on the games. A sequel to this Tomb Raider reboot should look to incorporate proper boss fights.
So that’s it for this list. Do you guys have any thoughts to add?