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Would you prefer if a new Tomb Raider game went back to its roots or should the series continue to go in a more serious direction?

Which Tomb Raider style floats your boat?

  • Yeah fam, give me that sexy ass kicking Lara!

    Votes: 152 80.9%
  • No, I'd rather continue playing as the joyless punching bag

    Votes: 36 19.1%

  • Total voters
    188

DryvBy

Member
Uncharted clone Laura is great imo, but I want a Tomb Raider game. I shockingly never played the first game until I finished the 2013 game and I loved them both but prefer the original. It was nice to have puzzles and stuff to figure out.
 

mrmustard

Banned
I prefer the new ones. The only good thing about the old ones is that they have much less cutscenes.
 
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Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
I prefer Shadow of the Tomb Raider approach to gameplay and more emphesis on puzzles and exploration. It's the best game in the whole reboot series imho. I hope they know as well and that the next game will be similar if not better. I just don't want to shoot a shit ton of mercs, that's not what TR games were all about and shouldn't be. TR is at it's best when you're exploring locations and solving puzzles. Give me a bow, let me upgrade it, use it stealth if I have to and that's everything I need when it comes to action. I do want more mature and dark approach to story though and environments, something similar to Peter Jackson's King Kong for example - the first reboot game sort of tried to do that, but I just don't like it cuz it made with teens in mind, rather than mature audience and all of the characters were bland, stereotypical and boring - Rhianna Pratchett involvement certainly didn't help here and when it comes to Rise as well (don't even get me started on THIEF) - Shadow (even though also not remarkable when it comes to story), was way better than 2013 and Rise cuz it was script and stuff was written by other people.
 

emivita

Member
Tomb Raider III is the best game in the series period. LAU was good. I disliked TR2013 so much that I skipped Rise and Shadow, so the series is basically dead for me.

Amazon's Lara Croft will obviously be lesbian, so yeah no thanks.
 

Deerock71

Member
The new Lara:
who framed roger rabbit GIF
 

thatJohann

Member
I like the latest, more human Lara. The old Lara is cringe now.

Just drop the guns and make it about exploring beautiful jungles and exotic locations with physics based puzzles and a focus on discovering things not shooting down people and animals.
 
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I really enjoyed the tomb raider reboot games, I’ll gladly take them over the old ones, though I enjoyed them as well, but, like the newer direction.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
More OG Lara pls with heavy tomb exploration. New age Lara is garbage and causes more problems instead of solving them.

I prefer my busty booty shorts brunette with dual pistols over this wimpy thing bloated with insecurities whose only voice of reason is Jonah.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
I don’t think anyone would truly want old school Tomb Raider anymore.

I’m fine with the Lara Croft we have currently. Those games have been a lot of fun to play - just need to hit that right balance of Tombs to action. Make her a little more battle hardened as well, and lose the friends.
 
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Madflavor

Member
I just don't think that the Tomb raider of 1996 could actually work in 2023.
It's a self fulfilling prophecy where if you say it'll be a problem, then it'll be a problem. Will some people bitch and cry about her being sexualized? Yes of course. But if they make a legit great game with a fun and sexy Lara Croft, the majority of people will enjoy it and it'll probably do very well. There is no hot button topic these days that is more razor's edge sharp than the Transgender debate, and yet Hogwart's Legacy sold extremely well. Granted HP is hugely popular, but you can see how the JK Rowling controversy and boycott had zero effect.

Let's not forget the entire internet collective lost their minds (in a good way) when we all saw Lady D from RE8 and Cammy's new design in SF6. It's a total myth that sexy beautiful women are problematic. It's only problematic for miserable people and the mentally disturbed. In a world where everything needs to be reworked for "Modern Audiences", every once in a while a female design from a bygone era slips through the cracks and proves that yes, sex still sells.

The West is completely full of shit. We're only interested in being perceived as ethical, but behind curtains everyone is a fucking degenerate.
 

Crayon

Member
Doesn't matter how sexy she is, but they need to go back like 20 years on the drawing board. I only played the first of the new trilogy and the gameplay was not too shabby, the writing was unbeleivably bad, and what they did to the character and the concept was criminal. A game today that stuck closer to the original would be amazing.
 

Pejo

Member
It's not even about nu-Lara vs. Classic Lara for me. I miss the old gameplay style. More of a puzzle platformer with some TPS elements and environmental puzzles.

Nu-Raider is just Uncharted. It was fine for a reboot, but we are in a black hole of good 3D puzzle platformers. Bring it back!
 

Fredrik

Member
Always.

But if the leaked laser tomb lesbian Lara script wasn’t fake we can expect the original strong solitary sexy Lara to be erased in the next game, it seemed absolutely ridiculous. I really thought Embracer would step in and pull some strings to get the IP back on tracks but it seems like they’re hands off and someone high up at Crystal Dynamics have no clue what made the IP big.
 

Robb

Gold Member
I think a game with a deep focus on exploration and puzzle solving could be great, but I don’t have any confidence that the devs would be able to pull that off. So might as well just make another game with lots of action sequences and good visuals.
 

eggapin

Neo Member
I personally like the gameplay of the reboots, but really miss the old character.
This whole new "serious" writing for Lara is just trying too hard to be "real" or "believable" or her "development", though it just ended up making her character jumping between a cry babe, a ruthless killer, and most of the time an arrogant, edgy a-hole especially in the latest entry.
I like the old days when the character is just... there. The classic Lara is just more confident and in control, thus generally more relaxed by nature. Which, for me, makes the character more likeable.
I think it's really OK to have larger than life character when the core game is still pretty much about power fantasy Uncharted-style.
 
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consoul

Member
The series should go into a tomb and stay there.

If they insist on making another one, get Ange Jolie to do the voice acting, scan and de-age her back to 1990. Have her do fun & silly kick-ass stuff as a wise-cracking overconfident action hero. I'm sick of watching Lara suffer trauma and injury.
 

anthraticus

Banned
LOL....it would NEVER go back to it's roots cause mainstream/AAA devs are deathly afraid of popamolers getting lost or not knowing what to do and giving uo on it after a few minutes.
 
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Madflavor

Member
I'll echo what I once said before about what Tomb Raider needs to be.

The series could really benefit from taking the "Dark Souls" approach, at least in terms of it's design philosophy when it comes to exploration, atmosphere, discovery, and being cryptic. I don't think the majority of TR fans want a cinematic storytelling experience, with heavy third person shooting elements. Fans want to explore Tombs. They want dark creepy atmospheres, a sense of wonder and discovery, and they don't want shit to be explained to them. Give the player a simple goal, drop Lara off at the entrance of a tomb, and just let them go. Don't constantly interrupt the pacing of the gameplay with a bunch of bullshit cutscenes. Of course you can have cutscenes, and of course there should be gunplay. But the keyword here is exploration. Let players discover things themselves. Allow a sense of excitement when they stumble upon a secret room, or a horrifying monster they stumble across in a dark lit hall.

It's called Tomb Raider. The series hasn't lived up to that name in a long time. Elden Ring should've taught the game industry that players are starved for games that don't hold their hand and want the world itself to tell them the story.

Also imagine if the game had Rogue-like elements. Lara stumbles upon an artifact that turns back time when she dies. The game can be heavy on survival, gunplay, exploration, and platforming elements where you can die easily from a fall or traps. Of course you can unlock upgrades and shortcuts in the tomb so the game wouldn't be terribly hard. But the point is there's so many directions you could take Tomb Raider, instead of just being an Uncharted clone. I did love Tomb Raider 2013, but the rest of the Reboot Trilogy never lived up to the potential that game created.
 
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Drizzlehell

Banned
I'll echo what I once said before about what Tomb Raider needs to be.

The series could really benefit from taking the "Dark Souls" approach, at least in terms of it's design philosophy when it comes to exploration, atmosphere, discovery, and being cryptic. I don't think the majority of TR fans want a cinematic storytelling experience, with heavy third person shooting elements. Fans want to explore Tombs. They want dark creepy atmospheres, a sense of wonder and discovery, and they don't want shit to be explained to them. Give the player a simple goal, drop Lara off at the entrance of a tomb, and just let them go. Don't constantly interrupt the pacing of the gameplay with a bunch of bullshit cutscenes. Of course you can have cutscenes, and of course there should be gunplay. But the keyword here is exploration. Let players discover things themselves. Allow a sense of excitement when they stumble upon a secret room, or a horrifying monster they stumble across in a dark lit hall.

It's called Tomb Raider. The series hasn't lived up to that name in a long time. Elden Ring should've taught the game industry that players are starved for games that don't hold their hand and want the world itself to tell them the story.

Also imagine if the game had Rogue-like elements. Lara stumbles upon an artifact that turns back time when she dies. The game can be heavy on survival, gunplay, exploration, and platforming elements where you can die easily from a fall or traps. Of course you can unlock upgrades and shortcuts in the tomb so the game wouldn't be terribly hard. But the point is there's so many directions you could take Tomb Raider, instead of just being an Uncharted clone. I did love Tomb Raider 2013, but the rest of the Reboot Trilogy never lived up to the potential that game created.
While I do like this idea, I don't think TR would work well as a melee action game. Dual wielded USPs is an iconic weapon of choice for her so if anything, it should be a puzzle platforming game with an occassional gunfight where you'd be faced against some wild animals or cryptids, like when you fought a giant water serpent, giant squid, or dinosaurs in those older games. Perhaps it would work best if there was some kind of a puzzle element to those bigger boss fights.
 
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Poordevil

Member
The only Tomb Raider game I ever played was the original reboot. I enjoyed it, even played through it more than once. The actual raiding of tombs was the biggest element of the gameplay that could have been expanded and improved. I liked Lara as a character. But the tombs were too small. The ones in the game had fun puzzles, but exploring them ended too soon.

Have yet to play any Uncharted game, so the criticism she was too much Uncharted like didn't register with me. It was a solid action / adventure game!
 
Who even owns Tomb Raider now? Last I heard, it was Amazon that holds the rights after buying them from Embracer. If that's the case, it's going to be shit tier TV series for Tomb Raider from here on out. I don't think we'll see any new games.
Give them a chance. I just finished binge watching "The Boys" and it's a pretty good show, especially if you dont like current Marvel movies.
 

Madflavor

Member
While I do like this idea, I don't think TR would work well as a melee action game. Dual wielded USPs is an iconic weapon of choice for her so if anything, it should be a puzzle platforming game with an occassional gunfight where you'd be faced against some wild animals or cryptids, like when you fought a giant water serpent, giant squid, or dinosaurs in those older games. Perhaps it would work best if there was some kind of a puzzle element to those bigger boss fights.

I'm not saying it should be a melee action game. I even mention gunplay in my post.
 
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