I'm normally not one to write reviews unless I either have some concerns or the game is excellent. This game is both; so best to make showing both positive & negative. Firstly, the actual game itself is excellent (as is for the rest of the reboot trilogy for Tomb Raider in general), with the story gripping to keep you engaged with not just how it controls; but the exploration & adventure of travelling to various locations is always a sight to behold. It also marks an improvement over the previous game as its not tied to one island, but different landscapes & terrains that really give much needed variety of locales to use, even down to exploring Croft Manor to learn more of Lara's backstory. The game also handles wonderfully, though built more like you need to be mindful of your surroundings rather than being purely action & reaction based. That's what the quick time events do. What matters most of all is that you really get the passion, yet crazed feeling of Lara traveling on this quest to find the secrets to immortality to not only prove her father's legacy, but to stop the evil corporations from harnessing such dangerous power at hand. It's truly playing through a Hollywood blockbuster & get to see Lara grow from survivor to true treasure hunter, especially going into the 3rd game. While the game itself is excellent, there are a few notable nitpicks I have with both the graphical & technical side of things. Firstly, the environment around you is vast, but traversing through it is a bit of a time sink as you jump from tree to tree trying to get the right vantage point. The game itself leans into being a action focused game than stealth; which personally I'm good with, but I know some folks would want to make a purely stealth run of the game so its worth mentioning. The upgrade system & UI is also kind of clunky & cluttered, where its not really intuitive on what kind of upgrades need what kind of component you need to get it done; unless you hike your way back to a campfire & get through a bunch of menus to see it. Finally, the main reasons I wanted to write the review in the first place was to address these graphical issues to GoG directly & the reasons why I gave this 5 star game a 4 Star review. If these 2 main issues said below here are addressed, I'll for sure update it to 5 stars as I bought this game 2 times already & having GoG putting it into the Preservation Program is outstanding (along with all of their work). My first issue stems from how the game's major graphical bug makes characters & environment textures turn solid black & flickering when having both DirectX12 & Tessellation on, especially in higher resolutions like 4K. I'm not certain how this works, maybe it has to do with how light & shadows glitch out when Tessellation is turned on for the model rendering; but I bought this in hopes that with it being in the Preservation Program, they addressed it, which it hasn't. Hopefully someone could look into the code to be able to fix this, just as they did working out the defunct multiplayer. (which is a godsend of optimizing the game, thank you!) The other major issue I have & it's actually more of a nitpick is needed additional controller support for DualSense & DualShock4 controllers, along with adding Playstation UI Button prompts. I mainly play with consoles & used to using a controller to play my games, so additional controller supports would be appreciated; though not a major priority as I can use programs like DS4Windows to emulate an Xbox controller or even Mouse/Keyboard. Edit: Looking into past reviews, another great issue to also address is additional language support, making sure the game's various dubs & subtitles are added back into the game; from the original release. But given I only speak & understand English, it wasn't much of a big deal to me personally, but lots of others would need it considerably more; so best to address this as soon as its workable to implement. As a last positive note, thank you so much GoG for all the hard work you're doing to ensure our games STAY our games & you are a such a blessing in these unsettling times in the games industry these days. Keep up your outstanding work & cheers to all the incredible teams & members working on these games for your platform!
