The first part of the “Survivor” era of the Tomb Raider reboot was a solid, gritty third-person action-adventure that injected a lot of cinematic flair into the franchise. It was a derivative of Uncharted at the time, which was ironic since Uncharted itself was inspired by Tomb Raider, turning the whole thing into a bizarre self-referential loop. Platforming became streamlined, and health had to regenerate.
Despite aping off Naughty Dog, Lara Croft’s reboot still proved to be a deeper and better game. Unlike Nathan Drake, Lara was often set loose in open-ended environments that looped around to other areas, Metroidvania-style. She even got incremental upgrades, and even the level design was denser. Still, there was room for improvement, and hope remained that the reboot’s sequel would take the gameplay to an even deeper level.
The oddly titled Rise of the Tomb Raider is the second part of the “Survivor Trilogy”. Originally a late-gen Xbox 360 game, it was eventually ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. It had a contentious DLC implementation when it launched in 2015, but it has since been rebalanced. This was a fairly demanding game when it came out, more so than its predecessor on the Nintendo Switch 2. How does it fare? Find out in our Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration review!
Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration
Developer: Aspyr, Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal
Publisher: Aspyr, Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal
Platforms: Windows, Xbox 360 (as Rise of the Tomb Raider), Xbox One (as Rise of the Tomb Raider), PlayStation 4 (as Rise of the Tomb Raider), Nintendo Switch 2 (reviewed)
Release Date: November 10, 2015 / June 9, 2026
Price: $29.99
About a year after the harrowing events on Yamatai, Lara is set on proving her father was right about the secrets of immortality and clearing his name. The main thrust of the story revolves around her search for the lost city of Kitezh and something called “the Divine Source”, an artifact that may or may not grant eternal life.
Ignoring warnings from Ana, her father’s former partner, she first explores ruins in Syria as a prologue to the plot. There, she locates the empty tomb of the Prophet of Constantinople, a key figure tied to Kitezh, but is ambushed by Trinity, a ruthless paramilitary organization also hunting the Divine Source. Why the Prophet’s tomb is vacant becomes a little bit of a driving question… but the story aggressively telegraphs the truth, making it all-too-predictable.
Trinity becomes a bit of a sore spot in the story and manages to retroactively make the prior game look dumber because they’re apparently responsible for everything in Lara’s life. Sadly, most of Lara’s character development from the last game is undone too, as she acts and behaves like a rookie again and has to relearn to be brave.
Almost all of Lara’s agency is called into question because of how Trinity has unbelievably orchestrated everything in history to almost God-like levels. I get that they’re supposed to be a shadowing organization, but this brand of Tomb Raider is supposed to be grounded and realistic. Trinity’s reach defies plausibility, and we’re supposed to believe they even orchestrated the events of the first game, with the hundreds of men Lara killed all being part of their conspiracy.
A major problem with the suspension of disbelief is that cutscenes show Lara enduring some of the most brutal and painful-looking wipeouts that would normally kill or injure a normal person. The course of her adventure has her being dragged through ice and rocky terrain, getting slammed into hard dirt or doing stunts that would dislocate joints. I thought this was supposed to be grounded? The old Tomb Raiders weren’t this unbelievable.
Much of the story follows Lara through the icy tundra of Siberia, where she explores abandoned Russian gulags, ancient ruins, dense forests, and even a cozy yet unsettling village. The gameplay revolves around semi-open hub worlds, primarily in the vast Siberian wilderness. Players traverse rugged terrain using Lara’s signature moves: wall running, ledge grabbing, rappelling with her ice axe, and even a rope arrow for swinging and pulling down structures.
A funny thing about the combat in Rise of the Tomb Raider is the easy XP exploit where you earn points for stealthily clearing an area without killing anyone, but then you can go back and take out every enemy you were supposed to handle nonlethally. It’s to do and lets you max out your skill trees earlier than the designers intended.
The developers probably intended players to rely on resource gathering and crafting. You are meant to collect wood, cloth, hides, minerals, and plants to craft ammunition, arrows, explosives, weapon upgrades, and healing items on the fly, but the exploit makes it more enjoyable to cheese the game since the gameplay mechanics don’t have the best playability on Nintendo Switch 2.
Yes, it’s true. The controls in Rise of the Tomb Raider feel noticeably delayed, and it was apparent right from the main menu when navigating the options. The lag is significant enough that aiming and camera movement feel much stiffer than they should, making the gameplay less enjoyable. Worse yet, the gyro-aim feature is limited to examining only the 3D collectible treasures. You can’t use the gyro to aim weapons at all.
The aiming doesn’t feel good due to the delay, but everything else gets by because Lara’s controls are from that time when action adventure games were designed to be semi-automated. Lara’s jumps, climbing, and melee attacks are somewhat magnetized to make her connect more easily for casual gamers, making the gameplay dumbed down compared to the older Tomb Raider titles.
Despite the dated casual gameplay and boring climbing, Rise of the Tomb Raider still captivated me due to its immaculate presentation and atmosphere. The locations and sense of exploration are top-notch, and even the puzzles are cleverly designed in a way that makes sense for an ancient tomb.
It’s hard to believe that it was originally an Xbox 360 game. On Nintendo Switch 2, it looks noticeably cleaner and more modern than the Xbox 360 version due to higher resolution, stable performance, and better texture filtering.
It doesn’t quite match the atmospheric flair of the enhanced Xbox One and PS4 versions, leaning more toward a performance-focused mid-tier port. It sacrifices almost unnoticeable visual detail in exchange for portability and silky-smooth gameplay.
Included in this version is all previously released DLC, which adds some uninteresting story arcs, but the real headliner is the Endurance mode, which includes a co-op option. The goal is to survive as long as possible in a randomized section of the Siberian wilderness. Players must manage hunger, cold, craft supplies, hunt animals, fight enemies, and escape when the timer/conditions demand it.
The expeditions have become more complex because of the card system, which previously relied heavily on monetized microtransactions. It’s been rebalanced so that you earn points by completing challenges in the campaign or in other expeditions.
The cards act as gameplay modifiers: some give you better starting weapons, extra skills, outfits with built-in perks, or make survival easier, while others hit you with reduced health, limited ammo, or tougher enemies. Each card comes with a score multiplier; helpful ones lower your final score percentage, while challenging ones boost it significantly. This builds a risk/reward system that keeps co-op play competitive yet friendly.
There’s a lot to like about Rise of the Tomb Raider if you ignore the rehashed story and average gunplay. It looks awesome, and you get a lot of bang for your buck considering it’s a AAA game for thirty dollars. The co-op survival mode adds some extra replay value, and the game itself is absolutely stunning to look at.
Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2 using a code provided by Aspyr. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration is now available for Windows PC (via Steam), Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch 2.
