Tone down the sex and amp up the violence. That's the American way.

I rather enjoyed Tomb Raider 2013, but Shadow had some of the most laziest and mundane writing of any AAA game I've played. About half way through I starting skipping through cut scenes, cause I just didn't care. I don't understand how you can spend over $100 million to produce a game, but put so little effort into the story.

I hate to admit it, but because of the subject, I first read "breadth" as "breasts".

denuvo, qte and sato masochistic developers are the reasons I stopped playing TR games, after 2013.

Even when there isn't a death scene it's clear these guys support violently abusive behavior against women.
A perfect example in 2013 is after escaping the starting area cave, and on her way make the first camp fire.
She is forced to violently roll down a hill (near where she finds the radio and her friend's camera, iirc).
No human could survive without extreme wounds or breaks, the developers do it for no reason other than to display cruelty.

Orogogus wrote on Jan 28, 2021, 23:11:
I thought it was kind of overblown, personally. When I played Rise of the Tomb Raider I was expecting something like Dead Space because of all the hullabaloo, but the vast majority of my deaths ended up being shot by guns or falling to my death, and she wasn't being blown into bloody chunks or gorily impaled on rocks. I think there were a handful of excessive death scenes, but they were few and far between for me.

The 2013 game opens with a horror movie setup where she's about to be mutilated to death for a human sacrifice, and then in her escape she spends about 15 minutes getting the shit beat out of her by both crazy cultist types and the environment. The whole sequence feels quite harrowing even if the rest of the game isn't nearly so bad. I agree that Rise of the Tomb Raider didn't feel nearly as rough, just some grisly death animations as opposed to extended torture porn sequences.

Bill Borre wrote on Jan 28, 2021, 20:29:

modern tortured Lara

You got that right. I was just thinking earlier this afternoon that some of the most disquieting death animations are in the Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games where she is hacked to death in front of you or has her throat ripped out by a bear.

I thought it was kind of overblown, personally. When I played Rise of the Tomb Raider I was expecting something like Dead Space because of all the hullabaloo, but the vast majority of my deaths ended up being shot by guns or falling to my death, and she wasn't being blown into bloody chunks or gorily impaled on rocks. I think there were a handful of excessive death scenes, but they were few and far between for me.

modern tortured Lara

You got that right. I was just thinking earlier this afternoon that some of the most disquieting death animations are in the Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games where she is hacked to death in front of you or has her throat ripped out by a bear.