Xbox Timed Exclusive ‘Rise Of The Tomb Raider’ Screenshots Released

The Xbox One and Xbox 360 timed exclusive, Rise of the Tomb Raider will not see release until the holidays this year, but fans of Lara Croft can get their fill for now by taking a look at the stunning screenshots released by All Games Beta.

While most of the images show Lara in a rather cold and inhospitable environment, it won’t always be that way, game director Brian Horton said in an interview with GameInformer.

“There’s a bubble of the world that seems to exist outside Siberia. We call it the oasis. It isn’t completely permafrost. This oasis, which we’re not going into a lot of detail about – just now that different weather, different temperatures are important to make sure we’re not going with one single look throughout the whole game.”

The snow element is something rather unique that developers Crystal Dynamics have put together that will look great on the current generation Xbox One, and it is something that they are very proud of. It provides both an obstacle for the player and gives them an advantage when it comes to tracking animals, who leave prints behind that Lara can follow. It’s not that easy in this survival-adventure game, though, because as the snow falls, the tracks will begin to be buried. Lara will have to traverse the snowy terrain, cutting trenches through snow drifts and will have to learn how to master the environment to survive.

Not only will Tomb Raider fans be treated to the beautiful graphics of the game that are sure to stun on the Xbox One and later when it is released on the PlayStation 4 and across other platforms, but creative director Noah Hughes has promised that a more complex puzzle element will be in place in the game. The 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider game came under criticism for lacking the puzzle-based platforming that fans have loved for years.

“Puzzles are an important part of the Tomb formula, so we’re excited to have more tombs in the game, featuring more puzzles. You’ll still see a spectrum of difficulty for puzzles, so some of the secret tombs are larger and in some cases might have more difficult puzzles, but we’re trying to put them in the game in a ramped kind of way.”

Hughes stated that Crystal Dynamics intent is to “challenge the player, but we don’t want average players getting into stalemates.” The puzzles will retain their physics-like nature that gamers have seen in the Tomb Raider reboot, but be centered on more ancient-themed spaces. Hughes went on to say that the puzzles will likely take longer, and didn’t let us know if, like the reboot, they may be mostly optional.

“These tombs will take you longer to solve but it’s still an interesting combination of physics and cause-and-effect systems that add up to that grand finale of getting through that door at the end of the room.”

See the screenshots of Rise of the Tomb Raider in the gallery below. The game will be a timed-exclusive for Xbox One and Xbox 360 for the holidays, and be released some time after for all other platforms.

[Images via All Games Beta]