Rise of the Tomb Raider is the eleventh installment to the Tomb Raider series and the second TR title from Crystal Dynamics. It stars Lara Croft during her younger years, who embarks on a quest to find the Divine Source artifact. Lara must battle it out against Konstantin’s Trinity soldiers, immortal guardians, and ferocious wildlife throughout the game. To complete Rise of Tomb, you’ll need to explore the game’s different locations, master the skill tree, and make the most of Lara’s weaponry. Here are some Rise of the Tomb Raider tips to get you through the game.
Unlock Avid Learner, Finesse, and Dead Eye ASAP
Amassing XP to level up Lara is crucial to completing Rise of the Tomb Raider. The faster Lara levels up, the more Skill Points you’ll accumulate to upgrade her talents. To amass XP quicker, unlock Avid Learner ASAP. With Avid Learner unlocked, Lara will gain 20-30 percent more XP every time she discovers relics, examines documents, and finds survival caches.
Killing enemies with headshots is a good way to gain XP faster. To boost how much XP you get from headshots, unlock Finesses sooner rather than later. That skill gives you an XP bonus for chaining multiple headshots, stealth, and death from above kills.
Dead Eye is another recommended skill to unlock earlier in the game. Unlocking it activates a headshot indicator that assists with head aiming. It’s a valuable targeting tool that will help you get more headshots.
Survivor skills
Don’t Skimp on the Challenge Tombs
Rise of the Tomb includes nine optional Challenge Tombs for you to discover and complete. Although they’re optional, it’s worth taking the time to complete at least half of them. Each Challenge Tomb provides a unique skill reward and XP bonuses for completing them. You can pick up other goodies in the tombs.
Keep on Hunting
You’re going to need to do some hunting to amass resources for weapon crafting in Rise of the Tomb Raider. However, hunting also boosts XP for every animal kill. So, it’s always worth hunting just for the sake of amassing XP even when you don’t need the crafting resources so much. The bigger the animal is, the more XP you’ll probably get from slaying it.
Geothermal Valley
Utilize Survival Instinct to Identify Out-of-Sight Enemies
Survival Instinct is an important gameplay mechanic in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Activating it adds yellow highlighting to items and objects Lara can pick up. The objective beacon Survival Instincts is also an invaluable navigation aid.
However, Survival Instincts can also come in handy for stealth combat with Trinity mercenaries. It shows when enemies can and cannot see each other by highlighting them in red or yellow. Red enemies are those visible to other hostiles. Thus, you won’t alert any other enemies by attacking those out-of-sight hostiles highlighted yellow.
Survival instinct highlighting enemies.
Take Out Enemies by Shooting at Red Barrels
Lara’s dogfights against Trinity mercenaries can get pretty intense when there are many of them. Red barrels can make life a little easier in big firefights. Shooting red barrels will generate big explosions that can eliminate hostiles close to them. So, try to take advantage of explosive barrels by shooting at them to kill off nearby enemies.
Craft the Satchel and Rucksack
When you can carry more resources, you can craft more item upgrades. To increase the number of resources Lara can carry, craft the Rucksack and Satchel ASAP. Start by crafting the cheaper Satchel, for which you’ll need five cloths and 15 hides. Then craft the Rucksack later for nine cloths, 20 hides, and one bear hide.
Make the Most of Bottles
You’ll find plenty of bottles lying about in Rise of the Tomb Raider. They can often come in handy for eliminating enemies both stealthily and more directly. Toss bottles in particular directions to draw mercenaries into positions where you can pull off stealth kills without anybody spotting you. When enemies already know you’re there, turn a bottle into a Molotov Cocktail with some cloth to take them out with. So, make the most of bottles for combat when they’re available.
A bottle
Don’t Overlook the Bow for Combat
When Lara gets her hands on some guns, some players might prefer to save the humble bow for hunting animals. However, the bow can also be a potent weapon against Trinity mercenaries. Although slow, the bow is very quiet and its arrows can inflict a lot of damage. It can be a very potent weapon for stealthily eliminating enemies with headshots from distance.
Therefore, it’s worth upgrading a bow and utilizing it for combat now and then. Unlock Arrow Retrieval so you can pick up arrows from corpses. You can also upgrade the bow with napalm, explosive, and penetrating arrows that do some serious damage later in the game.
A bow weapon
Those Rise of the Tomb Raider tips will give you an edge in Lara’s pursuit of the Divine Source. Now go and give Konstantin and his Trinity mercenaries a good hammering.
