History YMMV / RiseOfTheTombRaider

* OlderThanTheyThink: [[http://www.joystiq.com/2014/08/12/joystiq-streams-tomb-raider-2-laras-original-playstation-excl This is not the first time]] that a ''Tomb Raider'' [[VideoGame/TombRaiderII sequel]] became a console exclusive on one platform; emphasis on ''console''.[[note]]The PC did get ''Tomb Raider II'' the same day of its release on the UsefulNotes/PlayStation. Same deal with ''VideoGame/TombRaiderIII'' and ''[[VideoGame/TombRaiderTheAngelOfDarkness The Angel of Darkness]]''.[[/note]]

** After receiving backlash for initially announcing that ''Rise of the Tomb Raider'' would be exclusive to Xbox platforms, Creator/SquareEnix announced on July 23, 2015 that the game would be released for the UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation 4}} and PC in 2016.

* MagnificentBitch: [[BigBadFriend Ana]] is a member of [[AncientConspiracy Trinity]] who was tasked with assassinating Richard Croft. Successful in seducing Richard, she was unable to carry out her mission solely because she herself [[InLoveWithTheMark genuinely fell in love with him]]. Suffering from lung cancer, Ana was determined to find the Divine Source to cure her disease and make herself immortal by having her brother Konstantin, [[TheWomanBehindTheMan whose life she manipulated]], find it for her and uses ReversePsychology to get Lara Croft involved in the search. Ana later has Konstantin choke her in front of Lara to get the Divine Source’s location from her only stopping the charade when she realizes Lara doesn’t know where it is also and offers her a chance to join Trinity. When Lara refuses and escapes, Ana follows her to the Atlas’s location where she retrieves it from Lara and uses it to find the Divine Source. Though wanting to use the Divine Source to avoid death, The lengths and risks Ana is willing to go through proves her boldness and determination, eventually concluding that being killed by the Divine Source or Trinity are both better ways to go out over slowly dying from her disease.

** After receiving backlash for initially announcing that ''Rise of the Tomb Raider'' would be exclusive to Xbox platforms, Creator/SquareEnix announced on July 23, 2015 that the game would be released for thr UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation 4}} and PC in 2016.

* AssPull: It was always Trinity behind ''everything''. All the strange things happening in history? Trinity! Unresolved and weird discoveries about the past? Trinity botched cover-up jobs! Lord Croft having issues with other academicians? Trinity-backed conspiracy! Her father's suicide? Trinity murder! Lara ending on Yamatai? Trinity! [[spoiler: Ana, the would-be-stepmom?]] Trinity agent all those years! Lara killing roughly 400 of their men, including few high-rankers, and twice as many mercs, destroying multi-million operation and tons of equipment? Trinity is still out there unscratched, waiting with their vile schemes. The whole thing looks almost like [[Franchise/AssassinsCreed Templars/Abstergo type of deal]], only without any build-up leading to it.

* CaptainObviousReveal: [[spoiler:Jacob]] being the Prophet might have been a surprise had he not looked like every Western portrayal of Jesus. This also would have been the case if there hadn't been a large prominent statue of the Prophet that looked exactly like him... which the player must walk by, forcing them to look it.

* IdiotBall:
** Konstantin has his hands pierced with nails by his sister as a kid, and she somehow convinced him that it was stigmata. He never realised over the next 30-odd years that those things are completely fake and old wounds, since they show no sign of stigmata aside leaving him with scars.[[note]]For those who do not know, alongside bearing some or all of the wounds Jesus received on the cross (wounds on both hands or wrists as well as the feet from the nails, and a wound on the side from being pierced by the lance. Some also display wounds around the head reminiscent of the Crown of Thorns, or wounds on their back that resemble the ones left by whips), the wounds are often stated to start bleeding after receiving Holy Communion (with many stigmatics having an increased desire to receive Communion), only to stop soon afterwards until the next time. Many also claim to be able to live with little food, or no food aside from Communion. Some wounds never clot, yet never get infected, and some are claimed to bleed blood that smells of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odour_of_sanctity odor of sanctity]][[/note]]
** Jonah, holding onto the Atlas as a Trinity soldier [[VerticalKidnapping Vertical Kidnaps]] him instead of dropping the damn thing and thus preventing Trinity from knowing where the Source is.
** On a similar note, Jonah not [[spoiler: shooting Konstantin when he had the chance]], [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim despite Lara screaming at him to do so]].

* MagnificentBitch: [[BigBadFriend Ana]] is a member of [[AncientConspiracy Trinity]] who was tasked with assassinating Richard Croft. Successful in seducing Richard, she was unable to carry out her mission solely because she herself [[InLoveWithTheMark genuinely fell in love with him]]. Suffering from lung cancer, Ana was determined to find the Divine Source to cure her disease and make herself immortal by having her brother Konstantin, [[TheWomanBehindTheMan whose life she manipulated]], find it for her and uses ReversePsychology to get Lara Croft involved in the search. Ana later has Konstantin choke herself in front of Lara to get the Divine Source’s location from her only stopping the charade when she realizes Lara doesn’t know where it is also and offers her a chance to join Trinity. When Lara refuses and escapes, Ana follows her to the Atlas’s location where she retrieves it from Lara and uses it to find the Divine Source. Though wanting to use the Divine Source to avoid death, The lengths and risks Ana is willing to go through proves her boldness and determination, eventually concluding that being killed by the Divine Source or Trinity are both better ways to go out over slowly dying from her disease.
* InformedWrongness: The story ends with the note that immortality is inherently evil because...well, it just is, okay? To make the message extra hollow, the only immortal in the story is also IncorruptiblePurePureness.
* {{Narm}}: The final fight against [[spoiler:Konstantin]]. You're stripped of your weapons bar your climbing ax and you're forced to scrounge around to make grenades to stagger [[spoiler:him.]] The problem here is that there's nothing really stopping you from whaling away at [[spoiler: him]]. What pushes this into narm territory is that [[spoiler:he]] doesn't take any damage at all from your swings and [[spoiler: his]] dialogue implies that you're scared, hiding, and running around looking for scrap instead of beating [[spoiler:him]] up in melee.

** A lot of the ''Temple of the Witch'' DLC storyline qualifies.

** A lot of people hoped the game would explore the consequences of giving a badass female protagonist a female love interest. Sam got sidelined in the interquel comics.

** After receiving backlash for initially announcing that ''Rise of the Tomb Raider'' would be exclusive to Xbox platforms, Creator/SquareEnix announced on July 23, 2015 that the game would be released for UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation 4}} and PC in 2016.

** The Linux port of the game uses Vulkan to its fullest, and ''Creator/FeralInteractive'' really outdid themselves, as the game has about a 10% performance penalty compared to it's [[https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-is-now-officially-available-on-linux-heres-a-look-at-it-with-benchmarks.11576 Windows counterpart.]]

* PolishedPort: The Xbox 360 game has comparable visuals to its next-generation counterpart. Lighting, effects, and texture quality are all exceptional for a system that was entering its tenth year on the market (and is known to be less powerful than the [=PlayStation 3=] at that) at the time of its release. Plus the game fits on a single dual-layer DVD disc when several games such as ''VideoGame/Halo4'' had to be shipped on two discs. About the only real compromise they had to make is the cutscenes are prerendered as opposed to in-engine (and even then that may have been for reasons other than system limitations). Definitely a commendable effort at a time when games such as ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'' were cutting corners on their "last-gen" versions.
** Playing this game on Xbox One X or [=PS4=] Pro doesn't get the best results when playing it in its high frame rate mode. However, playing it on a Series X or [=PS5=] gets it up to a full 60 [=FPS=].

* ShipSinking: Supporters of the ''S.S. Endurance'' are not pleased with the absence of Sam.

* InformedWrongness: The story ends with the note that immortality is inherently evil because...well, it just is, okay?

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** After receiving backlash for initially announcing that ''Rise of the Tomb Raider'' would be exclusive to Xbox platforms, Creator/SquareEnix announced on July 23, 2015 that the game would be released for UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation 4}} and PC in 2016.
** There are more tombs, ancient ruins and elaborate puzzles than in the last game, as if the developers wanted to address [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks fan issues over their absence]].

* CriticalResearchFailure: Trinity is outright connected with the Vatican. This implies it's Catholic. Yet despite that they've managed to actively force the Prophet and his group to be persecuted in Byzantium, using their religious authority. Problem is, Byzantium was Orthodox and didn't recognise the authority of the Pope (or rather - the Pope didn't recognise authority of the Byzantine emperor and Orthodox hierarchy). While there are certain (slightly) plausible scenarios for this to work, they would require an almost absurd amount of supplies and connections to pull it off.

* ShockingSwerve: The reveal about [[spoiler: Ana being a Trinity spy, who was a part of Croft family for years]].

* CaptainObviousReveal: [[spoiler:Jacob]] being the Prophet might have been a surprise had he not looked like stereotypical portray of Jesus. This also would have been the case if there hadn't been a large prominent statue of the Prophet that looked exactly like him... which the player must walk by, forcing them to look it.

** In PC version, where you have mouse for aiming, combat is just trivial once you equip your pistol with a silencer (which happens in about 15% of the game). Every unarmoured enemy goes from a single bullet to the head, regardless of the stopping power of the gun. Every armoured enemy goes from ''two'' bullets, first piercing their helmet, the second killing them. For a vast majority of the game, this means taking down countless enemies without alarming anyone, all with OneHitKill, while having a silent gun that can easily perform few kills in very quick succession.

* CriticalResearchFailure: Trinity is outright connected with the Vatican. This implies it's Catholic. Yet despite that they've managed to actively force the Prophet and his group to be persecuted in Byzantium, using their religious authority. Problem is, Byzantium was Orthodox and didn't recognise the authority of the Pope (or rather - the Pope didn't recognise authority of the Byzantine emperor and Orthodox hierarchy). While there are certain (slightly) plausible scenarios for this to work, they would require almost absurd amount of supplies and connections.

* GoodBadBugs: In areas with hostiles, the game awards experience for two distinctive behaviours: either you kill everything that moves, with varied amount of experience depending on your fitness and creativity, ''or'' a fixed amount of experience equal to maximum combat experience if you simply sneak past without being noticed. Aside from obvious game-logic abuse (sneak past, get exp, then turn back and gun everyone down), the actual bug is when you stealthy kill everyone in such a way nobody gets alarmed at any point. Upon the final kill, the game will declare the area was passed stealthy, awarding experience for non-lethal approach, despite getting the maximum, possibly chained experience for whole lot of stealth kills and headshots.

* {{Narm}}: The final fight against [[spoiler:Konstantin]]. You're stripped of your weapons bar your ice pick and your forced to scrounge around to make grenades to stagger [[spoiler:him.]] The problem here is that there's nothing really stopping you from whaling away at [[spoiler: him]]. What pushes this into narm territory is that [[spoiler:he]] doesn't take any damage at all from your swings and [[spoiler: his]] dialogue implies that you're scared, hiding, and running around looking for scrap instead of beating [[spoiler:him]] up in melee.

* BellisariosMaxim: Lara is initially unable to read monoliths that are in another language. Fair enough, until you realize how she boosts her proficiency: by reading documents and murals that are in that same language, which are presumably just as untranslated, yet somehow she's able to read these just fine and it's enough to enable her to decipher the monoliths. Notably, this problem continues into [[VideoGame/ShadowOfTheTombRaider the following game]], which does the same thing with Lara somehow learning Mam, Quetchua and Yucatec dialects.

* BellisariosMaxim: Lara is initially unable to read monoliths that are in another language. Fair enough, until you realize how she boosts her proficiency: by reading documents and murals that are in that same language, which are presumably just as untranslated, yet somehow she's able to read these just fine and it's enough to enable her to decipher the monoliths.

* CriticalResearchFailure: Trinity is outright connected with Vatican. This implies it's Catholic. Yet despite that they've managed to actively force the Prophet and his group to be persecuted in Byzantium, using their religious authority. Problem is, Byzantium was Orthodox and didn't recognise authority of the Pope (or rather - the Pope didn't recognise authority of the Byzantine emperor and Orthodox hierarchy). While there are certain (slightly) plausible scenarios for this to work, they would require almost absurd amount of supplies and connections.
* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
** In the Season of the Witch DLC, the start of it sees Lara rescue Nadia from Trinity, and after Lara defeats them, she goes to open the locker where Nadia was hiding, where she pulls a gun on Lara, who quickly notes that her gun wasn't loaded. And then Nadia admits the gun doesn't work in the first place.

* GoodBadBugs: The areas with hostiles, the game awards experience for two distinctive behaviours: either you kill everything that moves, with varied amount of experience depending on your finess and creativity ''or'' a fixed amount of experience equal to maximum combat experience if you simply sneak past without being noticed. Aside from obvious game-logic abuse (sneak past, get exp, then turn back and gun everyone down), the actual bug is when you stealthy kill everyone in such a way nobody gets alarmed at any point. Upon the final kill, the game will declare the area was passed stealthy, awarding experience for non-leathal approach, despite getting the maximum, possibly chained experience for whole lot of steath kills and headshots.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** Konstantin got his hands pierced with nails by his sister as a kid and then she somehow convinced him those are stigmata. He never realised over next 30-odd years those things are completely fake and old wounds, since they show no sign of stigmata aside leaving him with scars.[[note]]For those who do not know, alongside bearing some or all of the wounds Jesus received on the cross (wounds on both hands or wrists as well as the feet from the nails, and a wound on the side from being pierced by the lance. Some also display wounds around the head reminiscent of the Crown of Thorns, or wounds on their back that resemble the ones left by whips), the wounds are often stated to start bleeding after receiving Holy Communion (with many stigmatics having an increased desire to receive Communion), only to stop soon afterwards until the next time. Many also claim to be able to live with little food, or no food aside from Communion. Some wounds never clot, yet never get infected, and some are claimed to bleed blood that smells of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odour_of_sanctity odor of sanctity]][[/note]]
** Jonah, holding onto the Atlas as a Trinity soldier [[VerticalKidnapping Vertical Kidnaps]] him instead of dropping the damn thing and thus preventing Trinity from knowing where the Source is.
** On a similar note, Jonah not [[spoiler: shooting Konstantin when he had the chance,]] despite Lara screaming at him to do so.

* CaptainObviousReveal: [[spoiler:Jacob]] being the Prophet might have been a surprise had he not looked like Jesus. This also would have been the case if there hadn't been a large prominent statue of the Prophet that looked exactly like him... which the player must walk by, forcing them to look it.