Honestly feels like a downgrade from Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Visuals: The ray traced lighting technology is woefully underutilised. The shadows look grey and flat, everything looks washed out. Lara' hair looks like flat plastic and doesn't interact properly with the lighting. The levels look beautiful from a technical standpoint, but the characters all look worse than in Rise. It's like the fidelity has been increased but the actual design is worse.

Gameplay: The level design for the first area is a major step backwards. Rise had open areas with multiple pathways and different approaches. The first two hours of Shadow has one small area to explore and the rest is just linear and filled with cinematics. Apart from that the gameplay is exactly the same as Rise. I grew tired of walking through linear corridors and having no opportunities to explore.

Story: So far the story has been convoluted and boring. I just want to get to the part of the game where I get to explore, solve puzzles, and fight some enemies. Instead about 80% of the first two hours is cinematics and boring linear sections that require you to follow someone around or walk through corridors. The game finally opened up only to almost immediately take that freedom away and force me back into a linear corridor that led to a frustrating boss fight. The game doesn't seem to understand that there needs to be ebb and flow, instead it just forces the story down your throat for way too long without giving you any fun stuff between. Also, the fighting animations in this game make Lara Croft looks like an absolute psycho - it's difficult to connect and empathise with the protagonist when she's stabbing dudes in the throat with a knife.

Bugs: I encountered a number of minor issues that caused frustration - trying to skin an animal or collect a resource requires you to stand in one particular spot, you can't just approach the resource from any angle; jumping and climbing were wonky as hell and often required me to walk until I was standing directly in front of the climbable area facing it dead on, otherwise the climbing animation wouldn't play; combat is clunky.

Cinematics: If you thought the cinematics in Rise were melodramatic and unnecessarily long, then you're in for a wild ride because the cinematics in Shadow are frankly ridiculous. Awful overacting, exposition dumps for days, and make sure you don't skip any of the cinematics because guaranteed you'll end up in some completely different area with totally different action and you'll have no idea what is happening. The game also ignores gameplay to serve up cinematics, like even if you stealth past all the enemies the game will still play a cinematic saying they detected you and then causes all enemies to go into alert mode and start attacking you.

Overall I wouldn't recommend this game. Rise of the Tomb Raider has better gameplay, better story, and looks only slightly worse because it was released a few years ago.

Honestly feels like a downgrade from Rise of the Tomb Raider. Visuals: The ray traced lighting technology is woefully underutilised. The shadows look grey and flat, everything looks washed out. Lara' hair looks like flat plastic and doesn't interact properly with the lighting. The levels look beautiful from a technical standpoint, but the characters all look worse than in Rise. It's like the fidelity has been increased but the actual design is worse. Gameplay: The level design for the first area is a major step backwards. Rise had open areas with multiple pathways and different approaches. The first two hours of Shadow has one small area to explore and the rest is just linear and filled with cinematics. Apart from that the gameplay is exactly the same as Rise. I grew tired of walking through linear corridors and having no opportunities to explore. Story: So far the story has been convoluted and boring. I just want to get to the part of the game where I get to explore, solve puzzles, and fight some enemies. Instead about 80% of the first two hours is cinematics and boring linear sections that require you to follow someone around or walk through corridors. The game finally opened up only to almost immediately take that freedom away and force me back into a linear corridor that led to a frustrating boss fight. The game doesn't seem to understand that there needs to be ebb and flow, instead it just forces the story down your throat for way too long without giving you any fun stuff between. Also, the fighting animations in this game make Lara Croft looks like an absolute psycho - it's difficult to connect and empathise with the protagonist when she's stabbing dudes in the throat with a knife. Bugs: I encountered a number of minor issues that caused frustration - trying to skin an animal or collect a resource requires you to stand in one particular spot, you can't just approach the resource from any angle; jumping and climbing were wonky as hell and often required me to walk until I was standing directly in front of the climbable area facing it dead on, otherwise the climbing animation wouldn't play; combat is clunky. Cinematics: If you thought the cinematics in Rise were melodramatic and unnecessarily long, then you're in for a wild ride because the cinematics in Shadow are frankly ridiculous. Awful overacting, exposition dumps for days, and make sure you don't skip any of the cinematics because guaranteed you'll end up in some completely different area with totally different action and you'll have no idea what is happening. The game also ignores gameplay to serve up cinematics, like even if you stealth past all the enemies the game will still play a cinematic saying they detected you and then causes all enemies to go into alert mode and start attacking you. Overall I wouldn't recommend this game. Rise of the Tomb Raider has better gameplay, better story, and looks only slightly worse because it was released a few years ago.