On July 26th, Croft Generation, together with other official fansites snd spanish community, we had the chance to assist to the official Shadow of the Tomb Raider presentation event in Madrid, Spain, located in a splendid recreated jungle, organized by Koch Media. In this event were present, Meagan Marie ( senior community manager at Crystal Dynamics), Jason Dozois (Narrative Director) and Heath Smith (Design Director), Eidos Montreal developers, getting collaboration from Crystal Dynamics at the end of this trilogy.

The next article is spoiler free, and the main goal is to inform fans and tell my experience in the spanish event with some key information to describe. The event was organized by the spanish company, Koch Media, and presented for the game developers, Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics. I had the chance to play an almost finished version of the game.

Event entry

The event started at 4pm for the spanish community, and the press media was from 12:30 to 4pm. In the first place, Elena Diaz welcome us, she’s community manager from Koch Media. As a welcome present, she gave us a game lithography. Special mention to Elena kindness, even with not enough space for everyone, she made everything possible, so more fans could enter into this event. Inside, we have some snacks and drinks, and of course, a playable demo from the E3 version. Anyone could test this demo, but it had some cuts and blackouts, in order to avoid spoilers and to make a more enjoyable experience in the day launch.

Eidos Montreal Presentation

The Eidos Montreal developers, Jason Dozois (Narrative director) and Heath Smith (Designer director) were explaying with powerpoints, all the new game features, and even if we knew already soem of them, some interesting key information was revealed, so I will describe them on the following paragraphs. You can watch the full video presentation that I recorded myself and upload into our youtube channel.

The key features are the next:

  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider will get 3 hubs (open wide, exploration areas, where we can find secondary missions, crypts and tombs), and Paititi is the largest one on the entire saga.
  • In 2013, Lara wanted to get sciencist explanation about the myths, in Rise of the Tomb Raider, she finds out that some myths are real, and finally, in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, she wants to prove the media, this fact, and so, to clean her father’s reputation.
  • In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, when you discover the monolithss, they will give us clues, in order to solve riddles. This new feature is implemented thanks to the fans messages, they were reading on the forums, and they were agree, this it would be a good implement in the game.
  • Four difficulty modes will be available, easy, normal, hard and deadly obsession, and they will be divided on three categories, exploration (hard mode will remove white edges), puzzles and combat.
  • This time, despite that you can just combat against enemies, you can play in a more stealthy way, and if the enemies discovered you, don’t worry, you can hide again, and Trinity will loose eye contact with you, but they will be more nervous and they will shoot suddenly with no reason. From your hidden possition, you can atack them in plants or plants wall.

Llithographs signatures and Photocall

Meagan Marie, Jason Dozois and Heath Smith were signing the welcome lithograph gifts, talking with fans and takes pictures from the photocall.

Playing the private demo, pre-final version

Around 18:00, the official fansites, we had the opportunity to play, from the very beginning of the game, up to anything we could reach in one hour and half, because on that time, they were closing the rented local, anyway, the experience was incredible, and I will detail below. I will avoid spoilers about the game plot, so you can read without worries the next paragraphs. Also, you can see a XBOX gamepad controls.

The game begins, two days before what is happening in the E3 demo, before the tsunami caused. Lara and Jonah are in an expedition, and I must say that throughout this introductory part is incredible, since second one, it impacts.

After this first level, Lara and Jonah will drink in a Mexican Tavern, sequence that we saw in the demo posted in E3, with the difference that the final version has an extensive gameplay through the village, where we must move undetected.

In the first meeting with Dominguez, the conversation between two of them is more extensive and revealing from what we initially seen on E3.

Then comes the gameplay of the tsunami, we saw the E3 version fades to black, but on the private demo we played, it’s extended gameplay, while Lara is trying to reach a safety place.

Lara and Jonah, after helping the people from the town after the catastrophe, they decide to take a plane to follow the clues they discovered recently, this scene is practically equal to the one we saw at E3, but the crash incident is slightly modified, not showing the accident so explicitly. A few seconds later we are in the cup of a tree in the jungle, hanging from it and without weapons. Next goal is to find the other part of the plane where is our inventory and search for Jonah.

This was the last part that I managed to play, but without any doubt, the most beautiful of all, the jungle is full of details and animals, such as some howler monkeys, birds and jaguars, it’s also full of areas with mud that we can use to camouflage and hide from enemies to inflict them fear.

When we arrived at the first camp, we look closely to the skills new interface, I will describe it in the next paragraph; but there are another two elements, inventory and fast travel. We saw from press media, that the classic skins are back, and at least confirmed the TR2 default version and bomber jacket, we saw too the AOD default skin, all of them seen already in Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Regarding the new interface skills, this time, they are divided into three categories, differentiated in three colors, Seeker (blue), Scavenger (green) and Warrior (red), and it’s mandatory start from the center, where we can find three circles, and we must unlock adjacent skills, it’s not possible to unlock the remote ones, and even some of them are required more skill points. Lara will have to unlock some skills seen in previous games, but some of them, she already knew.

This first contact had left us with a very good taste, and we are already counting the days until the release date, so we can enjoy leisurely luxury of detail.

Many thanks to Koch Media, Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal for giving the opportunity to the Spanish community, to enjoy this experience in the presentation event at Madrid (Spain). Special thanks to Elena Díaz, social media manager from Koch Media, who was very nice at all times and she was flexible, so more fans could attend the event; and of course, many thanks to Meagan Marie, by representing the company so well and be so close to the community; we are fortunate to have a community manager so devout and nice.