YouTube’s ‘Nick930’ has shared a video in which he compares the visuals/graphics of Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Shadow of the Tomb Raider uses a more advanced version of the engine powering Rise of the Tomb Raider, therefore it comes as no surprise that the game should look better than it.
And indeed, for the most part this latest Tomb Raider game looks better than its predecessor. The game features better sub-surface scattering effects on Lara, gorgeous volumetric lighting and God rays effects, as well as better anti-aliasing solution (TAA over SMAA, though as we’ve said numerous times TAA slightly blurs the visuals so we strongly suggest using Reshade to sharpen the overall image).
Water effects have been also overhauled in Shadow of the Tomb Raider as we now have 3D water ripples and more impressive water interaction.
Similarly to Rise of the Tomb Raider, tessellation has been greatly used for deformable mud (whereas in Rise of the Tomb Raider was used for deformable snow). The effect appears to be similar in both games. Explosions have also been improved compared to the ones featured in the previous title
However, it appears that some features have been removed or downgraded. For instance, the campfires no longer have smoke or gaze effects, resulting in poorer visuals than before. Not only that, but contrary to the wind effects that affected the grass in ROTTR, in SOTRR the grass is static and is not affected at all by the wind.
Overall, Shadow of the Tomb Raider appears to be visually superior to its predecessor, though it’s true that some effects have been removed or downgraded. As for the game’s performance, we’ll talk about it in our upcoming PC Performance Analysis article so stay tuned. Until then, enjoy the video!

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Just a reminder:
https://i.redditmedia.com/DT8keTwMwCCNki2xOVd7g6zbb_ZSJ_4AEY3l9xjpd1o.jpg?fit=crop&crop=faces%2Centropy&arh=2&w=960&s=78530aaa85fab93be4af574e1faf30ef
Man thats alot of content removed from the game.
i dont believe you.
7 DLC Packs? :-O
So… the actual “tomb” stuff is in 7 DLCs?
That’s bizzare.
“Overall, Rise of the Tomb Raider appears to be visually superior to its predecessor…”
I think you meant Shadow of the Tomb Raider. I doubt the discussion was about comparing Rise of the Tomb Raider to the originial, rebooted, 2013 Tomb Raider.
Obviously, fixed
🙂
They both look dated.
It’s basically just iteration of the 2013 reboot, you could always swim in the original Tomb Raider but in order to sell a Tomb Raider reboot franchise you need new features like actual tomb raiding and swimming. I’m sick of it and not buying this and it’s morphed into Uncharted for PC, in fact you could argue Uncharted is more Tomb Raider than Tomb Raider.
this is by far the closest of the 3 to the old tomb raiders, maybe by the 5th game they manage to reach the same scale that the first game was back in 1996. HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH
Yeah it’s how they’re selling the franchise, Lara couldn’t even freely swim until this one and they marketed the last one on having more tombs LMAO.
Swimming mechanic is very progressive in 2018, wait a minute now. It took Nathan 4 titles to learn how to do that. Master assassin Ezio Auditore Da Firenze was able to pull it off in the second one tho. So basically Ubisoft learns faster than Crystal Dynamics, even tho they even had ocean exploration in Underworld back in 2008.
Yes but it’s not about that, it’s about from the reboot in 2013.
Read it again, it was all a satirical post.
i for one i am glad this game has tombs and traps….now how many games before dual pistols?
lara looks ugly as hell. I won’t stick my d*ck though the usb port this time.
I think you might have been consuming the product inappropriately.
Please refer to the provided instruction manual for how to handle the product correctly.
You’re using your Micro-USB wrong.
6.0 score from gamespot and 76 metacritci right now. Looks like a flop game btw…
Well, it is called “Shadow” of the Tomb Raider 😉
83 metacritic already.
$5 bin it is, then.
6 on gamespot?
when game journos give 9.5s to everything that comes out and is half decent and functional.
Cause $
No it is not. If 10 is a perfect score then 5 is about average and 6 is above average.
A 6/10 is fine, 7 is good, 8 is great so and and so on. 5 or below isn’t worth your time.
No, it isn’t. Review scores do not work that way on a scale of 1-10.
Doesn’t matter if it’s game or movie. 0-10 scale is 0-10 scale. 5 is average, anything above average is better and anything below 5 is worse. This rule applies to everything & we really don’t care if some gamers have their own weird determined 0-10 system.
Not my Lara. https://pre00.deviantart.net/f8aa/th/pre/f/2018/121/3/7/lara_vs_lara_by_tombraider4ever-dcaddhh.jpg
You can’t compare experienced Older Lara with Newbie 😀
… you can play with any of the TR models in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. So if you want to play with that one you can(not sure why you would want to for it looks terrible compared to all the new ones). https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42223930a3bab351511c87dce8f1401fc8aeea1210ca5a144c0db81935434b00.jpg
can she jump up in the air and fire dual pistols?
Things not looking too good for Shadow of the DLC Raider.
Better luck next time? Nvm. We already know the answer to that.
I hope the game looks great when I watch the playthrough for free on YouTube.
The fact remains she wouldnt f you.
they focus so much on making her boobs smaller than making a good game. really shame.
I saw a video where Lara was shooting at a wall at there was no particles at all, it was like shooting at nothing. weapons lack kick and have underwhelming sounds. Somehow they managed to dumb down the shooting mechanics even more, they try way too hard to make it as unappealing as they can.
“I saw a video where Lara was shooting at a wall at there was no particles at all, it was like shooting at nothing. weapons lack kick and have underwhelming sounds”
Just like max payne 3 but that game got 9,5s
yeah weapons sound underwhelming in max payne 3 but the physics make it super fun. this game however is pure shet when it comes to shooting.
“so we strongly suggest using Reshade to sharpen the overall image”. This is a terrible idea. ReShade sharpens the whole image and often times re-aliases the image. A better option is to enable SMAA + some small transparency AA in the video driver’s control panel.
I’d also like a comparison between Denuvo in Rise and Denuvo in Shadow.
Why do they keep changing her d*mn face?!