These days developers are trying to strike a balance between giving players a balanced and fun experience while at the same time challenging the hardcore fans. God of War, for example, featured this approach with its Give Me God of War difficulty, which made enemies extremely strong and could not be changed at any point during the playthrough. However, some games are trying to add challenge to its base level experience, like the upcoming Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

According to Game Director Daniel Chayer-Bisson, Shadow of the Tomb Raider will be the hardest entry in the series to-date, a bold claim if there ever was one. Chayer-Bisson doesn’t give too many specifics regarding how Shadow of the Tomb Raider will ramp up its difficulty, but he does suggest that players will want to focus on surviving lest they face restarting from a prior checkpoint.

The game’s director also claims that the puzzles in the game’s signature tombs will offer a challenge to players as well.

This will be, I would say, the most difficult Tomb Raider of all the Tomb Raiders. That is important because this is a more experienced Lara. This is going to be bigger, it’s going to be harder, and that tomb shows the first ever puzzle you’ll solve and it’s very difficult.

The checkpoints are not far away from when you die, so having these gruesome deaths make you feel bad to fail, and do everything to stay alive.

While most gamers don’t associate the Tomb Raider franchise with challenge, there is little doubt that Chayer-Bisson’s comments will peak some player’s interests. Increased difficulty in games has become an allure for triple-A titles, if only because many franchises try to soften their difficulty in an effort to appeal to a wider demographic.

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Some titles choose to add difficulty through unique modes like the God of War mode mentioned previously or Black Ops 3’s Realistic Difficulty, which would see the player killed with just a single bullet. It’s unclear if Shadow of the Tomb Raider might offer an increased difficulty mode like some of its contemporaries, but at the very least players know they have a challenge in store.

An increased difficulty isn’t all Shadow of the Tomb Raider is bringing to the table, as developers Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics have detailed ways in which Lara’s actions will influence the game world. Specifically, the devs say that the hub area in the game will change based on what players do.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider releases September 14, 2018 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Source: EDGE (via WCCFtech)