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The campaign is broken down into 23 missions with individual analyses and camera beat charts as blog links. Reports including my impressions and conclusions follow.
Use the IGN Walkthrough to follow along the golden path. James Dodge 2016-2017.
Use the IGN Walkthrough to follow along the golden path. James Dodge 2016-2017.
- Tutorial
- Coastal Forest
- Mountain Temple
- Mountain Village 1/3
- Base Approach
- Mountain Base
- Base Exterior
- Cliffside Village
- Mountain Pass
- Mountain Village 2/3
- Chasm Monastery
- Mountain Village 3/3
- Shanty Town
- Cavern Entrance
- Geothermal Caverns
- Solarii Fortress
- Summit Forest
- Shipwreck Beach
- Cliffside Bunker
- Research Base
- Chasm Stronghold
- Chasm Shrine
- Chasm Ziggurat
Reports from my Tomb Raider analysis:
On the Visual Impact of Screen-space Effects
While playing through Tomb Raider, I got the impression of a large variety of ambient VFX that influenced my experience by breaking up the levels in a way I had never seen before. Each new area or moment had new geometry or perspectives, and also immediately indicated its' uniqueness by throwing particles in my face from almost every direction. Completing this analysis revealed that they achieved this impression with a 55:45 ratio of minutes with ambient environmental VFX to minutes with no VFX. My data is based on a 7.5 hour playthrough with the side content cut out. As a player, the experience is much larger than this ratio indicates because the impact is greater than the implementation.
This is a mostly linear game, but expects the player to do a lot of backtracking through the same areas. Weather and other ambient VFX make bespoke campaign experiences stand out from exploration beats. Also, they limit the feeling of boredom when the player returns to explore the areas and unlock previous unreachable collectibles with their new abilities. For example, I backtracked through an area that was gorgeous and drenched in sunshine. It seemed new to me, but eventually I realized the campaign had already shown me this area. Only its state before left it obscured by fog and falling snow. Adding ambient environment VFX during missions also improves player experiences when revisiting these areas.
The most used VFX were smoke at 76 minutes of screen time, with water droplets on the camera and rain in a close tie for second at 44 minutes each. Honourable mention goes to fire embers and snow, both around 30 minutes each. Each playthrough will have a slightly different screen time for individual effects, especially when you take into account player skill and side content. If you struggle a lot during combat, you also get blood splatters and pain haze effects, but these effects were only forced once: during the opening sequence after falling from the hanging rope. Staying in an area longer because you are lost, or exploring, will also increase the time for any VFX in that moment. Some of the optional tombs have lots of VFX, pushing up the proportional times for electrical and water effects in particular.
How does Tomb Raider get more out of its' ambient VFX than the developers put in? And why do I feel like there were VFX 80% of the time, when its closer to 50%? Pacing and level design provide some of the answers. The Crystal Dynamics team knew that first impressions have a big impact on how players perceive the rest of the game. In the first hour, there are 7 switches from no VFX to showing ambient VFX on screen. The next two hours have 2 and 6 respectively, however, no other hour in the game goes from zero to new VFX more than 4 times. By front loading the most obvious examples, they are training players brains to pick up on each change in the ambience. Later in the game, they show more advanced patterns where one theme in the ambient VFX (e.g. fire embers) carries through multiple changes in the accompanying ambient effects (smoke, snow, etc).
Some will argue that VFX for environment art and the gameplay camera are two separate aspects of the artistic design for this game. I counter by suggesting that they are separate for most production teams, but in this case the developers integrated them to support a pillar: "Creating an Emotionally Engaging Camera in Tomb Raider." This is also the name of a talk by camera designer Remi Lacoste, where he explains the importance of a large number of external factors in helping the camera tell a story. The VFX, often in the background of the shot, blanket that space and also create motion in the middle ground. In telling the story of Lara's journey to become the ultimate survivor, one must emphasize the chaos in natural and supernatural elements. Overcoming these elements is what adds weight and gravitas to Lara's moment of rebirth. Remi's team knew VFX could be expertly crafted to accentuate each of these plot points and then delivered spectacle in great proportions.
[minor edits added in December 2024]
On Camera Time by Category
Often the only numbers I have heard discussed during game production are the ratios of NIS (non-interactive sequences) to gameplay sequences. This metric has been popularized by video game journalists and amateur reviewers alike, especially during the late 2000s when journalists were still asking "what is a game?" Increasingly cinematic offerings, from high budget interactive stories to indie games trying to tell new stories, are still games and are still selling copies - so it's safe to say we will continue to see a wide range in this ratio. I believe that Tomb Raider hit a magic proportion, not only in the balancing of these two critical game features but also in their quality.
It also remains very gameplay-driven for despite its cinematic ambitions, which helps maintain player engagement throughout a lengthy but action-packed adventure. There will be different guidelines for achieving similar magic proportions in games that feature combat significantly more. Or significantly less.
These proportions are useful to developers who are fans of this game and want to see what is optimal and technically achievable for games made with similar limitations: i.e., made with a large budget over a 4 year development cycle beginning in 2009. Obviously, technology has improved since 2009 but the right marriage of vision and personnel is also required to make a game stand out. No game in the past decade has hit all the right spots for me yet; so this is still my golden standard for linear pacing until I play that next groundbreaking title.
[minor edits added in December 2024]
Proportional use of camera types, separated into missions (ranging 5-38 min in length)
