Oh God, No, Please Don’t Add Skill Trees And Crafting To The Tomb Raider Remake

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis — How Crafting and Gathering Shape Lara Croft's Latest Adventure

If you have played any major video game in the last decade, you already know the routine. You step into a beautiful, sprawling virtual world. You take a few steps, and suddenly you spot a glowing bush, a random pile of metal scrap, or a fallen branch. You press a button, watch your character bend down to pick it up, and repeat this process thousands of times. Welcome to the world of modern action-adventure games, where even the world's most famous archaeologist spends half her time acting as a high-end garbage collector.

The highly anticipated Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is no exception to this rule. Just like its predecessors in the survival trilogy and other massive AAA titles, this game will have you grabbing tons of raw materials from the environment just to turn them into better gear. While some players find this loop deeply satisfying, others see it as a chore that slows down the action. In this deep dive, we will explore how crafting works in the latest Tomb Raider game, why developers love this mechanic, and how you can master the gathering loop without losing your mind.

To keep up with the latest updates on the franchise, you can always visit the official Tomb Raider website for news, trailers, and community events.

The Evolution of Survival and Crafting in the Tomb Raider Franchise

To understand why Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis relies so heavily on gathering and crafting, we have to look back at where the series started. In the classic games of the 1990s, Lara Croft did not care about salvaging rusty gears or collecting medicinal herbs. Her progression was simple: you found new weapons lying on the ground, picked up large glowing medipacks, and solved key-and-lock puzzles to open massive temple doors.

However, when the franchise was rebooted in 2013, the developers at Crystal Dynamics introduced a more grounded, gritty Lara Croft. She was no longer an invincible superhero; she was a survivor. To reflect this shift in character, the game introduced a basic survival-crafting system. Suddenly, players had to collect "Salvage" from wooden crates to upgrade their bow, handgun, and climbing axe at campfires.

This survival theme grew deeper with each sequel. By the time we reached Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara was collecting oil, mushrooms, animal hides, feathers, and various plants. She used these items to craft special ammo types, heal her wounds in real-time, and sew outfits that provided stealth or defense bonuses. Legacy of Atlantis takes this exact blueprint and refines it, adding unique Atlantean materials and highly specific crafting challenges to the mix.

Why Do Modern AAA Games Love Crafting?

It is easy to poke fun at games for making players collect hundreds of twigs and rocks. However, game designers do not include these systems by accident. Crafting serves several critical purposes in modern game design, especially in large-scale AAA projects like Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis.

1. Creating a Satisfying Gameplay Loop

At the heart of every great video game is a loop of risk and reward. By placing valuable crafting materials in hard-to-reach places, developers encourage players to explore every nook and cranny of the map. Instead of running directly from point A to point B, you are tempted to climb a cliff, dive into a deep pool, or explore a dark cave. The promise of finding rare scrap metal or exotic animal pelts makes exploration feel rewarding.

2. Pacing the Story and Action

If a game consists entirely of high-octane explosions and dramatic shootouts, players can quickly experience "action fatigue." Gathering resources acts as a natural pacing mechanism. It gives you quiet, peaceful moments to breathe, enjoy the beautiful graphics, and listen to the ambient sounds of nature before the next big battle begins.

3. Personalizing Your Playstyle

Not everyone wants to play Tomb Raider the same way. Some players prefer a stealthy, ghost-like approach, while others want to run in with guns blazing. A deep crafting system allows you to customize your gear to match your preferred playstyle. If you love stealth, you can focus on upgrading your bow with silent-kill attributes. If you prefer action, you can spend your resources building high-capacity ammunition pouches and heavy-duty armor.

The Resource Ecosystem of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis

In Legacy of Atlantis, the crafting economy is split into several distinct categories. To upgrade Lara’s weapons, tools, and outfits, you will need to hunt down specific types of resources. Below is a breakdown of the primary materials you will find throughout your journey.

Natural Plants and Herbs

The wilderness is filled with colorful flora. You will use green plants to craft basic healing mixtures, blue plants to create focus-enhancing medicines, and red berries to craft endurance mixtures that reduce incoming damage. Keeping a healthy stock of these plants is essential for surviving the game’s toughest combat encounters.

Animal Materials (Skins, Feathers, and Fat)

Hunting is a major component of Lara’s survival toolkit. Gentle animals like rabbits and deer provide soft hides, which are used to sew larger ammo pouches. Dangerous predators like wolves, jaguars, and bears provide rare pelts and fat, which are required for high-end gear upgrades and crafting fire-based weapons like napalm arrows.

Industrial Salvage and Scrap

Leftover relics of modern expeditions can be found littered across the game's maps. Old military trucks, abandoned camps, and ancient shipwrecks contain metal scrap, bolts, and gears. You will need these materials to upgrade your firearms, increase your reload speeds, and reinforce your climbing gear.

Atlantean Ore and Mythic Relics

As the title suggests, Legacy of Atlantis introduces a mystical tier of resources. Deep inside hidden tombs and ancient underwater ruins, you will discover glowing blue Atlantean ore. This extremely rare resource is used to forge legendary gear and infuse your weapons with supernatural properties, such as shockwaves or self-repairing mechanisms.

The Debate: Is Gathering Fun or Tedious?

Despite the benefits of crafting systems, they are not without controversy. Many players argue that gathering has become overused in modern gaming. When every single game—from survival simulators to superhero adventures—requires you to pick up garbage from the floor, the mechanic can begin to feel repetitive.

One major point of criticism is the use of "Survival Instincts" or "Detective Vision." In most Tomb Raider games, pressing a button turns the screen gray and highlights interactive objects, like plants and crates, in bright yellow. While this feature prevents players from missing valuable loot, it can also ruin the immersion of the beautiful environments. Instead of looking at a gorgeous jungle, players end up staring at glowing yellow outlines as they run through the map.

Fortunately, Legacy of Atlantis addresses this issue by offering highly customizable difficulty settings. If you want a more immersive experience, you can turn off the survival highlights entirely, forcing you to look for visual clues in the environment to find resources. This turns gathering from a mindless button-press into an active search, making the world feel much more alive.

Tips for Efficient Gathering in Legacy of Atlantis

If you want to spend less time grinding for materials and more time exploring breathtaking tombs, you need to play smart. Here are some of the best tips to help you maximize your gathering efficiency:

• Invest in Gathering Skills Early: As soon as you earn skill points, look at the survival branch of the skill tree. Look for perks that increase the amount of salvage you get from boxes, or skills that let you harvest more plants from a single bush. These investments pay off massively over the course of a 30-hour game.
• Do Not Skip the Optional Tombs: Challenge tombs are not just fun puzzles; they are also packed with high-tier crafting resources and unique gear blueprints. Completing these tombs often rewards you with materials that you cannot find anywhere else in the game.
• Keep Your Inventory Clean: It is easy to hit your maximum carrying capacity for common items like wood and feathers. When your inventory is full, sell your excess materials to merchants in friendly camps or settlements. This frees up space and gives you extra currency to buy rare weapon parts.
• Use the Right Tools for Hunting: If you kill an animal with a high-caliber rifle, you run the risk of damaging the pelt, yielding fewer resources. For the cleanest kills and the best resource yields, use your bow or a silent melee takedown.

The Balancing Act of Modern Game Design

Ultimately, the crafting system in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis represents a delicate balancing act. On one hand, it grounds Lara Croft in a harsh, realistic world where she must fight to survive. On the other hand, it runs the risk of overwhelming players with busywork.

By giving players the freedom to customize their difficulty, offering incredibly rewarding upgrades, and introducing mystical elements like Atlantean ore, the developers have created a system that feels integrated into the story rather than just tacked on. Whether you love the thrill of the hunt or simply tolerate it to get your next weapon upgrade, there is no denying that crafting has become a core pillar of the modern Tomb Raider identity.

If you want to compare how these mechanics stack up against other modern survival-action games, check out the Steam Store to browse similar titles in the genre and see how different developers approach the challenge of keeping players engaged.

Final Thoughts

No matter your feelings on the "grabbing junk to make better junk" style of gameplay, it is a mechanic that is here to stay. In Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, this system is more polished, beautiful, and rewarding than ever before. So pack your gear, sharpen your climbing axe, and get ready to search every bush and ancient chest the lost continent has to offer!

from Kotaku
-via DynaSage