Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Completion and Game Breakers

• Make two parallel backup saves and alternate between them- the game will sometimes rob you of completion, glitching out a character and not counting a document or sidequest. This is especially common in three places: A sidequest right after you find a lost city (it's the dice one below, save before starting it), a combat-heavy zone in an oilfield, and a late game visit to a library. In particular, if a character is invisible during a cutscene, it's time to reload.

• Another common breakage point is when you have to use a rotating winch on a puzzle- the winch will just not work. Again, have a backup saved in advance. Some users report this gets fixed by turning DX12 on or off.

• Unlike previous games, Shadow of the Tomb Raider has new game plus. It ports over your skills, upgrades and inventory, but not collectibles or exploration. This may still be worth it.

• Bear in mind that the top difficulty removes checkpoints, your survivor instinct ability, and most of the highlighting of routes. This makes challenge tombs a real pain in the ass, and means a couple late game areas are absolute marathons.

• Human enemies don't respawn and there's less combat in the game than you think. If you're going for all achievements, make the combat achievements an immediate priority during your playthrough, even if it means cheesing checkpoints.

General Tips

• Gold and jade aren't used for anything. Just sell them whenever you meet a merchant.

• When you get to the hidden city, you'll quickly get a sidequest where you have to retrieve some dice for someone. It's recommended to have 6100 gold on you before you attempt to complete this sidequest, as one of the characters you'll speak to during this quest is a merchant who sells two items that are used for exploration. The items aren't missable, it's just that the merchant moves around after you complete the quest, traveling to random positions across the entire game world (including places you've not gotten to yet). She isn't marked on the map, so it's very annoying if you need to track her down.

• Late in the game you'll encounter a new enemy and will be given a shotgun. The shotgun takes 2 or 3 shots to kill them. Instead of this, get the combat skill that lets you dodge counter. It's easy to do, way faster, and honestly easier.

• The game is surprisingly light on combat - you might want to focus on non-combat skills because of this. Unlike previous games, there's no random human combat, and no way to have fights in the postgame.

• The starting weapons in every slot are the only ones you'll really need. The difference between them, and how minimal the combat is overall, means it's not really worth buying any others and the money can go to better uses mid-game. The only one that's even worth a look-in is actually given to you for free as part of the story late-game. The pistol silencer you can buy from the first merchant is also great early game for stealth kills.

• The best combat skill is the one that makes deadly poison arrows. Not only does it let you make a super deadly attack, it unlocks collecting the ingredients for it and they sell for a higher price than even the collectible which only exists to be sold.

• Every area has a hidden collectible quest chain, usually triggered by shooting the target object, that will only pop up and log progress once you do one of them. This can be stupid when you don't have any idea what you are looking for, so if you plan to 100% the game just look these up for each area. Alternately, the objects will turn your reticule red when you aim at them (if they are the shootable kind).