Rise of the Tomb Raider Interview Reveals More

Video game developer Crystal Dynamics is revealing more about Rise of the Tomb Raider, an exclusive Xbox One and Xbox 360 game scheduled to arrive later in 2015. In a video Brian Horton talks more about Rise of the Tomb Raider, including a few story details and a lot of new information about the game’s locations.

Horton, the game director in charge of Rise of the Tomb Raider, talked more about the upcoming sequel to Tomb Raider in a video interview with GameInformer that’s now available.

According to the interview, series protagonist Lara Croft will journey to Siberia, Russia trying to hunt down a city that remains hidden and almost inaccessible to the wider world. Croft wants to find this city to answer existential questions about “the immortal soul.” What Croft plans to do with the lost city if she finds it seems to be a major plot point in the game’s story. The city she’s trying to find, isn’t complete fiction. It’s based on a myth that allowed Crystal Dynamics to explore the frozen Russian tundra and offer a big contrast to the tropical setting of the last game.

Read: Rise of the Tomb Raider Xbox One Exclusive Gets a Reveal

Large swaths of the area Xbox One and Xbox 360 users will explore this year will have guardians protecting them from outsiders. It turns out that the huge bear Crystal Dynamics has shown off since talking about Rise of the Tomb Raider publicly is one of these guardians. Horton hints at back tracking being a big part of this game’s experience. For example, only when users have geared up with enough weapons and power ups will they be able to defeat that guardian. Tombs in the game will have their own guardians protecting them from outsiders like Lara.

Horton describes native animals in the game as “completely essential” to the game play. A lot of the weapons in the game will require users to hunt animals for the resources they provide. These resources will form the basis of a revamped crafting system. There’ll be multiple weapons for multiple situations. To make the world feel more alive and add to the crafting system, Rise of the Tomb Raider has a night and day system.  Some animals will lurk in certain areas at night while others will appear during the day. It’s not all that different from the system Nintendo uses to great effect in the Pokemon series.

What Horton is describing as a “Snow System” will also make the world feel more alive. Rise of the Tomb Raider players will be able to hunt down the animals they need to craft new weapons by following the tracks they leave in the snow. They’ll slowly disappear as it snows. To give the game more variety, Crystal Dynamics also plans to include The Oasis, a separate location with different weather.

All told, it seems Rise of the Tomb Raider will sit at the intersection of hero driven narrative and an open world game that’ll let players experience what their life would be like if they too were a Tomb Raider.

So far, Crystal Dynamics is only willing to say that they expect to release Rise of the Tomb Raider for Xbox One and Xbox 360 in the fall of 2015. That makes sense as Microsoft is hoping to build momentum for the Xbox ecosystem as it heads into the fall and winter months. The company revealed Rise of the Tomb Raider at its own E3 2014 Media Briefing earlier this year. A copy will cost $59.99 without any add-ons or special downloadable content.

IGN is still reporting that Rise of the Tomb Raider is only exclusive to the Xbox One and Xbox 360 for a limited time. When Rise of the Tomb Raider might come to the PS3 and PS4 remains unclear.