When playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, people will have a number of options available to them. They can set the difficult for Combat Difficulty, Exploration Difficulty, and Puzzle Difficulty separately, as well as turn on different options to make the game more accessible to players. To help folks better understand how the difficulty levels impact the game and what kind of accommodations are in place, an update was released via Steam.
When setting difficulty for Combat Difficulty, Exploration Difficulty, and Puzzle Difficulty, you have four different options. There is Easy, Normal, Hard, and Deadly Obsession. You can choose from those four at any time during gameplay. In addition, provided you are on Easy, Normal, or Hard, you can have a Beacon that shows your next location and a glow around items you can use turned on or off.
Here are the specific differences between difficulty levels in each area.
Combat
Easy
- Aim assist enabled
- Enemies have lower health and do less damage
- Ammunition boxes are plentiful
- Enemies have illuminated silhouettes
Normal
- Enemies have normal health and damage
- Ammunition boxes are rare
- Enemies have illuminated silhouettes
Hard
- Enemies have increased health, do more damage and locate Lara more quickly.
- No health regeneration in combat
- Ammunition boxes are rare
- No hit markers on the reticle
- Enemies are not highlighted in Survival Instincts
Deadly Obsession
- Same as hard
- No HUD icon when Lara is being detected by an enemy
Exploration
Easy
- Obvious white paint on critical path
- Longer saving grab timer
- Base camps are lit
Normal
- Discreet white paint on critical path
- Normal saving grab timer
- Base camps are unlit
Hard
- No white paint on critical path
- Reduced saving grab timer
- No Survival Instincts during exploration
- Base camps are unlit
Deadly Obsession
- Same as Hard
- Base camps are unlit and require resources to light
- Game only saves at Base camps
Puzzles
Easy
- Lara gives direct hints on next action to perform
- Interactable objects are highlighted in Survival Instincts
- Objects necessary to progress highlighted in blue during Survival Instincts
- Longer window of opportunity for timed mechanics
Normal
- Lara gives general hints on the next action to perform
- Interactable objects are highlighted in Survival Instincts
- Normal window of opportunity for timed mechanics
Hard/Deadly Obsession
- No hints are given by Lara
- No Survival Instincts
- Shorter window of opportunity for timer mechanics
In addition, different kinds of gameplay options were revealed. First, here are the audio accessibility options you can choose from as you play, in case you have the sound down, off, or have trouble hearing.
- Subtitles: Off, On with Color, On without Color
- Environmental Subtitles: Display subtitles for all conversations taking place nearby, or only for critical conversations
- Closed Captioning: Display additional or interpretive information such as sound effects, musical cues, and other relevant audio information
These are the other options that will be available in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
- Optional Y Axis Inversion
- Toggling on and off Vibration
- Reducing Camera Shake
- The option to center the camera horizontally so that it is ‘soft locked’ on Lara’s back, requiring the use of only one stick for movement. The other stick can still be used to move the camera if desired.
- The option to tap rather than hold left trigger to aim down the sights
- The option to use right (default) or left stick to aim, when looking down sights (left trigger)
- The option to hold button press prompts rather than repeated tapping
- The option to push the stick directionally for crank control prompts rather than rotate
- Adjustable aim sensitivity
Shadow of the Tomb Raider will come to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on September 14, 2018.
