In anticipation of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which releases in just a couple of months, Square Enix and Eidos-Montréal gave us a look at one major setting in the game. A new 9-minute gameplay video shows off the “vibrant and captivating” hidden city of Paititi, which will be an integral hub for Lara as she pursues her ultimate goal of eliminating Trinity and stopping a Mayan apocalypse.
“Paititi is the largest hub ever created in a Tomb Raider game, delivering a thriving new social area filled with adventure and opportunity,” Square Enix wrote. “Players can dive into a bustling economy to barter for new outfits and weapons, interact with and learn from inhabitants to complete side missions, hunt for and harvest valuable resources, and of course discover hidden crypts and challenges tombs.”
According to the video, Paititi is a city “untouched by modern culture.” The city is made up of multiple different districts, including a fishing district and residential area. There’s also a busy marketplace in Paititi, which you can see in the video; it is the base of a new bartering system that lets Lara trade for many of her supplies, including clothing, weapons, and crafting materials.
The video also shows pieces of gameplay from a nearby tomb, demonstrating how exploration and puzzle-solving in tombs will inform Lara’s journey as the Tomb Raider. Players will be able to unlock both challenge tombs and crypts in the game, and it seems that tombs have gotten larger and more complex with the new installment, as crypts are “now as large as tombs used to be.” Tombs are “brutal,” and contain even more traps and puzzles. They will also require some new survival skills to fully explore, which you can see in the video: rappelling and swimming with an upgraded breath meter both came in handy as Lara made her way into The Warrior’s Tomb.
To see Paititi for yourself, here’s the full video:
Shadow of the Tomb Raider releases on September 14 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.