Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Appears To Be Getting Optimised For Xbox Series X & Series S

Or maybe they are just using the tag as it's optimized with FPS Boost without a resolution drop like some games?

Playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider right now.. with 4K 60FPS a truly next gen experience.. the game looks and plays amazing. I bought the trilogy for €20 a few months ago and I highly recommend picking it up. It is also for €20 on sale right now.

I got the trilogy definitive pack in the last sale. I'll play Shadow again because I couldn't hear a thing last time I played except gunfire and a PS4 Pro fan. It's the same story with RDR2, I'll probably pick that up in the Xbox sale as well since my XSS is super quiet in comparison.

@Ocat
Rise of the Tomb Raider has no FPS Boost.
The high frame rate mode is 1080p 60FPS.

Only Tomb Raider Definitive Edition and Shadow of the Tomb Raider got FPS Boost.

@MaseSco
I feel ya. Right before I sold my PS4 Pro (and bought an XSX) I was so fed up with that console. The noise and heat levels it generated were obnoxious. Now I have a PS5 and XSS and gaming on both feels so much better.

@gollumb82 My friend plays F1 2020 & says it's the only game it's a good thing for 😂
I feel bad for my other half though as she has to play RDR2 with subtitles so I'll get another copy on Xbox.

I noticed the tag last night, but the update hadn't actually installed yet.

My guess is that this version won't have a toggle anymore - it will just run at 60fps. I doubt a 120fps option is in the cards, I am not sure this game would really benefit from it.

Maybe it will natively take advantage of the SSD as well - though this game already loads up pretty darn quickly when installed on the SSD, so it could just be an almost instant load.

Either way, I don't have any objections to having more native X|S games on my system (well, except for maybe space-related reasons).

@MaseSco
I powered through RDR2 on PS4 Pro because it's an amazing game, despite the noise. Well, the headphones helped a lot, but I could still hear the hum of the console with the headphones on 🙄 Yeah, don't put your other half through this if you can 😉
As for Shadow, I played it on PC back in the day and found it way less enjoyable than Reboot or Rise. I might give it another go now but I don't know what improvements there are for XSS.

@gollumb82 @MaseSco It's been so nice playing my PS4 games on a PS5.

Quick story - due to my own stupidity trying to fix a game update that would successfully complete on the PS4 Pro, I ended up wiping out 2 years of save games by doing a total system restore. I had planned to do 1 month of PS+ to backup everything I had to the Cloud in preparation for PS5, but in my frustration of Uncharted 4 not properly updating to latest version (plus distractions from my daughter), I ended up formatting my system. Poof....2 years of games gone.

Silver lining: I am replaying great PS4 titles WITHOUT a PS4 Pro fan drowning everything out - and in 60fps for certain games (God of War, Days Gone).

It also gives me a reason to get the PS5 upgrades - like FF7 Remake. I also plan to get the Death Stranding Director's Cut. Ghost of Tsushima thankfully came AFTER I had already done the wipe.

Unfortunately for Shadow of the Tomb Raider on Xbox, I already played and finished the game. I might boot this up again and go exploring for an hour once the native version drops just to see if it feels any different.

One thing I would recommend is playing this game (and Rise of the Tomb Raider) in Dolby Atmos. Both titles really showcase the capabilities and make the Dolby Atmos for Headphones license purchase worth the money. It was as if these games were designed around Dolby Atmos.

@gollumb82 haha yeah I thought the same about Shadow. It feels a bit like Arkham Origins in that it's pretty good, but the two that came before just knocked them out the park.

I'd have preferred FPS boost for Rise of the Tomb Raider, hopefully it's on it's way

@MaseSco
Agree 100%. I think the devs were undecided whether to cater to the fans of the original TR trilogy (more puzzles, less combat) or the fans of the Reboot and Rise (the other way around, my preferred way ). The end result was that neither group was pleased heh.
@GamingFan4Lyf
Same for me. I have yet to play Death Stranding and Ghost of Tsushima, replay TLoU2 in 60 fps (ditto for Days Gone). Good times ahead
I am sorry to hear about your save files. Sometimes a small mistake can have far reaching consequences (like letting Thane Krios be the leader of strike team 2 during suicide mission in ME2...).
Dolby Atmos- oh man, Playstation's 3d audio has nothing on it (tried both, already sold my Pulse 3d headset- way worse than my older HyperX Cloud Alpha). Personally, I was blown away by the audio with Dolby Atmos in Cyberpunk 2077. I will definitely try both TR games you mentioned!

@adamfother1 Me too, but I highly doubt it TBH

@gollumb82 Yeah, the 3D Audio in Cyberpunk was really great. Still, I don't feel like it holds a candle to Rise and Shadow - it's that good.

I use a pair of Plantronic Rig 400 headphones for my Xbox and PS5.

Ray tracing, maybe?

I still have mixed feelings about the TR reboot series. It's basically TR aping Uncharted which aped TR.

@GamingFan4Lyf For some reason my PS4 Pro wasn't UPLOADING my saves. For YEARS. I moved to the PS5 expecting all my saves to download and found half the games were starting new. #ThanksPSN

@gollumb82 "I could still hear the hum of the console with the headphones "

Your definition of "hum" is far more generous than mine.

And don't forget the stress-creaking of the plastic as you played!

I still haven't tried the vaunted "3D audio" on PS5. I plug into an external amp, not the cheap amp on the controller with BT streamed audio. And naturally the "3D audio" doesn't work through external audio, just the cheap controller audio...

XBox has supported Atmos in headphones via external audio since 2017.......

Could be they implement AMD's Fidelity FX Super Resolution. The developers have become known for eagerly adopting new AMD technologies in the past, like TressFX for Lara's hair.

@NEStalgia
To be fair, Uncharted is one of my favourite series so TR becoming more like Uncharted is a good thing in my book 😉 One noticeable difference is that Tomb Raider seems to be darker in tone, which I like as well. You have to wonder, though, if this series has anything left in the tank. Uncharted ended perfectly (I hope the reports about part 5 are just rumours), while TR has been milked hard for many years (all the way back to the 90s).

@gollumb82 I'd say Uncharted 5 is a guarantee. They wouldn't be doing Netflix prequels, wouldn't have set the end up to introduce Drake's daughter as a semi-cliffhanger if it weren't the plan. And under Jim Ryan they'll be making sequels to every successful franchise faster than Nintendo can make limited edition cash grabs!

@FraserG Shadow of the Tomb Raider literally just now updated itself to a Series X game.

I think the further optimization done is in relation to the game streaming from the SSD; I have the Definitive Edition and it's halved in size, from around 45GB to 22.6GB.

Uncharted and Tomb Raider are very different games. It's like comparing Mega Man and Metroid.

@gollumb82 I thought I was the only one. I liked Tomb Raider and I loved Rise of the Tomb Raider. I also beat Shadow of the Tomb Raider 100% but it was not as enjoyable. I think that it is because of the claustrophobic and very confusing and dark tombs and also because the story and the characters didn't hook me. Anyway, the trilogy for that price is a must-buy. My favourite is Rise of the Tomb Raider.

@BlueOcean yeah it's a real bargain at that price, Rise is my favourite and I preferred it to Uncharted 4. Actually I've found a few games in that sale so it's gonna be an expensive month and I'll need to get an external hard drive now

@everynowandben
They're both TPP action adventure games. Granted, there are some differences in that TR has got crafting and bonus tombs, while Uncharted is more linear with a heavier focus on plot/characters, but it's essentially the same genre.

@BlueOcean
I prefer the Reboot to Rise due to the more interesting plot (at least for me). I will admit that Rise is better in the graphics and mechanics department. I suppose I might replay the entire trilogy, but only after I've tried The Ascent and Hades first (still can't believe it got GOTY awards over TLoU2 and Ghost of Tsushima).

@gollumb82 Uncharted is action adventure, while TR is an action RPG. They both have climbing, shooting, and puzzles. Only TR has crafting, upgrades, permanent inventory, meaningful backtracking, exploration for rewards that are more than simply collectibles, skill tree, shops, sub-missions, optional missions, fast travel, gear/equipment that alters stats, etc. They are only similar at the most very basic level.

@gollumb82 Hades, another great game we'll be able to play on Game Pass 😁.

@carlos82 Yep, Uncharted games are interesting as films but not as games, typically Sony. The first Uncharted game is terrible, though. The gameplay and camera of the Tomb Raider games are much better.

@everynowandben
While I agree with most of what you said, I'd say Tomb Raider is an rpg in the same way Assassin's Creed is an rpg. Tacked on rpg elements for the sake of making the game's mechanics more robust. I do like both franchises, to be clear.

@BlueOcean
Well, I'm one of those oddballs who like the first Uncharted more than 2 or 3 🙂 Naughty Dog games are cinematic, no doubt about that, but I happen to be a fan so I don't mind. I will admit that Sony has been relying on this formula far too much.

@gollumb82 Yep they have. I managed to finish the first Uncharted game but it was quite frustrating even on the remastered collection (I haven't played it on PS3).

The update will likely put it closer to the Steam version that featured ray traced shadows. It was featured on Digital Foundry a while back and it showed how the enhanced shadows and specular lighting from individual candles offered a nice upgrade from the base game.

@BlueOcean
I might be looking at that game through rose-tinted glasses as it was the first PS3 game that blew ma away back in the day. I admit the camera and player movement are irritating at times, but I still love it There's something about looking for lost gold/treasures in the jungle that makes me love such games/movies instantly.

@gollumb82 I see. I like jungle environments, too 😊.

I don't really like how it looks on my Xbox One X, it's so dark visually compared to Rise of the Tomb Raider. Also, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the first games that I saw with raytracing demos. Hopefully, we'll get proper raytracing with this game. (I'm still waiting for the Tomb Raider 2013 Series X optimized version)