Rise of the Tomb Raider Much Larger Than Last Game, Won't Have Loading Screens

The next entry in the Tomb Raider series, Rise of the Tomb Raider, comes out this fall, and recently developer Crystal Dynamics shared some new details about the improvements and changes coming to the game.

Speaking to GamingBolt, game director Brian Horton said that Rise of the Tomb Raider will be much larger than the Tomb Raider reboot released in 2013. In fact, its explorable areas will be three times larger than those in the last game. Its tombs will be significantly bigger as well.

In conjunction with the increase in size of the game's world, Crystal Dynamics has created a new system of puzzles for the game. The studio calls it the "Nested Puzzle Approach." Horton explained, "[This] means [that] there are multiple puzzles that all work together to solve one big puzzle."

Protagonist Lara Croft is also getting some major movement changes, including better traversal mechanics. In Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara can swim and climb trees. Horton said that players "can use [these abilities] not only for traversal but [also] as a way too subtly approach an enemy and take them out from above or from below."

But even though the game's world is bigger and more explorable, players won't have to wait at loading screens between areas. "Just like the last Tomb Raider, we've created a seamless experience," Horton stated. "As soon as you start a new game if you never died or don't quit you will have a seamless streaming experience throughout the whole game. We want to immerse the player into the world as soon as possible and flow from mission to mission in a very seamless way."

Rise of the Tomb Raider launches on November 10 for Xbox One and Xbox 360, although it's currently unclear whether Horton's statements also apply to the 360 version. Recently, publisher Square Enix revealed that the game will come to PC next spring and to PlayStation 4 in holiday 2016. In addition, the head of Xbox recently addressed the game's timed exclusivity, saying that Microsoft knew that it would disappoint fans.