Lara Croft Go turns the Tomb Raider series into a turn-based puzzle game, and it works. Square Enix Montreal built a game of careful steps out of a franchise known for reflex and spectacle. It scores 8.6 out of 10.
Trailer, via Tomb Raider.
Five Chapters, Forty Levels
The setup is spare. Lara Croft moves one unit at a time between connected nodes on a grid, and the board answers. When she rests, the enemies and obstacles take their turn. Snakes, lizards and giant spiders each move on their own pattern, so every step is a small negotiation with a creature that will not wait.
The game runs five chapters and forty levels. Puzzles become more complex as the player progresses, and each new level tends to introduce a mechanic or an enemy type rather than simply tightening the last one. Spears sit on some boards as single-use items, letting Croft kill from a distance. Boulders, saw blades and traps demand the same care. Levers shift walls and platforms to open a path.
That structure is the whole game, and it holds. Square Enix Montreal had already done this with Hitman Go in 2014, and Lara Croft Go is the spiritual successor to that experiment. The studio took the motifs that define Tomb Raider — boulder chases, reaction-driven danger — and distilled them into something time-independent.
Nothing here is about speed. It is about reading a board before you commit to it.
Vertical Ground
Hitman Go kept its levels flat. Lara Croft Go adds height. Steps, cliff faces and climbable terrain enter the level design, and the addition matters more than it sounds. Vertical movement changes how a puzzle reads, because a route that looks open on one plane can be closed on another. The bird’s-eye isometric view makes those layers legible at a glance.
The presentation carries its share. The visuals are gorgeous and the soundtrack is mesmerizing, and both do real work. A puzzle game lives or dies on whether a player can hold the whole board in their head, and this one is built to be looked at.
There are optional in-app purchases for hints. That is the one place the design gets soft, and it is worth naming plainly.
A 2015 Release That Kept Moving
Lara Croft Go arrived in August 2015 for Android, iOS, Windows and Windows Phone. PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Steam versions followed in December 2016. The full platform list is long: PlayStation 4, Linux, Windows Phone, Android, PC, iOS, Mac and PlayStation Vita.
| Release | Platforms | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Initial launch | Android, iOS, Windows, Windows Phone | August 2015 |
| Console and Steam | PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Steam | December 2016 |
The awards followed the launch. Apple named it its 2015 iPhone game of the year and selected it for a 2016 Apple Design Award. At the 2015 Game Awards it took best mobile/handheld game.
The criticism that stuck was length. Forty levels is not a lot, and a player who clicks with the logic will move through them quickly. Critics also disputed the game’s degree of difficulty, which is a fair fight to have. But short is not the same as thin. Every level here is built, not padded.
What the Score Says
An 8.6 out of 10 is the right number for a game this precise and this brief. Lara Croft Go does one thing and does it almost without error. The turn-based system is legible, the enemy patterns are readable, and the vertical addition gives the follow-up to Hitman Go enough distance from that game to justify its own existence.
The fidelity to Tomb Raider is the part that deserves the most credit. A spin-off can easily become a skin on someone else’s game. This one takes the series’ boulder chases and its sense of peril and translates them into a form where nothing is timed and everything is decided. That is a harder trick than it looks.
What holds it back is scope, not craft. Forty levels and a hint system are a small package, and the difficulty curve does not always rise in a straight line. A player who wants a long campaign will finish this in an evening or two.
But the evening is a good one. Lara Croft Go is the rare handheld puzzle game that survived the trip to console and Vita without needing an apology. Square Enix Montreal took a blockbuster franchise and trusted the player to solve it.
That trust is the whole appeal. It scores 8.6 out of 10.
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