Shadow of the Tomb Raider E3 Trailer
The Shadow of the Tomb Raider E3 Trailer (or Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Louder than Words) is a Trailer for Shadow of the Tomb Raider. It was released on 10 June 2018 during the the Microsoft press conference at E3 2018. The trailer runs for approximately 2:53 minutes.
The song in the background is Speak Loud by the London all-female band TRILLS.
Contents
Contents
The Trailer starts off with Lara and Jonah sitting around a camp fire, with Lara's voice narrating: "I thought I knew why I came here. I saw it... the end." Parts of a ritual sacrifice on top of a Mesoamerican pyramid is cut into this scene. "It was so vivid," Lara continues, sitting at the fire, "but now the truth feels further away then ever." We witness Lara crawling up a rope in some subterranean ruins, discovering some artefact in the centre of glyph decorated stelae. "I still have so many questions."
Two images of Lara's face are set against each other in split screen: Lara with mud on her face, Lara with her Día de Muertos mask. We see Lara walking through a market square in Cozumel, then leaving her mask behind, as she enters the Dig Site. Here she uses her two Axes to scale a sheer cliff.
The trailer cuts to a different location, maybe Brazil or more probably Peru; Lara standing atop a mountain and looking down into the valley below, condors circling below her. A village hugs the cliffs. The screen is split horizontally and we see two Laras rappeling down her rope. Down in some ruins at the Cozumel dig site she turns a stone tablet, part of a puzzle that reveals the Key of Chak Chel, a obsidian dagger with an ornate golden handle. "We can't let Trinity get a hold of this." "Let's think this through," Jonah replies over her crackling radio as she reaches out to grab it.
The main villain, Dr. Dominguez is introduced, walking towards Lara on the town square. She gets hit with the but of a gun into her back. "Do you realize the tragedy you have unleashed?" Dominguez asks her. "The cleansing has begun. It falls to me now to stop it, before it consumes us all."
We see Lara grab the dagger from its resting place, which triggeres the cleansing Dominguez was talking about, looking at it in another split screen sequence, where we can see her running away from the tsunami that rushes through Cozumel. "What have I done?" She gets washed away and grabs hold of a palm tree that is lying in her path, then grabs a door before the church collapses towards her. She gets pushed under water and has to dive through a drowned van to escape. In there she has to use her axe to break the rear window and escape with barely enough air left.
The trailer cuts back to the jungle location where Lara dives towards the shore and grabs a mercenary from behind to drown him. We see her hiding, her face muddy, and stealthily following another baddy through the night. "I know that it's not practical." Another cut, she turns around and has to face a Jaguar on a branch above her. "I know that it's hard to believe." Another jaguar approaches from behind, knocking the Bow out of her hands. She comes face to face with the big cat.
Another cut and we see Lara solving some puzzle in an old church: Lara climbing a statue of Christ, moving crucifixes around to line them up to bounce some sunlight through the room. Then she runs away from a collapsing wall, leaving behind an artefact.
Back again in the Cozumel tsunami we see Lara jumping from building to building, landing on a billboard. "You don't know that you caused all this, Lara," Dominguez jells. A Helicopter crashes, the explosion pushing Lara back. Another split screen, where we see Lara sitting in front of the burning town and in the darkness of a cave, follows. "You need to trust me," she tells Jonah.
We see some fighting: Lara shoots her bow, close combat with a mercenary.
The trailer cuts to a small plane flying over a river that winds through a jungle, a mountain range to the left and right. Inside, Jonah tells her: "We have to trust each other." Lara nods. After the next cut, Lara runs away from an exploding generator, then using a zip line. Then she climbs up a rotating puzzle piece. Under water Lara has to fight a moraine. The next cut shows Lara climbing up a tight fissure, then swinging on her rope towards a huge skull carved in the cliff's side.
Some more combat and traversal follows: Lara shooting her bow from above, pulling her victim up into the tree; Lara performing a Wall Run, then jumping from a wooden cage to the next, then shimming along a rope. Then two images of Lara and Dr. Dominguez staring at each other are set against each other in a split screen.
The scene changes again and Lara scales a cliff in a cave. Rotating blades swing towards her, then Lara runs towards a set of stairs. Another cut and we see Lara with her bow ready to shoot a soldier in the head from behind. We see her jumping off a cliff into a pool of water.
"He wants to alter the course of humanity," Lara says to Jonah, while we we see her standing in front of a glowing sphere that looks like the surface of the sun, then in front of a temple-like building, a shaman or priest dancing, Lara in front of an eclipse. "If you had that power, what would you do?" We see Lara emerge from water, fire burning behind her.
The trailer ends with the main title and the message "become the Tomb Raider", followed by the release date, 14 September 2018
Gallery
Human Sacrifice on Top A Pyramid
Lara Looking Down A Jungle Valley
Discovering A Village
Rotating Rings Puzzle
The Key of Chak Chel
Dr. Dominguez (centre)
Tsunami Rushing Through Town
Two Jaguars
Facing the Jaguar
Lara's Plane Over the Jungle
Burning Water
Burning Sphere
Cliffhanger
Reception
While the consensus was favourable, starting a small hype on social media in the days after the release, there were also sporadically disappointed voices noting that there was not enough gameplay in the trailer and too much material taken from cut scenes.
Follow Up
The release of the Square Enix E3 Showcase 2018 followed the next day, increasing the amount of available gameplay scenes even more.
