Hey, GOTY and all that I know, but there's this here Tomb Raider DLC I wanna talk about, so -
The first (of three) DLC releases for one of this year's irrevocable best is out! Only... it's not that great. The concept is that it narrows the game down to the survivalist elements that this new Tomb Raider series has repeatedly flirted with to a slight degree.
Fittingly called Endurance Mode (but not for the reasons it intended), it drops you in a huge, procedurally generated Siberian Wilderness (far as I can tell that's the only environment available), and then tasks you to survive for as long as you can - while also collecting any artifacts along the way. You have a food and warmth meter that you have to keep an eye on, supplies are (at first) pretty scarce, your health doesn't regenerate, and campfires only last a few minutes before the harsh cold extinguishes them. It all sounds pretty brutal, and for a time it is! Especially if you're jumping in under the default settings without any of the card modifiers. As is you'll have nothing to your name besides the recurve bow, and will have to level up all your stats , too. Though again you can potentially choose to start off with more weaponry, as well as with some skills already unlocked (if not all of them), but given the nature of the mode I find it more fitting for you to jump in naked - ability speaking anywhoo.
Your first playthrough of Endurance Mode is to likely feel as if you're leaping into the deep end of the ocean, with nothing but a deflated duck float for comfort. During the period of when you're getting your bearings and figuring how things work, it's really pretty tough. I was elated when i discovered my first little encampment of huts, filled with all sorts of ammo and resources that I generally took for granted in the base game. Unfortunately, the longer you manage to survive the easier it gets. Without any backup of the cards, the opening minutes will be pretty grueling. All you have is the stock recurve bow to which, while it can soundly do its thing against the smaller animals, even deer are able to soundly shrug the arrows off while giving you the middle hoof. As such, scouring for food can at first be a little tricky and you'll most likely rely on the berries you'll frequently encounter, which only fill you up a skosh in relation to raw meat as you would expect. Furthermore, without any of the available skills or other weapons, combat can be a dicey affair, too. Though they do at least scale things to how long you've survived; meaning you'll only first face against the odd pack of Trinity goons with lesser weaponry with minimal armour. The longer you survive, the pack of said goons will gradually increase in size and will have better gear. Eventually even the Deathless will start patrolling the place.
The problem is that as you accumulate more stuff, you'll quickly manage to turn things around and start to resemble the unstoppable murder machine that is story mode Lara. Animals will prove little problem once you acquire better weaponry, meaning your hunger stat won't be too much of an issue. The fear of running out of warmth doesn't carry a lot of weight either, since wood is perhaps the most common resource you'll find out in the wild and it only requires five pieces to start a campfire. Sure, the fire will run out all in due time, but resources respawn to such a degree that you're likely to never be wanting for wood. Ammunition for your firearms is admittedly pretty scarce for a fair bit of time, though once the deathless arrive--to which always happen to be carrying an entire armoury on their person--the amount of ammo each one drops means that any worry over ammo soon starts to be less of a concern.
Which is a shame because it initially starts off really engaging for how harsh and brutal the world you're dropped into is. The frosty forest you're stranded in is huge, with plenty of opportunities to find yourself getting lost and scrounging around for a bush of berries. The warmth meter is interesting as well for how you don't necessarily need to light a fire to keep warm, and can alternatively use your own fire arrows. Just shoot one on the ground, run through it without accidentally immolating yourself, and that'll heat you up some. It's a great last-resort method that adds to the desperation the mode is trying to entail. What's especially funny is there's a card you can use that'll make it so all enemies are immune to fire damage, but are themselves also completely engulfed in flames. So when you initiate a stealth attack, the proximity of you to your fiery frenemy means you'll actually be acquiring heat during the animation... while still also taking some minor damage in the process. There's barrels that are lit on fire you can use, and even the small lamps you would ordinarily use as a sort of fire grenade can provide some small doses of warmth. The tombs you can raid are pretty enticing as well, as with their procedural nature means the traps may spring on you unexpectedly even should you happen to resemble the layout.
The progressive ease goes hand-in-hand with how there's simply not enough variety. The world you're in soon all starts to look the same, and there's not enough diversity speaking for both the wildlife and humanoid enemies to carry it for very long. It quickly gets to the point where it starts to fall into a rather repetitious cycle, only with each spin you yourself are getting more and more efficient at everything while the world struggles to keep up. There's only so many times you encounter a bear, or discover a tomb to search for relics before it loses the impact. The furthest I've gotten was seven days, though I decided to get extracted--which you can choose at will via a signal fire so long as you have the small sum of resources to light it--not because I didn't think I couldn't survive any longer, but because I was already bored of everything that existed within this world. All of what its world had to throw at me ceased to pose a threat.
That said, I'd really like to see them potentially expand on these concepts in the future, if not for some sort of weird TR spin-off then certainly for the next mainline entry. Survivalist mechanics in games has proven to be really popular over the years, and so you mix such concepts with the fantastic gameplay of TR and you have a winner on your hands! The foundation that was set with the base game isn't enough to sustain a mode exclusively dedicated to surviving the wilderness, however. As said before there are just too few variables to account for for it to stay engaging after so long. The 'endurance' part of this mode eventually starts to represent an endurance of boredom more so than it does surviving the elements.
That it's being sold £8 (AKA $12?) makes it even more difficult to recommend. You do at least get a snazzy new outfit Lara, one that actually allows her to wear some headgear for once!
This is also still only the first batch of DLC, and the latter two look like they could prove to be a bit more promising. The next in line looks to actually be some rather substantial story focussed DLC, and the third sounds akin to what is essentially a sort of horde mode. Only with some new types of enemies? Both could prove to be as much of a bust as Endurance Mode, but their somewhat smaller ambitions means there's more chance they'll be able to successfully execute what they're trying for.
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