As I did with the previous title in this reboot series, I want to open with coming clean on my history with this franchise. Putting it simply, I greatly disliked pretty much every game in its original run, feeling like people got lost in the pointy boobs of it all, settling for generally awful controls that made it very hard to sometimes accomplish simple platforming tasks. Despite those misgivings, I’d decided to give the reboot a whirl and walked away from it floored, happy to see modern technology and solid development work help the franchise finally meet its potential, a feeling that was undiminished by the years before it confidently made its way to the Switch last year. Now, after being shadow dropped in the Nintendo Direct last week, the reboot’s sophomore effort is only on the Switch 2, both looking and feeling good.

Now, if you loved the Tomb Raider reboot, the good news is that this delivers more of that same rock-solid play, mixing together exploration, puzzle-solving, and sometimes very tense action. On a general level progression is once again handled nicely, seeding just enough spots that you’ll make a note of to return to later without them being overwhelming, and in general paying off well enough to justify the trouble. Mouse support is once again present, though I’d still argue it makes for awkward gameplay in more action-oriented offerings, but for people who like to have options it’s nice to know it’s there. The same can’t be said for gyro controls, which is a shame, but all things considered this is still an excellent title that controls well, so it would be sad to make that a dealbreaker for some reason.

If you’re looking for what’s new, I’d say the main attraction is the story, which puts Lara in the cross-hairs of a driven and dangerous organization named Trinity, with the end of this title carrying over into the next one in the series nicely. This iteration does seem to feature a bit more tomb raiding than the last, with the typical tomb also feeling like it takes a little more time and effort than some of the more brief ones in the first. Combat remains very active and sometimes a bit wild, depending on how you’ve decided to manage your upgrades, but if you opt for stealth that can make for some fun. Just be ready for things to fall apart and get noisy quite often, but that’s part of what keeps the gameplay more enjoyable, never allowing you to get too comfortable before throwing you in the deep end. Yes, this is a game that was released a decade ago, but nevertheless it remains very playable and enjoyable, even if this isn’t your first go-round with it.