shadow of the tomb raider kuwaq yaku path of the living puzzle

At first, Lara finds pushback from some of these people: Abby (Erika Soto), an Indigenous Peruana mechanic balks at Lara’s hunt for Maya ruins (since the Maya Empire never extended this far south) Unuratu (Patricia Velasquez), the deposed queen of Paititi, is skeptical of Lara’s presence in her territory. While the game tries to skew them largely to items pertaining to explorers and conquistadors (there’s literally an artifact tab called Conquerors-I’m not kidding, it’s a decision that was made), Lara still manages to steal plenty of Indigenous souvenirs along her way.īut Lara loves collecting Indigenous people, too, adding supporting characters to her orbit the way European “explorers” brought brown folks into their own personal legends of conquest. There are 336 collectables, and I imagine the DLC’s seven new Challenge Tombs will only add more.

But Paititi is less a vivacious city showcasing the lives of uncontacted Indigenous peoples and more a digital Epcot Center attraction built especially for Lara to peruse at her leisure: You’ll overhear looping conversations, and watch as fishermen, children, and women pounding corn into flour cycle through their animations in this terraced city of thatched roof cottages and ancient, hidden temples.Īnd, of course, in Paititi and its surroundings, there are plenty of things for Lara to collect. It is indeed huge, and there are indeed many NPCs. Midway through the game, Lara and Jonah arrive at “the hidden city” of Paititi, which marketing materials remind us is the largest hub in any Tomb Raider game. Regardless of what these opening moments suggest, and despite the story team’s interest in prodding at the colonialist underpinning of making a series called “Tomb Raider” in the first place, everything in this world is very much about Lara. It’s a line of dialogue that sets up one of the forced themes the narrative hopes to wrestle with. Not everything is about you.”Įxcept, Jonah’s wrong.

An early voice for those questions is Lara’s Polynesian sidekick, Jonah Maiava (Earl Baylon), whose indigeneity is expressed the way “exotic” sidekicks were in mid-century adventure films: he’s big and strong and frequently “senses evil.” After one of Shadow’s many frenetic running-jumping catastrophe set-piece sequences, where Lara platforms her way to safety as the town she was staying in is literally wiped off the map, Jonah says to her, “You don’t know that you caused all this, Lara.

Shadow of the tomb raider kuwaq yaku path of the living puzzle