Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris Hands-on Preview

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris was announced at E3 this year. I’ve had a bit a play through a new build and it’s very much like its predecessor, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. You’re Lara Croft: Wealthy Adventuress, racing down temple corridors, smashing pots and disturbing ancient gods better left alone.

This time around, the single-player and co-op experiences have been integrated into one drop in-drop out system. Where the previous game would present entirely different puzzles to single or co-op players, the Temple of Osiris simply changes the environment subtly to compensate. Play by yourself and you’re reliant on Lara’s grapple. Play with a friend or three and you’ll have to use your grapple as a rope bridge for them, while they help you across other obstacles with their own abilities.

For example: In one section as Lara, I had to climb a wall by firing my grapple onto an anchor at the top and climbing. Playing the same section with another character moves that anchor over to another wall, across a pit of spikes. You grapple the anchor, they walk safely over the spikes, climb up the wall and then come back to help you up.

Or, more likely, they walk across, pillage all the breakables for the collectible gems that both of you need to upgrade, then help you up. Some of the items you’ll find will be boosts shared across the team, but the upgrade gems are only counted towards whoever picks them up. Cue the race to smash pots while one or more of your teammates are busy fighting off swarms of scarab beetles.

It’s okay though, you can get your revenge by dropping the timed explosives that make a return from the first game. Blowing up your friends won’t actually reclaim any gems for you, but you’ll feel better for it. Other options include leaving them dead on the floor for a bit instead of going back to resuscitate them when they’re down, or simply grabbing all the gems yourself the next chance you get.

As the name suggests, Temple of Osiris uses a heavy Egyptian theme. Two of the four playable characters are human-sized Egyptian gods who wield magical staves and powers. The other is an archaeologist named Carter. All of you are nonplussed by the idea of seeing Sobek the Crocodile god or Set the Usurper roaming around the temple, mostly because it’s your own damn fault for annoying them. Temple of Osiris a much more exciting game than the previous, with pathways being destroyed by gods thrashing about amongst the pillars as you’re right on top of them. Run awaaaaaay!

You’re Lara Croft. You run around tombs, blow things up, solve puzzles and grab loot. It’s all there and it’s looking good.

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

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