Shadow Of The Tomb Raider The Pillar is the second of the planned DLC’s from the developers Eidos Montreal, Crystal Dynamics and its publisher Square Enix. The game currently costs $7.50 on the steam store and can be played by anyone who also owns Shadow Of The Tomb Raider. The Pillar is also available on PS4 and Xbox One.
In this DLC you continue to play as Lara Croft where you will be given the task of finding an ancient shield which has been hidden away in a tomb you will need to explore and conquer. Similar to the first DLC, The Forge, this DLC has a little bit of cutscenes and a short story for you to follow. I honestly felt that the first DLC had much more story and cutscenes within it than The Pillar did and while they are both go and fetch missions, this one seemed very simplistic with very few extra character for you and Lara to meet along the way.
As for the tomb itself, it was okay. As far as the special effects go, the storm effects were wonderful, the wind effects were excellent and the appearance of the tomb was nicely done. It’s a good looking game and the weather effects in this are greatly appreciated. But where this DLC lacks in comparison to The Forge’s tomb, is that it’s rather easy to get through it. Where I felt at least with the forge that I was challenged to get to the top and had to work out how to get up there, this one just did not stump me at all. I had no problem getting through it. Which is a problem because I want the tomb I just bought to cause me at least a little bit of a problem to get through.
What The Pillar has that The Forge did not have though was more enemies to fight. There’s two stages throughout the DLC where you will encounter enemies who aren’t so easy to overcome for Lara and do pose a threat for her along the way. I quite enjoyed this part of The Pillar. There was aspects of stealth and more aggressive/action based sections and you could choose how you would initially approach the area. Would have liked it to be a little longer though.
The Pillar takes about an hour to complete and depending on your pace it could be a little shorter or a little longer. As with the first DLC, it’s nice to have something new to come back to this game for. If it was not for these new DLC’s I probably wouldn’t have come back to Shadow Of The Tomb Raider this month as I’ve already finished it and I have other games to play. But having these short 1 hour sessions recently has given me the opportunity to come back to one of the games I enjoyed the most in 2018. Overall this DLC was not as good as The Forge was, but was still a fun hour of Tomb Raider for me and the action component did make up a little for the easy to beat tomb. If you have got some throwaway money to spare this week and a spare hour as well then this DLC could be of interest to you.
