Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Gameplay Reveal Shows A Violent And Deadly Lara Croft

The week of E3 rolls onward and upward with plenty of new revelations and announcements. It's like a buffet of software goodness, offering up a little bit of something for everyone. Part of that smorgasbord of software offerings comes courtesy of Square Enix, which rolled out its line-up of games for the near future, including some new gameplay footage of the hotly anticipated Shadow of the Tomb Raider for home consoles and PC, due out this September.

The trailer was part of the Square Enix E3 press conference, something that the company has begun doing each year as a way to reconnect with fans in the West. The company has had a rather large resurgence lately when it comes to market share after games like Hitman and the rebooted Tomb Raider managed to maintain blockbuster success in the crowded gaming market. The company also exploded with renewed vigor from franchises like Final Fantasy and the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 3, so it makes sense why Square would start focusing on milking the hype train with its own specialized E3 press conferences centering around AAA titles like the upcoming Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

As for the trailer, it's a seven minute long doozy. It starts with Lara attempting to level an airplane that's tearing apart. The back of the plane literally breaks apart and Jonah, from the last two Tomb Raider games, is stuck inside of the plane as it falls from the sky. Lara, meanwhile, is stuck in a broken and battered cockpit that plummets toward the earth.

We don't know how things turn out, but we do get to see some of the new gameplay as Lara stealthily takes out a group of mercenaries. New to the game is the ability to rope enemies and string them up on trees, just like Connor from Assassin's Creed III or Batman from Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham games.

After Lara takes out a couple of guys using the bow and the pickaxe, she gets ground level and begins taking down bad guys using her melee weapons.

In the video we see how Lara can distract enemies and force them to kill each other by getting them to turn on each other. We also see that there's a new chain-melee attack, where if Lara performs a stealth kill she's able to follow-up with a chain stealth kill if an NPC is close enough to their companion.

It's also revealed that there will be some brand new gameplay mechanics as well, such as Lara being capable of grappling throughout the environment now, very similar to Nathan Drake from Uncharted 4.

Eidos Montreal also revealed that there's all new 460 underwater exploration system, but we don't get to see much of the new underwater system during the demo. Shadow of the Tomb Raider will also have the largest map in the series to date.

Pre-orders have currently opened up for third-person shooter over on the official Tomb Raider website ahead of the September 14th release.