As a massive Tomb Raider fan, any little snippets of information that come out about the upcoming Shadow of the Tomb Raider pretty much make my week.  Meaning that either Tomb Raider is amazing, or my life is terrible.  Either way the new picture released by Square Enix is enough to get me really exited for the next game in the franchise. Thanks to this picture and too much time on my hands I can surmise a few things about the game that were before unknown.

First and the most obvious of all, is the setting.  we have spent quite a bit of time in forests in the new series of games, but this is slightly different.  There are vines growing around the tree Lara is sitting in and there are broad, thick, green leaves behind her indicating more of humid jungle or rainforest setting. Then if you look the pyramid toward to bottom to the picture you can narrow it down even further.  Unlike Lara, I am no archeologist, but to my very unexperienced eye, the pyramid looks Mayan.  Meaning that this game would be somewhere in Central America around Guatemala. 

The next thing of note is the eclipse in the sky.  Not only does that make sense of the title, it also tells you that there is going to be some serious lore coming our way.  Whatever Lara will be trying to find this time around can probably only be found during a solar eclipse.  There will of course be more to it than that since solar eclipses happen at least twice a year, so there must be something special about this one. 

Last but not least is Lara herself.  Now she doesn’t look like she’s in great shape being covered in mud, blood and god only knows what else, but that is normal for her at this point.  She should be expecting that.  She still has her bow and arrows, handgun, and climbing axe.  So far, So Tomb Reader.  The new thing in this picture is the large knife she is holding.  Now it is hard to tell exactly what is going on with this knife.  It could be an extremely old artifact and therefore part of the story.  Or it could be merely covered in mud and the blood of her enemies giving it that look and would then be a new weapon to violently murder unsuspecting fools (insert squeal of excitement here).

Of course none of this is coming from Square Enix or Crystal Daynamics but from my own over-active imagination.  Whether what I have said is even remotely correct or not, there is no doubt that there is going to be a lot of excitement surrounding this game over the next couple months and we all know Square Enix is more than capable of delivering.