Lara Croft launched her most recent expedition, Rise of the Tomb Raider, last year on Xbox systems, and on PC earlier this year. The PC version proved a boon to speedrunners, due to having better control precision than the console version, a difference found in many other games as well. The current record holder for Rise of the Tomb Raider is The Artistic Ballistic, who completed the Japanese version in one hour and 13 minutes with the use of glitches. The video below is a run of the English version by the same runner, and only a minute and a half behind the fastest time.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW6lJ1LOsi4[/embedyt]
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Only a minute and a half into the video and glitches already come in handy for the run. Artistic Ballistic keeps his commentary to a minimum throughout the run, especially during the action sequences. It’s easy to forget he’s even there as Lara scrambles for her life, and one can’t help but wonder what goes through Ballistic’s mind as he executes these scenes. The gameplay and visuals are such that the viewer has a hard time looking away at any one moment. Rise of the Tomb Raider keeps the audience immersed from start to finish.
Rise of the Tomb Raider‘s second place is held by Leemyy who is half a minute behind Ballistic. A glitchless run of the game typically requires a little over two hours to perform, which goes to show how dramatically the bugs can alter the course of the gameplay. Ballistic has held his gold trophy for three months so far, and while there is always room for improvement, the completion time leaves a tight window for shaving the seconds off, barring discovery of a new method or technique.
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