It's not that Tomb Raider's missteps have been eradicated, but they've been dramatically reduced. There's a level of artifice to these sequences, but they operate within the framework of established interactions. There's still plenty of set-piece spectacle, but these pace-breaking action segments trust you to read the visual clues of the environment and react using the appropriate controls. From then on, Rise of the Tomb Raider sticks to a mostly consistent level of interactivity.

The opener is frustrating, but over quickly.