Lara Croft’s latest adventure is primarily being marketed as a big, shiny treasure for the Xbox One. But Rise of the Tomb Raider is also out for the Xbox 360, too. It looks different, of course.
The biggest differences seen in the last- and current-gen versions of Rise of The Tomb Raider come down to detail and textures. I played a bit of the 360 version today to see how the game fared on older hardware. At times, it seems like the lip syncing in cutscenes—which look just as they do on Xbox One—is a half-second off from matching the spoken dialogue. For the most part, Lara’s animations feel smooth and commensurate with the current-gen iteration. But her character model and the game’s environments don’t look quite as alive on Xbox 360 as they do on Xbox One.
The videos above show the Lost Tomb area from early on in the game. The variation in lighting on the last-gen version is striking, especially when scenes are bathed in an ambient glow compared to the moodier spot lighting on Xbox One. Lara’s face and hair looks markedly different, too; her cheekbones don’t stand out as much and the movement of her locks comes across as stiff and unnatural.
Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox 360 is still a very good-looking game for the platform. But seeing it run on the Xbox One makes the aesthetic upgrades that the game gets on Xbox One seem almost like magic.
Contact the author at evan@kotaku.com.