Welcome guys and gals, to the first ever Journey To Platinum article! Today I'll be discussing the trophies that can be completed in Tomb Raider, now to avoid making this post insanely long, I've decided to split them between two posts: single player (this article) and multiplayer trophies. I'd heard a lot of good things about Tomb Raider before I got around to playing it a last month and I'm glad say that it lived up to the hype, initially I thought the multiplayer was crap but as I played it more, there were moments where I actually had fun. It was at this point that I decided to go for the platinum trophy, it took a few weeks but I enjoyed the process and now I'll be sharing what I learnt along the way, so that you may do the same :)
Bookworm - Find 25% of all documents.
Historian - Find 75% of all documents.
Relic Hunter - Collect 25% of all relics.
Archaeologist - Collect 75% of all relics.
Looking for Trouble - Find 25% of GPS caches.
Bag Full O' Cache - Find 75% of GPS caches.
No Stone Left Unturned - Find all documents, relics and GPS caches.
All these trophies are easy enough to earn and despite being split into different categories, can technically be considered as the same task. There are three ways you go about hunting down these collectibles:-
All these trophies are easy enough to earn and despite being split into different categories, can technically be considered as the same task. There are three ways you go about hunting down these collectibles:-
1) You can explore every (accessible) inch of the island and manually use your eyes to spot items but that might take a while.
2) You can excessively use the survival instinct game mechanic and upgrade the skill that allows you spot items through walls, slightly faster than 1) but still time consuming.
3) Find the hidden maps located in each area and upgrade the skill that will reveal all collectible objects on your map, I personally recommend this one.
It might sound daunting to find every collectible in the game but between survival instinct, the map and the upgrade skills, it’s really not that bad. Don’t forget you can you manually tag items on your map, then enter survival mode to see more or less the exact location of the item you’re searching for. It’s worth knowing that you don’t have to find all the items before the credits roll, you can actually come back after finishing the story and use the free roam mode to mop up any missed items. I actually think it’s more relaxing to come back after because you don’t need to worry about objectives and there will be significantly less enemies to disturb you.
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Scrounger - Collect 5000 pieces of salvage.
Salvage is a big part of Tomb Raider and in some ways can be considered as the in game currency but instead of spending it on new items; you’ll be using it to upgrade your weapons, making them (and respectively you,) more lethal in combat. Early weapon upgrade options are fairly cheap but later ones will be much more costly, so even though you won’t need all the salvage you collect early on, towards the end of the game, you’ll be glad you hoarded. There’s actually a skill that you can upgrade, which will allow you to recover more salvage from the various sources, if you think your collection rate isn’t as high as you would like.
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Picky - Loot 200 enemies.
Slain enemies can drop ammo and salvage, so there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be looting them. I can’t remember when I unlocked my trophy but it was well before the end of the game, so the body count shouldn’t be an issue.
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Clever Girl - Purchase all skills in one category.
Lethal - Purchase all skills in all categories.
In order to purchase skills you need to first rank up by earning XP, this is earned from practically all activities that you do but the amounts you get, will vary depending on certain factors. Depending on how you go about the game, there is a chance you might fall short of a few skills when the final credits roll but lucky for you, I have a few tips that should help to avert this scenario. As I mentioned earlier, you’ll earn XP for practically everything you do, generally speaking the easier the task the smaller the XP rewarded and vice versa for more challenging actions. Things like searching through containers, opening crates and hunting animal won’t net you much XP but it all adds up eventually, not to mention you’ll want the salvage and weapon upgrades from these sources too. Bigger XP amounts can be earned by successfully raiding tombs, fully completing challenges and killing enemies in a swift and efficient manner i.e. where possible, always try and go for the stealthy headshot/takedown. Again, there’s another skill that you can upgrade to help you earn additional XP, which I also highly recommend.
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Now We're Getting Serious - Fully mod and completely upgrade any weapon.
The Professional - Fully mod and completely upgrade all weapons.
In order to upgrade a weapon you must first discover all the required parts, these parts are randomly found in containers and crates, which you should be searching through for salvage and XP anyway. Once you’ve obtained all the parts needed, the next time you visit a camp, the weapon will automatically be upgraded. You’ll then need to manually purchase mods with the salvage you have recovered; later mods will require a sizeable amount of salvage, so you should make the effort to collect when you can. Like the collectibles and challenges, you can always return after beating the campaign and use free roam mode to purchase any outstanding mods but bear in mind there won’t be any new salvage sources, so I think it’s best to get this nailed during the campaign.
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Big Game Hunter - Kill and loot 10 large animals (deer, boar, wolves).
Tastes Like Chicken! - Kill and loot 10 small animals (rabbits, chickens, rats).
Feather Duster - Kill and loot 10 flying animals (crows and gulls).
After the first stage of the game there’s actually no real reason to hunt animals, so you’ll have to remind yourself to do it, having said that I actually hunted quite a lot, just for sh*ts and giggles, oh and of course for the salvage lol. Hunting itself is easy enough, there are many animals to be found during your exploration and most are simple to take out. I personally like using the bow to hunt, it’s a silent weapon so if you do happen to miss a shot, the animals won’t all scatter plus you can recover the arrows, which means you don’t need to waste ammo. Small animals are usually a one hit kill but bigger ones will require a few shots, if however you follow my lead and use the bow, it’s worth mentioning that a fully charged arrow to the face will take down any animal in one hit.
The trickiest trophy here will be to kill and loot flying animals, the killing part is simple, the finding their corpses and looting them bit, can be a tad annoying. If you come across a bird that is just chilling on an accessible roof top or simply walking in the grass, you should take these opportunities when you see them and the trophy will be yours before long. It’s also worth noting that you can actually shoot birds while they’re in flight, so if you happen to spot a bird flying towards you overhead or if you accidentally startled one into flying away, that’d be a good time to test out your aim ;)
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Sharp Shooter - Perform 50 headshot kills in the single player campaign.
Headshots are always a one hit kill on non-armoured targets, which means it’s the quickest way to take out an enemy, so there’s no reason not to take that split second longer to place your cross hairs right between their eyes. As I mentioned earlier as well, precision kills will result in more XP, which is nice.
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Predator - Kill 50 enemies with the bow.
Equalizer - Kill 75 enemies with the rifle.
Widowmaker - Kill 40 enemies with the shotgun.
Gunslinger - Kill 35 enemies with the pistol.
Throughout the campaign you’ll encounter more than enough enemies to get the required kills for each weapon type, the only way you won’t unlock the trophy is if you choose not to use whatever weapon. Granted some weapons are better than others and you won’t naturally be inclined to use them all but as long as you make an effort to cycle through them every now and then, you should have no problem reaching the quotas.
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Epic Fumble - Force an enemy to drop dynamite that kills two people when exploding.
There are several sections in the campaign where there will be someone chucking bundles of dynamite at you, if you see that he has an ally beside to him, wait until he’s about to throw the explosives, then tag him with a single shot, anywhere but his face. The result should be that the dynamite will be dropped and will eventually blow up, hopefully taking out both the thrower and his buddy.
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Get Over Here! - Rope pull 5 enemies off edges.
A very annoying trophy to achieve in my experience, five enemies might not seem like a big ask but you should’ve seen how long it took me to get just one! There are two locations where you’ll be able to work on this trophy, the firefight right after you get access to the rope arrows and the start of the shanty town section, the chances are you’ll need to get a few in each location. If you fail to earn it by the end of the initial shanty town engagement, you’ll need to pray for another opportunity to appear later on.
A tip that I picked up, was to switch my save slot just after searching the helicopter for medical supplies, so if I had failed to get the trophy by the time I’d left the shanty town, I could reload the game and try again. In the end I didn’t need to reload the game but that was only because I spent so much time making sure I got the trophy before progressing further. Another tip is to aim at their head, it doesn’t kill them like a regular shot would but you’ll have to judge for yourself if it’s more effective than a body shot. Not sure if difficulty plays a role in how easy it is to rope pull an enemy, I was playing on hard and it seemed to me that enemies just refused to go over the edge.
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Opportunist - Kill 25 unaware enemies.
Whenever you see an enemy with his back turned to you, either sneak up behind him and use melee or equip a silent weapon and give his brain cells access to some fresh air. On higher difficulties you’ll have a much smoother ride through the campaign, if you take out enemies without attracting the attention of their allies. Putting the trophy aside though, I think it’s pretty darn satisfying to clear an area with no alerts :D
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Down and Dirty - Perform 15 finishers.
Every now and then when you attack an enemy he’ll drop to his knees, when you see this, it means he’s temporarily defenceless. Simply walk up to him and hit the prompt to put him down permanently.
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Deadeye - Shoot 10 enemies off zip lines.
There are a few sections in the game where you can rack up these kills but I found that the shanty town area provided the best and easiest opportunities. You’ve got a margin of error to work with but it isn’t huge, so try not to miss enemies when you get a chance. If you think you’ve let too many slip by, try restarting the last check point to have another crack at it, but bear in mind that any you earned after the last auto-save will be lost (i.e. they don’t stack).
It doesn’t take much to knock an enemy off a zip line, I personally used the assault rifle but any weapon will do, as long as you’re confident in landing the shots – remember that these will be moving targets. Enemies often come down in pairs or in quick succession, so it’s important that you maximise the number of enemies you hit with a single clip, you don’t want to miss out because you were in the middle of reloading.
If you switched save slots for the rope pull kills (mentioned earlier), you could fall back on that for these zip line kills as well but I think once you know where the enemies will come from, it’s just a simple case of waiting for their arrival.
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Former Adventurer - Incapacitate 25 enemies with dodge counter.
This isn’t strictly a hard trophy to earn, it just requires you to play differently, at least that was the case for me anyway. Basically in order to dodge an enemy, you must first be close proximity, which is probably the opposite of what you’ll naturally be doing. Next you have to stand still and let the enemy (try and) strike you with a melee attack, now just as you see the attack coming, you need to tap the dodge button. If you managed to do it correctly, you’ll be entered into a quick time section, where you’ll eventually be prompted to tap the melee button. Done at the right time, Lara will dodge the attacking enemy and carry out her own counter strike, stabbing said enemy in the leg with an arrow.
Not all enemies will try and melee you but fortunately it’s quite easy to distinguish who will and who won’t, once you identify those that are likely to do so, you can waste the rest, to make your task a bit easier. In my experience, there are three types of troops that will use a melee attack; the rushers tooled up with blades, the dudes carrying a riot shield and archers (they’ll frequently switch to a knife, if you get close enough). Playing at a lower difficulty will make this process considerably less annoying because you won’t die as quickly if you make a mistake but it can still be successfully done on hard, you just need to play a little bit more cautiously.
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One Smart Cookie - Complete one optional tomb.
Intellectually Superior - Complete all optional tombs.
There aren’t that many tombs (I believe it’s one per area) and they should be easy enough to find but if you do get stuck just check out your map, that is assuming you’ve discovered the area map already (if not, find that first). It shouldn’t take too much thinking to figure out what you need to do for each tomb, after you get the gist, it’s usually a simple case of trial and error until you’re finally successful. While it is possible to return post game, to complete any un-raided tombs, I think it’s in your best interest to tackle them while progressing through the campaign because the rewards are very useful.
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Unfinished Business - Complete one challenge.
Inconceivable! - Complete all challenges.
Unlike the collectibles mentioned earlier, the hidden challenge items are something you're going have to manually find, there is no shortcut to finding them. There are two ways you can approach the challenges, you can try and find the everything with your own your eyes and survival instinct or you can follow a guide. A lot of the things you're looking for are in the open and generally easily spotted, I was able to complete most of the challenges through natural exploration but there were one or two that eluded me, in which may case I admitted defeat and just followed a video on YouTube. Like the other trophies regarding collectibles, you can come back after beating the campaign and take your time searching in free roam mode, which is what I did.
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A Survivor Is Born - Complete the game.
I'm quite surprised that there isn't a difficulty based trophy, not really sure why they wouldn't include one, slightly disappointing for those that purposely completed the game on hard but *shrugs*.
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Boom Goes the Dynamite - Shoot a bundle of dynamite out of the air.
I did this completely randomly, so you might do as well. If however you don’t get lucky, the next time you come across a guy throwing TNT at you, just keep him alive until you do shoot one out of the air. I have no idea what weapon I used to complete this challenge but if you’re having trouble, you might want to try the shotgun, it’s a buck shot and I assume that it only takes one pellet to hit for the TNT to go boom. Also, it’s a good idea to reposition yourself if find you’re not able to fire off a lot of shots before a bundle lands on the floor i.e. the further you are away from the thrower, the more time you will have to line up a shot. Additionally, if said thrower is on a higher platform, you’ll probably get a nice trajectory to work with too.
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Crab Cakes - Kill FeeFee the crab.
During my first play through I randomly shot the first crab I came across on the beach, just to see if it could be hunted, I got a satisfying answer and a trophy to boot. I don’t think FeeFee is a specific crab but just in case she(?) is, it was literally the first crab I spotted walking down the hill towards the beach.
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Chatterbox - Complete all conversations with the Endurance crew.
I bet most people will miss this trophy during their first play through, just like I did and probably for exactly the same reason. Once you know what you’re supposed to do, the trophy is simple but that’s the problem, you have to first find out about it before you’ll go about doing it. I had absolutely no idea you could talk to the other characters and by the time I did find out (from a short message during a loading screen), it was too late to work on the trophy because I’d already missed several chats. Basically, whenever you meet up with a friendly character, always walk up to them to see if they have a chat prompt, keep chatting until the prompt no longer appears. Be sure to do this with ALL characters and at EVERY opportunity that you are in the company of the crew members, note that sometimes you can have more than one conversation in the same location, so ALWAYS check. If you miss just one chat you’ll have to play the entire campaign again just to unlock it, while I enjoyed Tomb Raider greatly, I think three plays in as many weeks would’ve been overkill.
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And that's all of them, a couple annoying ones but on the whole, I think it's a pretty well rounded set of single player trophies. The lack of difficulty based trophies means you could in theory, complete all SP related trophies in one playthrough and clean up with free roam but that's up to you, as I said I enjoyed the game, so playing through it again wasn't a chore for me. With these trophies out of the way, the next part of the journey is to tackle the multiplayer, hit the link below to head over to my article on the MP trophies.
What single player trophy did you find most aggravating? Let me know below :)
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