TLDR; If you have come to this game looking for story, dont. THere is nothing new or suprising going here, the devs messed up the flow of the story so bad, if you are on the other hand here for the puzzles and climbing, feeling like a invulnerable god, sure, go ahead. But dont excpet a AAA+ story.

First of all, the story did not suprise me, i was not shocked by ANY of the twists, you can see them from a mile away, and all the clunky controls were not worth fighting to get to the lackluster ending.

First off:

You are spoon fed the story trough the notes you can find in the world, and if you decide to IGNORE those, a lot of points in the ending make no sense, or alternatly, if you DO read them, it literally means nothing, Lara does not gain any knowledge from reading notes from the main antags.

What they SHOULD have done is ;
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THE STORY BELOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Instead of scattering the reveal that Ana manipulated his brother into believing he was chosen by god in notes that are optional, confront him about it, tell him "hey, your sister manipulated you" at the same time as he reveals that your father was murdered (which was kinda obvious by the way, since if he really cared about finding the truth to that point he would have kept going, not comitted suicide) That way you dont even get the option to kill him, instead he crawls over to the edge of the tower and throws himself off, OR you confront Ana, and he shoots her AFTER the reveal, the relic shatters, badaboom badabing, better ending.

And also your friend you came here with is NOT gone for 50+% of the story and is literally used ONLY as a carrot on the stick to make lara care about getting the relic etc etc.

Instead of Jacob dying, he is not shot, and instead returns to live, now as a mortal man, with his people, and they never find out he lied to them.

Make the Goulags a more important location, show the TRUE monstrosity of Trinity proper, make them enslave the locals and use them for excavating ruins and relics, do missions saving them, dont just reference them in the DLC, SHOW them being repourpused.

We hear about all these awful things Trinity does, but the worst things happens TO Trinity, like when they are facing off with the immortal warriors for the first time, you are begged by a Trinity soldier who is in agony from his burns to kill him, he sounds so happy and relieved when you points a gun to his head.

That is the kind of thing Trinity supposedly does TO other people.

SPEAKING of Trinity and big reveals, the worst thing by far is revealing early that Ana and her brother are not the big baddies, but instead are a tiny fraction of a huge organization, i mean ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ REALLY, couldnt save that for the end??? Half way trough and i felt like my efforst were wasted on these two scmucks.

Over all, its more frustrating than its worth, if you enjoy the puzzles and every extra thing you can do, go ahead, but other wise, dont bother.