The developers appear to be aiming for a sweet spot somewhere between the rigid platforming of the previous Tomb Raider games, and the carefree elegance of Assassin's Creed. There's no lock-on sucking you automatically toward ledges, while aftertouch air-control let's you course-correct on the fly. Lara may be young and inexperienced, but she can still jump from spars of spindly rock and swing from flagpoles. As with the puzzles back in the den, then, it's got a great Tomb Raider feel, but it's richer and more dynamic.
"The player has the feel the characters as they're moving, and various games do this in their own ways," says Gallagher, after admitting there's been a lot of discussion as to what modern traversal should feel like. "Assassin's Creed looks good, but for my money, when i'm moving the sticks I want to feel like i'm moving the character as much as possible. With our demo, you're playing the character every moment. There aren't a lot of smoke and mirrors - there aren't magical jumps that happen, and the animation looks great. You have control the whole time, and we hope that makes you feel closer to the character. If you miss a jump, that's something you did rather than something the engine did. There has to be a feeling of threat underpinning everything. You don't want traversal to be frustrating, but if you don't feel that threat coming to fruition, you're not delivering survival."