Lara Croft’s second outing in the rebooted trilogy is a beast. Honestly, if you’re looking at that 100% completion mark on your PlayStation profile, you’ve got your work cut out for you. It’s not just about finding every mural or raiding every tomb in the Siberian wilderness. No, the developers at Crystal Dynamics decided to throw in a mode called Score Attack that has single-handedly ruined many a weekend for trophy hunters.
Let's be real. Most people think they can just breeze through the story on Survivor difficulty and call it a day. That’s a mistake. A big one. This rise of the tomb raider trophies guide is here because the road to that Platinum (aptly named "Platinum") is paved with missable opportunities and some of the most repetitive grinding in the modern era of action-adventure games. You’re looking at 66 trophies in the base game alone. If you have the 20-Year Celebration edition, that number balloons to 125. That is an absurd amount of digital silver and gold to collect.
The Survivor Difficulty Myth
You’ll hear people say you need two playthroughs. You don’t. If you’re brave, or maybe just a bit masochistic, you can start your very first game on Survivor difficulty. It’s the highest setting available from the jump. Enemies hit like a freight train. Health regeneration is a pipe dream. You actually have to spend resources just to light a campfire so you can save your progress.
But here is the kicker: it’s actually not that bad if you play like a coward. Stealth is your best friend. The trophy "Ultimate Survivor" pops once you finish the final confrontation, and doing it this way saves you about 10 to 12 hours of replaying the story. Use the bow. Always the bow. Headshots are instant kills on most unarmored grunts, and you can craft poison arrows that act like mini-grenades. Seriously, poison arrows are basically a cheat code for the harder combat encounters near the end of the game in the Lost City.
Those Pesky Missable Trophies
Most of the trophies are "cumulative," meaning you can farm them after the story ends. But a few are total pains if you miss the window. Take "Bacon!" for example. You have to kill a razorback boar using a Molotov cocktail. You’d think boars are everywhere, right? Wrong. Once you clear certain areas, the spawn rates drop significantly.
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Then there’s "Voices of the Past." You need to translate 75 murals. While not technically missable because you can go back to any area, the game's map doesn't always show you exactly where the verticality of a mural is. You might be standing right on the icon and realize the mural is 50 feet above you in a cave you can't reach anymore without a specific gear piece like the grapple axe.
One that trips people up is "Compulsive." This requires you to complete every Challenge, Tomb, and Mission. It sounds straightforward. It isn’t. Some missions are given by NPCs in the Geothermal Valley or the Soviet Installation. If you ignore them and finish the game, sometimes the NPCs "reset" or the world state makes it annoying to find them. Do them as soon as they appear. Just trust me on this.
The Score Attack Nightmare
We have to talk about Score Attack. This is the part of the rise of the tomb raider trophies guide where most players give up. To get the "Golden Child" trophy, you have to earn a gold medal in every single level of Score Attack. There are 27 of them.
It’s a different game mode entirely. You’re playing through story segments but with a combo meter and multipliers. If you stop moving or stop picking up blue wisps, your multiplier drops. It feels like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater but with ice picks and semi-automatic rifles.
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The secret sauce here is Cards. You can use Expedition Cards to boost your score multiplier. Some cards give you a 300% bonus but make Lara die in one hit or remove her ability to heal. If you want those gold medals, you need to stack the deck. Don't waste your in-game credits on the cheap packs. Save up for the gold packs to get the permanent "Grip" or "Well Read" cards.
Why You’ll Hate the Soviet Installation
The Soviet Installation levels in Score Attack are notoriously long. One mistake at the 10-minute mark can ruin a gold medal run. The trick is speed. Don't try to kill everyone. Run. Use the "Big Head" card if you have to—it actually makes headshots easier, which keeps your combo alive. It looks ridiculous, seeing Lara with a giant head jumping through a burning gulag, but it works.
Combat Trophies and the Art of the Farm
You’ll see trophies like "Dead Ringer" (25 headshots with the Bolt-Action Rifle) or "One-Sided Fight" (kill 10 enemies with stealth takedowns while they are distracted). Do not stress about these during your first 15 hours.
The best place to farm almost every combat trophy is the Soviet Installation area during the mid-game or via "Chapter Replay" in the main menu. If you need the "Chemical Warfare" trophy (killing 5 enemies with one poison arrow), wait for the part where the Trinity soldiers are clustered together near the copper mill. One shot. Boom. Trophy popped.
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- "For My Next Trick...": This one is weird. You have to dive into water from a high height. The best spot is in the Geothermal Valley near the Ridgeline camp.
- "Rotisserie": Shoot a chicken out of the air with a fire arrow. It sounds like a joke, but it’s a real trophy. Go to the village in the Geothermal Valley, grab a chicken, throw it, and pray your aim is true.
The Collectathon: 100% Completion
Getting the "No Stone Left Unturned" trophy is the final hurdle. This means every document, every relic, every coin cache, and every survival cache.
The survival caches are the worst. They don’t show up on your map until you find an Explorer's Satchel. Even then, they are just tiny glints in the dirt. Pro tip: turn on Survival Instincts and look for the yellow pillars of light. If you’ve upgraded Lara’s "Intuition" skill, these will glow through walls. It makes the cleanup process 10x faster.
Also, keep an eye on your Language Proficiency. You can’t read high-level monoliths until you’ve found enough documents and murals to level up your Greek, Russian, and Mongolian. If you find a monolith you can't read, mark it. You’ll be coming back. You'll always be coming back.
Actionable Steps for Your Platinum Hunt
- Start on Survivor. Honestly. It sounds intimidating, but the game is generous with resources if you explore even a little bit. It saves you an entire second playthrough.
- Max out the "Intuition" skill tree first. Being able to see collectibles through walls is the only way to keep your sanity during the 100% completion grind.
- Don't sell your soul to Score Attack early. Finish the story, get the 100% completion in the main game, and use the credits you earned to buy the best Expedition Cards.
- Check the "Shopper" trophy. You need to buy all items from the Supply Shack. This requires Byzantine Coins. Do not skip the coin caches (those little silver icons on the map). If you spend your coins on the wrong gear early, you’ll be hunting for caches in the endgame just to buy a laser sight you'll never use.
- Use Chapter Replay Elite. If you missed a combat trophy, use this mode. It lets you go back to specific encounters with all your upgraded gear and skills intact, making those "Kill X enemies with Y weapon" trophies a total breeze.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a fantastic game, but the trophy list is a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time in the Geothermal Valley—it’s the most dense area for collectibles and where most players get stuck at 99%. Check every nook. Every cranny. Lara would expect nothing less.