Hunter’s Moon is the third Story Mission in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and still a part of the game’s prologue. It features some new traversal techniques, a first small puzzle to solve and some good enemy encounters to farm a lot of the kill-related trophies.
Region: Cozumel
Quest Giver: automatic
Requirement: having finished In the Shadows
Trophy: Día de Muertos
The Mission starts seamlessly after the previous one, once you have found the entrance to the ruins.
Explore the Ruins
Upon entering the ruins, Lara will face the first small obstacle quite soon. This is where we learn about the use of rope-arrows. Whenever there is a barricade with a wrapped beam like shown below, Lara can use her bow to shoot an arrow with a rope attached to it and is able to pull down the barricade.
Behind the barricade, there is going to be the first of three smaller traps in this level. They can be disabled with your knife when close to them. Once they are, you can scramble under them to continue.
After continuing the narrow passage for a bit, we are forced to go in the water and dive to continue. To dive while in deep enough water, press .
This first diving passage is actually a bit longer and introduces another mechanic – using trapped air pockets along the way – to do so, press when prompted.
After the driving passage and a short breather, Lara continues a bit along the way and encounters the second trap.
Shortly after this, Lara is spotting a large Pyramid within the caves and her next goal is obvious:
Get to the Top of the Pyramid
The first part of the traversal includes three hanging bells – see the route below. They will move, once you are on them due to the weight and can be hard or impossible to reach, if you are too slow.
After ascending these bells and continuing the path, you will see your first very small puzzle. A barricade needs to be pulled down with a rope-arrow and the cart needs to be pushed, so it lands on one of the bells and pulls it down permanently.
After that, you can use “higher ground” and use two of the higher hanging bells to continue your path upwards. Shortly after this, another tutorial with rope-arrows is presented to you – Tethering. If there is a wrapped beam in a certain distance and you are close to another one, you can use the rope-arrow to connect them permanently. In this case, we want to do so and climb over the gap.
On the other side, the third and last trap waits for Lara and should be disabled with . After jumping on one more bell, you will find yourself at the first medium-sized riddle.
You have to push down the cart marked on the right. After this, go to the crank marked on the left and turn the platform with the cart, so the wrapped part is facing towards you. If done correctly, it will look like this:
Now, you can use the rope-arrow to tether it to the crank you were using. Now use the crank again to pull up the cart towards you. Now we can cut the rope and the cart will roll backwards and crash into the rubble which held the other bell. The bell can now be used to proceed and reach a ladder, which couldn’t be accessed before.
After climbing up to the highest point, you can rappell down onto the top of the pyramid. Now, a cutscene will play and Lara explains the mural to Jonah via radio.
In the cutscene, Lara solves a short puzzle and reveals an old Dagger and picks it up.
Picking up the Dagger was a bad idea, because it triggered some big tremors and the place starts to collapse. Time to bail out!
Exit the Temple
The first thing you will likely notice while running towards the exit, is the story-related trophy Día de Muertos. The path is very linear and there is hardly anything to fail.
Near the end of the small race against time, there is another short tutorial of something you will encounter a few more times – Weak Walls. These can be smashed by repeatedly mashing .
Get through the Dig Site
Now, Lara is outside and once again escaped a collapsing cave. Seems to be her signature thing…
The next tutorial is to kill enemies while hidden in hanging vines. Try it out, it’s fun!
Now, there will be two encounters with enemies, which can be used to farm a lot of the missable combat-related trophies – these would be:
25 Stealth Kills, 20 Bow-Headshots, losing the enemy 10 times, 5 Kills while they are searching for Lara, 3 while they are distracted, 3 Pistol-Headshots in 3 seconds & burning 2 enemies simultaneously.
Generally, if you kill the last enemy in an encounter, the game will save and they will be gone for good. Always leave one enemy and reload via the menu . This way, you can farm the kills for the trophies. The first encounter here features 3 enemies, the second features 4 (which is the one you want to try the three Pistol Headshots on. If you are too slow, you can easily reload.)
The first encounter with three enemies close to a forklift is ideal for 25 Stealth Kills, 20 Bow-Headshots, 3 Kills while they are distracted & burning 2 enemies simultaneously.
The following encounter is just after the one pictured above and is triggered by climbing over a wall.
This one is perfect for these three trophies: losing the enemy 10 times, 5 Kills while they are searching for Lara & 3 Pistol-Headshots in 3 seconds.
The next scene looks rather easy with only three enemies spread in a relatively large area.
But no matter how you approach it, there is a scripted part, where you get spotted.
Time to pull out your automatic rifle and taking the enemies out from behind cover. If head back to where you came from, you can’t be flanked and pick them off easily.
Once they have been dealt with, proceed to the gate next to the red flares and head through the gate. This will trigger the final cinematic of this mission.
Lara is overwhelmed and the Dagger falls right into the hands of Trinity.
When this cutscene is over, the next mission also immediately starts and requires some instant action!
This concludes the “Hunter’s Moon” Main Mission. For all other main missions check out the full Shadow of the Tomb Raider Walkthrough.
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