Tomb Raider 2013/Selecting a Route

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Welcome! If you've been linked here you may be interested in running Tomb Raider 2013! Excellent choice! This page will take you through the main part of the game and help you choose which skips and tricks you will and won't do during the run. There will be relevant links to the Techniques page for each skip where it's relevant.

The "compulsory" elements of TR2013 are generally very linear, but because of how many skips there are, you often have to choose which skips you will and won't use for each run. Some skips are really tough, and you may wish to omit them while you're still learning. And sometimes you will have to choose between two different skips. For each skip there will be an approximate "time saved" and "time per attempt" figure. The time per attempt is timing failed attempts, so if the skip saves 10 seconds and the time per attempt is 30 seconds, you need to get it first try or it will cost you time.

This page will help you choose which skips you will do each run, based on difficulty and payoff in chronological order. This will just cover major timesavers and skips. For the small time savers check an up-to-date run and/or Checkpoint Reloading


Intro OoB (PC only)

Right after pulling out the spike you get a checkpoint. When you reload checkpoint there it is possible to get off a jump that gets you oob. You should bind jump to mousewheel, otherwise it will be too hard to get.

  • Time Saved: 1:30 minutes.
  • Time per attempt: 5 seconds for the jump. (Note once you die or get inbound during this skip you have to restart the run since you only have one shot at this)
  • Console Difficulty: N/A
  • PC Difficulty: 10/10
  • Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4n_e2ilUSo


Bambi to Old Ruins

After you kill the deer is your first major skip. Rather than going back to the campsite use your preferred Tackle Flipping method to clip through the door near where you got the bow.


Deer Door Clip

Requires checkpoint reload before or after killing the 3 jumping wolves to prevent game crash

Whitman Skip (PC Only)

Old Ruins Escape to Broken Bridge

After escaping the old ruins PC runners can do the House Skip. Much harder than it looks, there's no reason this skip shouldn't be possible on console, but it seems to be much harder for some reason.


House Skip

After the house skip, play as normal until the "The pack's up there somewhere." line. Go into the house up the cliff and try your hand at the wolf skip. ::Video Needed::


Wolf Cave Skip

Tutorial Climb Skip (PC only)

Bridge Skip (PC only)

Base Approach to Radio Tower

Once you enter the base before the radio tower and progress a little you will see a guy pushing a barrel. Up the stairs to the right is a door which can be clipped using Tackle Flipping.


Base Approach door clip

  • Time Saved: 15 seconds
  • Time per attempt: 1-5 seconds.
  • Console Difficulty: 4/10
  • PC Difficulty: 5/10

Immediately after the previous skip (Or after climbing through the duct if you didn't do the last skip) you can choose to either do another Tackle Flip through the second door in the room, or you can do the assault rifle wall clip.


Choice #1: Assault Rifle Wall Clip


Choice #2: Base Approach door clip #2

  • Time Saved: 15 seconds
  • Time per attempt: 1-5 seconds.
  • Console Difficulty: 3/10
  • PC Difficulty: 4/10

Continue into the next room and you will have a choice to either complete the combat here as per normal or clip through the final door to skip killing a couple of guys.


Combat Skip

  • Time Saved: 10-30 seconds. (Depends on platform and combat RNG)
  • Time per attempt: 1-5 seconds.
  • Console Difficulty: 4/10
  • PC Difficulty: 5/10

After exiting the base, crossing the beam and performing the QTE, you can use Step Clipping to save a few seconds.


Radio Tower OoB (Small)

  • Time Saved: 5 seconds
  • Time per attempt: 2 seconds.
  • Console Difficulty: 3/10
  • PC Difficulty: 3/10

Next up you have to get past the radio tower door. If you did "Radio Tower OoB (Small)", you can choose to extend that OoB to avoid the next door clip. The alternatives are to use Step Clipping or Tackle Flipping near the radio tower door.


Choice 1(Fastest route): Radio Tower OoB (Large)

Choice 2: Radio Tower Door Clip (Tackle Flip)

  • Time Saved: 2 minutes
  • Time per attempt: 1-5 seconds.
  • Console Difficulty: 4/10
  • PC Difficulty: 7/10

Choice 3: Radio Tower Door Clip (Step Clipping)


Radio Tower to Monastery Exit

After the radio tower, continue as per normal until you make past the pilot and the guy holding a shield and you will be at a campsite. From here you want to buy Dirty Tricks. You'll have two other skill points as well, which are commonly used for Pain Tolerance and Ammo Capacity. Once you're done you can use the Dirty Tricks Slide to save some time.


Dirty Tricks Slide

  • Time Saved: 15 seconds
  • Time per attempt: N/A (Only one chance per run)
  • Console Difficulty: 0/10
  • PC Difficulty: 0/10

After this, you will get the rope arrows, fight some dudes and climb up into the building. Next you can choose to skip using the rope arrow to get across the bridge.


River Jump

After some more platforming, you'll approach the Monastery where you can do another Dirty Tricks Slide.


Dirty Tricks Slide

  • Time Saved: 15 seconds
  • Time per attempt: N/A (Only one chance per run)
  • Console Difficulty: 0/10
  • PC Difficulty: 0/10

After entering the monastery, you can choose to do the Monastery skip.


Monastery Skip

After this, continue until you have completed the monastery and the waterfall/parachute sections and you'll be ready for shanty town.


Shanty Town

We don't call this place Skip City for nothing. Lots of options here, it will help to look at other's runs here, because doing some skips means you don't have to do others. The first one is everyone's favourite skip, the Spud Slide (Mash tackle while entering the crawlspace and pray to whatever it is you pray to.)

New Fire Arrow Skip (Pc Only)

Spud Slide

There's a trick you can do while entering the crawlspace at the start of Shanty Town, by hitting tackle on the right frame you can make Lara move much faster than normal. PC runners can achieve some small level of consistency by binding tackle to the mouse scroll wheel and using that to "mash". Console runners just have to mash and pray.

Fire Arrow Skip

  • Time Saved: 3 minutes.
  • Time per attempt: 3 seconds.
  • Console Difficulty: 4/10
  • PC Difficulty: 5/10

Shortly after, you'll approach the shanty town gate and trigger some combat, next up is the shanty town gate clip.


Shanty Town Gate Clip

After the gate clip PC and console have different routes, you will have your first choice of route for Shanty Town. PC has a different route and should go for choice #3.


Choice #1: AKheon Clip

Choice #2: Grim Skip 1

Choice #3: The Big One (PC Only)

After making your choice, you will make it to the platforms where Grim is and will have another choice. Certain conditions cause the bridge to despawn if you reload, or on some PC setups, if this is the case, you will have to use Grim Skip 2.


Choice #1: Bridge Jump

  • Time Saved: 1 minute.
  • Time per attempt: N/A (Only one chance per run)
  • Console Difficulty: 2/10
  • PC Difficulty: 2/10

Choice #2: Grim Skip 2

After all of that, you've got one more easy trick to do to get out of shanty town, using the Dirty Tricks Float to get across the bridge.


Shanty Town Bridge Float


Geothermal Caverns

Now you get to play normally for a while after all the shanty town craziness. Just one skip here, Run all the way through until you get to the part where you find your friends, and you can choose to do the friendship skip. This trick seems to be much easier to do on PC than console.


Friendship Skip


Solarii Fortress Approach to Helicopter

Yet again, just one small skip here. Worthy of mention though because there's no risk of getting sniped. There are some important Checkpoint Reloads though, so it will be worth checking an up-to-date run.

  • Time Saved: 10 seconds.
  • Time per attempt: 1-5 seconds per clip attempt, 30 seconds lost if you miss the jump back in bounds.
  • Console Difficulty: 3/10
  • PC Difficulty: 4/10
  • Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTXphI2mzT8


Helicopter to Alex

Some very interesting skips here. After the helicopter cutscene you'll go through a stealth section and eventually end up back outside. You then have another chance to use the Dirty Tricks Float. It doesn't save any time, but it's easy, and looks cool, so you should totally do it. After the cutscene on the gondola you'll rope arrow off and climb a ladder, and you'll be ready for the Air Boat skip.


Air Boat Skip

Teleport Skip (PC Only)

After this you will continue normally until they get the new bow and make it to the bunker. Because of the relative inconsistency with the door clip involved, the PC version is much easier than the console version here because they can use the CA Clip. Note PC has a different route available that will lead to the research base directly.

Lara Skywalker (PC Only)


Bunker Skip

  • Time Saved: 2 minutes.
  • Time per attempt: 15 seconds.
  • Console Difficulty: 6/10
  • PC Difficulty: 2/10
  • Video: ::Video of door clip method needed::

Right after the bunker skip, console runners can do the Alex Skip.


Alex Skip

After Alex has be killed or skipped (We're such nice guys.) continue until you reach the research base.


Research Base to Mathias

Once you've gone through the research base normally for a bit, you'll arrive at the elevator puzzle. PC runners can use the CA Clip here. Console runners need to use Grenade Clipping

Elevator Skip PC only version

Elevator Skip

Right after the elevator skip you can use Step Clipping to skip the research base fight.


Research Base Skip

After that there's only one major skip to go for. Pc players that went for the Lara Skywalker skip don't have the rope ascender and are forced to do the cage puzzle skip.

Cage Puzzle Skip (mandatory when you went for Lara Skywalker)

Final Walkie Talkie Skip

Final Gauntlet Skip

And you're done! Hope this helps some budding runners get started. Just remember that this only covers the major skips. There's a bunch of small time savers and checkpoint reloads everywhere which save 1-10 seconds each, so make sure to check out some runs! If you have any questions, check out: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/tomb_raider__a_survivor_is_born.html

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