Tomb Raider Remastered Modern Control Guide
The new Tomb Raider remasters added a new Modern Control setting to try and make the games play more smoothly, since the original Tank-style controls can be a bit awkward for some people.
The problem is the new controls are very poorly explained so it feels like they don’t work properly unless you know what to do and the tutorial still talks about the old controls, so it can get quite confusing and frustrating.
The biggest issue is that anything to do with climbing and grabbing is actually on the ‘Secondary’ button (ZR on Switch / RT on Xbox / R2 on PlayStation), NOT the Action button like the tutorial says.
CLIP 1: Here when Lara says to climb onto the box, the Action button doesn’t work, but the Secondary button does:
CLIP 2: It’s the same for grabbing edges after jumping - the Action button does nothing but she grabs with the Secondary button (I just missed the second jump!);
CLIP 3: Dropping down off ledges also uses the Secondary button. Just hold it and run off an edge and she should grab it (although sometimes it doesn’t seem to work if you’re running a lot or at an angle, so be careful). Again, ignore what she says about using the Action button as it doesn’t work.
CLIP 4 -Swimming: The game doesn’t explain the new swimming controls at all, so they seem awful at first, but they work well enough when you know what to do.
Holding Up will Move you forward and Lara will basically move in the direction the camera is facing.
I’ve found it works best if you just hold Up and the Secondary button (ZL/ RT/ R2 as before) and then ‘move’ with the right stick.
I hope this helps as I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about the Modern controls (myself included before I got to grips with them) but they’re actually not too bad once you understand how they work. The main problem is more that the game doesn’t explain them to you properly or clearly and that ledge grabbing is mapped to the Secondary button rather than Action.