Baba Yaga is a figure from Slavic folklore that rides through the air in a mortar and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs. In Rise of the Tomb Raider’s Baba Yaga: The Temple of the Witch DLC, these eerie elements make an appearance, but with a twist. Here, Lara faces a version of Baba Yaga that blends myth with hallucination, heightening the challenge as she fights to see past the illusions and uncover the truth behind Baba Yaga’s origins. 

The Baba Yaga encounter is a classic, puzzle-based boss fight broken down into five key challenges: fending off her monsters, tethering her cauldron to a spinning rope spool with a well-aimed rope arrow, stopping her attempts to sever the line, timing a lever pull to open a distilling vat, and navigating your way up to higher levels. 

Lara plunges from a platform into the water, with her surroundings suddenly shifting into the distorted manifestations of her hallucinations. Just as she’s about to drink the last of the antidote, she spots a flash grenade, jumps for cover, and accidentally shatters the flask in the process. At that moment, Baba Yaga rises from the water in her full, terrifying form—floating in an iron cauldron draped with ropes and decorated with skulls. Her long, sharp claws grip the edges, and her face is hidden behind a headpiece crafted from a bear skull and sheep horns. 

Baba Yaga declares that Lara will serve her in death, and the fight begins. 

Lara must first defeat Baba Yaga’s minions before she can tether her cauldron to a spinning rope spool using rope arrows. On the first floor, two vats await. Once Lara has the cauldron tethered, the spool begins to pull Baba Yaga toward the first pressurized distilling vat. But Baba Yaga won’t make it easy—she’ll try to cut the rope before reaching the vat, so Lara must shoot at her to force her into temporarily hiding inside of her cauldron. Once Baba Yaga is positioned over the vat, Lara can pull the lever, triggering an explosive blast that knocks Baba Yaga back. 

The second vat adds a new challenge, with its lever positioned farther away. Before tethering Baba Yaga to the spool, Lara needs to locate this lever and run to it once Baba Yaga has been tethered. Timing the lever pull just right triggers a second blast, and as the room begins to fill with water, Lara must find a way up to the next floor, where a third vat awaits. Here, she’ll face another wave of Baba Yaga’s minions. After clearing them out, she can activate the third vat and blast Baba Yaga again. One useful tip to remember is that Lara is on the right track when she starts encountering enemies. 

Next to this vat, there’s a rope leading back down to the lower level. Sliding down, Lara reaches a path that lets her climb to a platform with a pipe vent mechanism that needs to be pried loose. Breaking it free causes new floating platforms to rise in the center of the room, opening up previously inaccessible areas. Baba Yaga is constantly on the attack, so it’s smart to fire at her to keep her in hiding while Lara makes her way across the platforms.  

Jumping from a floating platform onto a wooden walkway leads to the fourth vat. This time, the lever is on a platform directly below the vat. After triggering the fourth explosion, Lara can use a rope arrow to open a wooden door, revealing a second pipe vent mechanism that needs to be pried loose that, when broken free, makes the platforms rise even higher. 

From here, Lara needs to jump onto the floating platforms to reach the area where the third vat was. Following a nearby wooden walkway, she can reach the upper level, fighting off enemies along the way. At the end of the wooden walkway, she can use the raised platforms to cross to the other side of the room, where the fifth and final vat is located. After battling through the last wave of enemies, Lara can finally trigger the lever, this time conveniently placed right next to the vat, blasting Baba Yaga out of the air for the fifth and final time. 

Purchase Tomb Raider: Definitive Survivor Trilogy on your platform of choice: 

• PlayStation 

• Xbox 

• Steam 

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Rise of the Tomb Raider