According to creative director Eric Lindstrom, this is 'to not only reward the player for the effect they're having on the world, but to give them navigational aids.' The game uses an animation blending system that allows Lara to interact dynamically with her environment, such as pushing foliage aside with one or two hands, depending on if she is carrying a weapon. Differences from previous iterations in the series are that Lara's environment reproduces a more 'interactive world that reacts and remembers', such that footprints left in the mud or mud transferred to Lara's knee from kneeling on the ground is washed away by rain, the bodies of the foes she encounters remain where she killed them, and any destruction to the environment she causes are permanent.
