REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Lara Croft is on top of the world. And if she doesn’t hold on tight, it could be the death of her.

On a forbidding, blizzard-blasted mountain peak somewhere in Siberia, video gamedom’s most famous heroine is making a perilous ascent by means of rope, ice axe and sheer intestinal fortitude, with crumbling rock, howling snow and a full-on avalanche threatening to end her adventure – and her life – at any moment. And that’s even before the wolves show up. And the bears. And the very bad men with very big guns.

Raiding tombs isn’t easy. But for Lara Croft, it’s necessary. She just doesn’t quite realize it yet.

Coming out at the end of this year, Rise of the Tomb Raider will be the second instalment in the revamped, rebooted continuity of Lara Croft, one of the most iconic game characters of all time. It’s the sequel to 2013’s Tomb Raider, a game that borrowed from the Batman and Bond playbooks to reinvigorate an established but stagnating franchise.

At their development studio half an hour south of San Francisco, the folks at Crystal Dynamics are showing off Rise of the Tomb Raider to a small group of international press, the very first outsiders to lay eyes on the game. The developers are both proud and a little nervous, as they explain the events that have brought Lara to this isolated, snow swept corner of Russia, where she hopes to find a lost city that hides a key to immortality. Although chances are it’s not going to be quite that simple.

Running on an Xbox One console – the game will be exclusive to Microsoft’s Xbox One and Xbox 360 when it comes out this holiday season – this early section of the game showcases stunning mountain vistas, as Lara stumbles through knee-deep snow, separated from her climbing partner and most of her gear following a near-fatal fall. She’s hurt and she’s frightened, but it’s clear she’s evolving into the hardened warrior that we’ve known from two decades of Tomb Raider games.

“We felt we could be brave with the character,” says Darrell Gallagher, head of western studios for Crystal Dynamics’ parent company, Square Enix. “As long as we found that right balance of bringing the DNA of Lara and Tomb Raider into the reboot, but also infusing it with more modern sensibilities.”

Making Lara Croft fresh yet familiar after so many years involved walking a fine line, says Gallagher, and the studio had spirited debates about what elements of Lara to keep and what to jettison. (One thing that was not on the table? “We never discussed her being not British,” Gallagher says.)

The 2013 Tomb Raider reboot was a success, garnering critical acclaim and strong sales. With this year’s sequel, Crystal Dynamics are adding more colours to the canvas, expanding the size and scope of the world – Lara will plunder complex crypts across a variety of areas, from tundra to desert to jungle – and deepening the intrigue, as Lara faces off against a shadowy group called Trinity that’s chasing the same secret she’s obsessed with finding.

Aside from the aforementioned wolves, bears and mercenaries that Lara encounters in the Siberia chapter alone, this 2015 incarnation of Tomb Raider must also contend with intense scrutiny of female characters in video games, a hot-button topic that has dominated much of the past year’s discussion of games as contemporary entertainment.

When she debuted in 1996, with her large (and, by today’s standards, comically lo-fi) breasts, Lara Croft became one of video games’ first sex symbols. But Tomb Raider franchise creative director Noah Hughes says Crystal Dynamics, which has been making Tomb Raider games since 2006’s Tomb Raider: Legend, didn’t change the way it depictd Lara in Rise of the Tomb Raider because they’re already treating her with respect, rather than as a sex object or damsel in distress.

“My hope is it suggests that a game starring a female hero can be just as successful as a game starring a male hero,” says Hughes.

“When I hear people say there’s not as many females in games because people won’t buy them, I hope that maybe people know that’s nonsense at this point.”

But from the viewpoint of some fans, the most contentious aspect of Rise of the Tomb Raider has nothing to do with how its heroine is portrayed. Rather, it’s that the game will be available only for Microsoft’s consoles, thanks to a deal struck between Microsoft and the game’s creators. While this is a so-called timed exclusive – meaning Rise of the Tomb Raider could very well be released on Sony’s PlayStation consoles and Windows PCs at some point later on – no one is talking about the specifics or duration of the deal.

The Xbox exclusivity has left a bitter taste in some PlayStation fans’ mouths, particularly since the original PlayStation console was one of the first homes to the Tomb Raider franchise. What Microsoft brings to the table, explains Gallagher, is a deep well of technical know-how, allowing Crystal Dynamics to take advantage of every iota of power in the Xbox One hardware. Not to mention Microsoft’s significant marketing muscle.

“I acknowledge there’s going to be some mixed reaction about that, and I hope (PlayStation fans) understand that for us it’s about making sure we can deliver the best Tomb Raider experience that we can,” says Gallagher.

Adds Hughes: “The ability to get the geniuses making the hardware helping us make the software… is something that, in the end, shows itself in the product and its reception. My hope is that the fans at least understand that choice.”

With a global fanbase that practically worships the ground Lara walks on, desire for more of her adventures is as high as the Siberian peaks she’s scaling. Rise of the Tomb Raider looks ready to introduce us to a Lara who is more assured and more dangerous, yet no less human. As long as she doesn’t stumble along the way.