White Queen Puzzle Solution - Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Fairly early in Shadow of the Tomb Raider you will play as young Lara in Croft Manor and face one of the harder puzzles in the game called the White Queen Mystery. Tomb Rider games do not lack in puzzles and you should be used to solving them by now, but this one, for some reason, had me stumped for a while. You play as young Lara, exploring the Croft Manor, and you pick up various documents and clues along the way. One of them tells of the White Queen Mystery and as soon as you enter the main house you will see that the solution lies within. To prevent you from spending too much time pondering which chess piece goes where and how to release the White Queen from her ladder prison here’s a short guide.
Child Lara Croft puzzle solution clues
There are five steps to solving this puzzle. They all derive from the child painting called White Queen Mystery and the elements you can interact with in the main Croft Manor museum room. You will need to interact with the chess pieces, big globe and the Leonardo da Vinci like flying machine on the ceiling. The clues given tell us that the two knights need to stand on each side of the queen. There is also a bit cryptic clue saying N 30, E 90. Finally, there’s a painting on the wall depicting a game containing something similar to chess pieces with two knights standing on the corners of the inside square and a white queen standing between them. It is rather obvious that you need to move the chess piece like figures that resemble knights holding shields into the corners of the inside square on the floor. What is next?
How to solve the White Queen puzzle in Croft Manor?
Here’s a list of steps you need to take to solve it:- Go to the big globe and rotate its two cranks until the dial in the middle shows North 30 and East 90.
- Move the chess pieces in such a fashion that the two knights holding a shield are in the corner of the inside square on the floor. Also, make sure they are facing the shiled that was brightly lit by your globe tempering.
- Now use the ladder bellow the shield to climb to the mezzanine above and go all the way to the other side. There are levers you can use to operate the wings of the flying machine on the ceiling. Rotate them until the wings fully expand and red light shins on the knights bellow.
- You should see the White Queen, but she is behind the ladder you just used to climb. It is obvious that the last step is to push the queen in between the two knights. How do you release the White Queen from the ladder prison she is in?
- Go back to the globe from step one and operate it so it does not show N 90 and E 30 anymore! This will raise the ladder and free the White Queen. You can now push it into place and complete the Croft Manor White Queen Puzzle.
Young Lara Croft solves the White Queen Puzzle
For whatever reason I spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out how to raise the ladder. I did not notice when I operated the globe that it was this manipulation that dropped the ladder in the first place. After interacting with every possible thing in the room, I decided to move the globe. Imagine how happy I was when the ladder moved and I was able to move the White Queen into its place. Emotional custscene afterwards was just a great ending to another Lara Croft adventure.
I moved the globe nothing happens
Yeah, the puzzle’s easy if it decides to work right. I found a game breaking bug in this part where you’re supposed to move the globe to get rid of the ladder, but no matter how I moved the globe, nothing happened and I can’t go to an earlier save because the checkpoint was right at that part.
I’m sorry, but the last step of this puzzle where you’re just supposed to know to go change the globe coordinates away from the 30, 90 is idiotic. Setting those initially does way more than make the ladder descend – it sets all the windows to close so the light can go at just the right way to make the ENTIRE REST OF THE PUZZLE WORK. Why should we then expect that changing the coordinates will only undo that *one* specific part.
Completely moronic – I ended up having to look this garbage up online after spending 10 minutes playing around with the other game pieces, which you would *think* would be involved from the picture she drew with all the other clues on it, which says they’re arrayed in a line. Ugh…
I absolutely AGREE
Did you have to start from the scratch? Or did you find a solution somehow?