Shadow of the Tomb Raider Mystery of the White Queen Guide - How to Solve the Chess Pieces Puzzle

The 'Mystery of the White Queen' can definitely be one of the trickier puzzles in the opening hours of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, while you're in the shoes of a younger Lara Croft. In this Shadow of the Tomb Raider White Queen puzzle guide, we'll be walking you through how to quickly solve the puzzle in Croft Manor, so you can wrap up this section of the story.

But if you instead need any additional help with other areas of Lara Croft’s latest adventure, you’ll want to head over to our Shadow of the Tomb Raider guides hub. It’s in this page that you can find all the beginner’s tips and tricks you’ll need to get going with the game, as well as a complete list of all the gameplay changes and improvements that have been made for this sequel.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Mystery of the White Queen Puzzle Guide

As we mentioned above, this Mystery of the White Queen section transports Lara back to her childhood. In this section she’s roaming around the outside of Croft manor, trying to climb up to the top of the castle. The following puzzle section comes near the end of the mission, and you’ll receive the Enigmatic Clues item to kick it all off.

Go to the Artifacts section of your collectibles, and take a closer look at the Enigmatic Clues. You’ll see from this that the large globe in the left portion of the room needs to be turned so it’s facing 30 degrees north, and 90 degrees east., and you can use the two wheels on either side of the globe to accomplish this.

A beam of light will now enter the room from the roof, shining on the globe. Run to the ladder that’s now descended from the upper floor, and climb up to the pathway overlooking the floor below. You’ll now need to proceed all the way to the other side of the upper floor, where you can turn a wheel to have the bat-like creature hanging from the roof extend its wings, shining beams of red light onto the ground floor.

Now descend back down to the ground floor with the chess pieces, and you’ll see that there are two red chess pieces, that stand out from the rest of the black ones. Your task is to now get these two red chess pieces into the grooves where the red beams of light are shining onto the board from above.

To start with, simple push the first of the red chess pieces two places to the right, and it’ll be fixed in place by the red beam of light, signalling that this is the correct position. You now need to get the red chess piece that’s in front of the globe into the other position with the red beam of light, and to do this you’ll have to move the other dark chess pieces out of the way (it doesn’t matter where on the board they go).

Once the two red chess pieces with shields are in position, a wall will disappear behind the ladder, revealing the White Queen. To free her, all you need to do is return to the globe that you used to lower the ladder at the beginning of the puzzle, and turn either of the wheels, so that the globe is out of position and the ladder is raised back up.

You can now head over to the White Queen herself, and drag her back out so that she's positioned in between the two red chess pieces, and you're all done with this section of Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Now that we’re all done with this tricky puzzle, you can head over to our Shadow of the Tomb Raider Kuwaq Yaku guide, where we’ll reveal the location of every collectible item in the next area of the game.