The surface life of Paititi — the people who live in the hidden city, whose daily existence Lara is moving through on her way to the catastrophe-prevention she initiated. The treasure the game is pointing at is the specific knowledge that comes from having done harm: the understanding of what the dagger's removal meant, the weight of the flood's dead, the scars that the atoning will not fully remove.

Not every treasure is gold is also the game's metacommentary on the Tomb Raider franchise — the shift from the original games' looting aesthetic toward a protagonist who is being asked to reckon with what looting costs the people and places that are looted.