Lara Croft is not just a gaming icon, but a cultural icon. The debut game redefined the adventure genre, and with two sequels coming in quick succession, Core Design made sure that Lara was to the 90s what Mario had been to the 80s. But they had no intention of stopping there – the Tomb Raider franchise was a powerhouse, and the Derby based developers were determined to push Lara to the moon throughout the noughties.
Keen to showcase the entire series to a whole new generation of players, Aspyr followed up their 2024 remasters of Tomb Raider I-III by putting the same shine on the next batch of games, releasing Tomb Raider IV-VI in early 2025. I’m looking over installments four to six with eyes both on the past and on the present – discussing aspects of the original games design and the quality of life improvements brought by these modern remasters.
As a continuation in the series of remasters, much of what we told you about the first three continues over to these ones too. These modern releases come with updated graphics that stay true to the vision of the original games, but knock off some of the hard polygonal corners and add a little more ambience to the environments. Players can toggle between the original and updated graphics at the push of a button and it’s incredibly fun to flick back and forth to see how things have changed. There’s also the option of playing with the original ‘tank’ controls or a more modern set-up, depending on your preference. Controlling Lara and the camera with dual analogue sticks will certainly feel preferable for new players, but hardcore Tomb Raider fans might miss the structured way that the tank controls and grid-based arenas fall in step with one-another. The photo mode makes a comeback too, for those who want to snap some action-packed shots of our favourite heroine.
The first game in this trilogy, The Last Revelation, is something of a return to form for Lara, with the focus more solidly on puzzle solving and dungeon exploration. We’re treated to a prologue where you play as a young Lara, investigating a tomb alongside her mentor Werner Von Croy, who would later go on to be the game’s antagonist. The story follows Lara’s exploits through Egypt, attempting to overcome the god Set, who she unwittingly unleashes from imprisonment early in the game. Some of the best levels go right back to Tomb Raider’s roots, where you’re tromping around dusty old crypts, collecting keys, dashing through timed doors, and fending off wildlife and the undead.
While there is some complexity added to puzzles by requiring you combine certain items before using them, much of the (significant) difficulty comes from navigating the mazes, since the scale of the levels is bigger than before. In a series first, you’ll also need to backtrack to older areas to solve puzzles – pretty standard stuff in 2025, but a worthy footnote in the history of this franchise. As a modern player, all this adds up to the lack of map feature being more frustrating than ever before, but the wandering around, paper-and-pen mapping and trial and error is a big part of what made Tomb Raider so alluring when it first launched. On reflection, though the game adds some variety with some vehicular levels, and the rope climb/swing mechanics add some additional traversal options for Lara – for better or worse, The Last Revelation feels like more of the same, albeit with the most coherent plotline to date.
The second game in the trilogy, Tomb Raider: Chronicles, takes place immediately after the final events in The Last Revelation, where you seem to see Lara meet grisly end. Made up of four stand alone tales, these levels represent Lara’s historic adventures as told by others. You’ll trek through Rome, tackle a Russian submarine, skulk through a haunted Irish castle, and play fetch (quest) in the Von Croy high-rise office block. After successfully focussing on Egypt in the last installment, it makes a nice change to have some varied environments to explore, but each different locale also brings a very different gameplay theme, which feels quite jarring as you progress through the game.
The Soviet submarine shifts to a more action-heavy focus, emphasising gunfights in cramped quarters in between tiresome crawl space navigation. This might have worked had the combat mechanics moved on even a modicum since the series inception, but with zero innovation in that sphere, you’re left staring face-to-face with grumpy Russkies as you hold the fire button and wait to see who expires first. So I didn’t enjoy the fighting focussed submarine level – how about exploring the spooky castle as young Lara, where you can’t defend yourself at all? Let’s just say that I didn’t find that the refreshing pitch change the developers were hoping for! Faffing about finding items to ward off ghosts feels incredibly slow and frustrating (even by Tomb Raiders standards) and I was very ready for it to be over when I reached the end.
My favourite levels are those in Rome which, rather ironically, are the ones that most closely resemble previous Tomb Raider entries. There’s nothing especially exciting or groundbreaking about the levels, but they are what I’ve come to expect from a game featuring Lara Croft, and in that regard, they’re a hit. Ultimately, I can understand wanting to mix up what had become a very formulaic style by this point, but Chronicles meets with very mixed results.
Finally, we have the sixth entry in the franchise, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, and discussing the remaster of this game is a tricky one. The original release is a poster child for the phrase ‘development hell’; it was a complete mess when it came out and is largely remembered as being borderline unplayable. Taking a darker approach to the story, Angel of Darkness sees Lara accused of murder, and she has to skulk through the streets of Paris and Prague, using RPG-esque branching dialogue to question NPCs as she tries to clear her name. The plan was to make a movie-like experience with fresh mechanics for the newly minted PS2, but plagued by disagreements within the dev team and running into huge delays, what was released was both unfinished and unpleasant.
In fairness, Aspyr has done a pretty good job with the remaster of Angel of Darkness. They’ve given the much maligned title its best chance to impress any disenfranchised players by adding in some previously unfinished content and fixing the significant problems with the camera and controls. The graphical changes aren’t as impressive as those for the earlier titles (since this was a game originally released on the PS2 rather than the PS1), but many of the character models and textures have been given a bit of a spit shine.
Despite the improvements, there’s only so much that you can polish a proverbial turd, and sadly, Angel of Darkness just isn’t a very good game. Some of the original issues still creep through, such as Lara freezing at random points and tragically poor enemy AI, as well a handful of newer issues, brought on by the remake treatment. The most egregious problem is the fact that only some of the character models have been updated – or at least updated to the same specs. This causes some eyebrow raising moments when characters with old and new models are on screen at the same time, as the visual differences are pretty significant.
Tomb Raider Remastered VI-V-VI is an extension of the excellent work Aspyr has done in adding some modern shine to the games of yesteryear. Once an absolute powerhouse, Tomb Raider belongs in the pantheon of all-time video game franchises, and these faithful remasters only add to its legacy. The games themselves play rather like dusty relics that Lara might uncover in some dank old tomb. The lack of direction, excruciatingly slow pacing and frustrating gameplay loops are truly products of their time and feel entirely foreign when viewed strictly through a modern lens. But these games, and the Tomb Raider franchise overall, makes up an important part of gaming’s history, and these remasters now undoubtedly offer the best way to experience Lara’s adventures.
Recommendation Score
In the interest of full disclosure, VGamingNews was provided with a copy of the game in order to conduct this review.
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