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The original Tomb Raider game, at its time, was a pioneering release for the action-adventure genre. Wanting to create an alternative to the first-person shooters flooding the market, the team took Indiana Jones’s sense of adventure and plugged it into a three-dimensional, exploration-rich world inspired by the likes of Flashback, thus creating an icon in Lara Croft.
The heroine has gone on to be played by Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander in three separate films. A lull in her original saga led to a gritty reboot trilogy, and she’ll appear in a new TV series produced by Amazon in the coming months. As a fan of Uncharted, which wouldn’t exist as it did without Tomb Raider, the character’s cultural footprint is the stuff of legend.
Tomb Raider was a paradigm shift for its era, but it’s no secret that, like most games from the nineties, it can’t measure up to today’s standards. Legacy of Atlantis is taking that original, unforgettable adventure and filtering it through a gameplay experience that’s much more in line with that aforementioned reboot trilogy, with all of the modern advances you’d expect.
Sitting down with the game at Summer Game Fest, we got to experience the famous Lost Valley, the original game’s third stage. Unchanged from the original, Lara is hired by Jacqueline Natla to recover fragments of an ancient Atlantian artefact, the first part of which is nestled within Qualopec’s tomb deep within the Peruvian rainforest.
I feel like, despite it being an early stage that’s more about setting up the fundamentals than it is about challenging the player, Lost Valley was an inspired choice for this hands-on. First stepping into the gorgeous, hidden city, what’s most apparent is how gorgeous the game looks. After three decades, it’s obviously a several-generational leap on the original, but even compared to the reboots, it’s magnificent.
Because of what’s possible today, and how Crystal Dynamics has continued to evolve Lara’s traversal skillset over the decades, this version of Peru has awe-inspiring shifts in elevation that allow for free-flowing rapids to culminate in picturesque waterfalls, and the dynamic lighting ensures that, whether it’s sunlight poking through the thick canopy or a flickering torch lighting a dim tomb, everything looks as good as possible.
We got a great sense of the game’s rebuilt puzzles, which take inspiration from the original’s. Undercutting the joy of exploration just a little, Lara’s new scan tool pointed me right to the level’s first cog, of which I needed three to repair the dam mechanism to open up the waterfall’s secret passage. Although it’s a significant help in exploration itself, Lara’s grapple hook is made useful here as it tugs the cog free from the jungle’s clutching vines. After finding all of the cogs and having them tumble into the basin at the foot of the waterfall, we’re left almost lassoing them into place with the hook, adding an extra depth to what was once a standard fetch objective.
Exploration is an integral part of this Tomb Raider, and there’s still plenty of reward for players who want to go off-road. As someone who felt the crafting and survival parts of the reboot trilogy were products of the time, I’m glad that all of that fat has been trimmed so that Lara can return to her roots as an arcade action hero. Not having to ration ammo for your unlimited dual pistols is neat, though having to wait on a lengthy reload as a pair of raptors bears down on you is stressful. In a pinch, focus mode slows time to a crawl so that Lara can line up the perfect shot in a spectacular display of acrobatics—but most helpful is that it doubles as an instant reload.
After opening with a slower burn dive into Peruvian culture in pursuit of the cogs, the excitement within the Lost Valley seemed to escalate quite nicely. Though the combat lacks the kind of verticality seen in the explorative moments, the fights felt quite exciting, and Lara’s balletic somersaults and slow-mo gunfire harkened back to a simpler time for the series. Although she’ll encounter more traditional wildlife in the final game, from wolves to bears, maintaining the insanity of pumping rounds into raptors proves to me that this remake has been approached in good faith and with great reverence for how trailblazing the original was.
Before long, a T. rex announces itself and begins to charge Lara in what is a breathtaking chase through the jungle, destroying everything in her wake as it gets nearer and nearer. At one point, the camera swings around to what is affectionately referred to as the ‘Crash cam,’ with Lara fleeing towards the screen in what is altogether a thrilling set piece. They’ve done an incredible job reinvigorating the biggest beats of a now thirty-year-old game, and if this action-packed chase is any indicator of what’s to come, we’re in for a treat.
Although I expect the discourse to be fun, I’m glad the urge has been resisted to over-sexualise Lara in this remake. Instead, we get something of a blend between the original’s unflappable thrillseeker and the reboot’s more vulnerable, and arguably more relatable, iteration of the character. There’s no shortage of one-liners and quips, which serve to reaffirm the character’s sharp wit and poise in the face of danger; it’s hard not to appreciate the level of cheese in some of the dialogue. She’s like a leaner Arnie with a ponytail.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis feels like the ultimate way to approach a remake. After beginning their tenure with Tomb Raider: Legend, a reimagining of the series in its own right, Crystal Dynamics returns to the icon’s redefined beginnings in what is shaping up to be an exotic, globetrotting adventure of epic proportions.