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I was excited to see Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis at Gamescom last month, because I wanted to see how Amazon was moving the franchise forward after the dour reboot saga from the PS4 generation.
I got to watch a full 30-minute hands-off presentation, narrated by series stewards Crystal Dynamics and Polish dev Flying Wild Hog. But if I’m being brutally honest with you, I came away a bit flat on it all.
It’s not that it looks bad by any stretch, but it all just seems a bit uninspired to me.
While the acrobatic Lara Croft of old is very much back, the dev has decided to import the skill trees and crafting from the survivor trilogy, noting it doesn’t make sense for the heroine to be discovering medkits in a decades-old cave.
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Fair point, but I’d argue it’s equally immersion breaking to be cooking up broths with vegetables she’s pilfered from dusty old ceramic pots. It’s not a big deal, but I felt myself furrowing my brow at some of the things being said during the presentation.
The slice I got to see took place in Greece, approximately a quarter of the way into the original campaign. If you’re familiar with the PS1 title, you’ll probably recall the Damocles Room deep beneath St. Francis’ Folly. It’s an iconic mission.
As you’d expect, the team has completely reworked the art, and this underground area looks like a sprawling metropolis now. I spotted tons of impressive little environmental details, like carvings and statues in the walls, which make this feel like a majestic and mysterious place.
I was also rather impressed with the lighting; as this section primarily takes place underground, the dev uses light sparingly, with shafts just breaking through cracks in the walls to highlight specific points of interest or to add spectacle to the scene. Lovely.
One thing the dev was keen to showcase is a new scanner tool, which Lara can use to get tips on how to progress.
The team noted this is entirely optional, so if you don’t want help solving puzzles, you don’t have to use it. But it seems like an inelegant solution to the problem to me: shouldn’t the game guide you to the solution organically in a way that makes you feel like the highly intelligent archaeologist you’re commandeering?
The Sword of Damocles puzzle sees you teasing the aforementioned blades onto your head, and then clambering atop them to discover new routes. It all feels very Uncharted, albeit somehow a lot less impressive. I like these types of games, so I don’t know why this did nothing for me.
One thing that amused me is that the swords can be shot down using Lara’s iconic dual-pistols, but the dev pointed out you may benefit from unlocking the dead eye ability on her skill tree to ensure you hit these faraway objects with precision. Again, in principle, it’s not a problem – it’s just a bit rote, isn’t it?
I feel like I’ve taken too much of a negative approach with this preview, so I do want to point out a few things I thought were cool.
Lara is incredibly mobile, and does all kinds of crazy acrobats as she platforms through the world, including cartwheels and hand-stands.
I asked if the team had mocapped these moves, and was told that it’s been working with some extremely talented stunt performers. However, the dev noted that its animators also add flourishes to the acrobatics to give it that larger-than-life, exaggerated look.
I think this was evident during a boss fight with a leopard, where the heroine was leaping all over the place, picking off shots at the enraged animal. The cat will even go into hiding and stalk you, which the devs said is evidence of how it’s adding new enemy behaviour to this remake.
So there’s definitely some good stuff here, then, and I’d hesitate to describe anything in my demo as bad. I just felt like I’ve seen a lot of it before.
Maybe I’ll feel differently when it’s in my hands in 2027. I certainly hope so, because Tomb Raider is one of my all-time favourites, and it’s good to have the proper Lara back now the survivor series is done and dusted.