What’s next for Lara Croft? Not just a new show, but also a pair of ‘Tomb Raider’ games that look back and forward on the franchise.
After years of corporate shuffling and various adaptations getting announced and coming out, everyone’s favorite Tomb Raider, Lara Croft, is finally returning to video games with two titles. At last week’s Game Awards, Crystal Dynamics revealed Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis and Tomb Raider: Catalyst. The former is a remake (or “reimagining”) of the original 1996 game that saw a young Lara look for the Scion of Atlantis. It’s been re-released many times over the decades, and this new version, co-developed with Polish studio Flying Wild Hog, features modernized gameplay and graphics, along with “new surprises.”
The day after the awards ceremony, Crystal studio head Scot Amos and game director Will Kerslake told press the chief aim with Legacy was to build it from the ground up and make the original game “feel like 1996, but play in 2026.” There was a lot of talk of “honoring” Lara’s debut, and not adding embellishments or divergences that fans would deem unnecessary. (Translation: it’s a single-player only game.)
“The things you expect in a Tomb Raider game, the characters and creatures you expect [from the original], are in the trailer and will be in Legacy,” said the developers when asked of the game’s locations being in this new version. Likewise, the original game’s puzzles and hard segments will make a return, but like the new controls, those will meet the current generation of players where they’re at.
Meanwhile, Catalyst puts Lara in Northern India after a cataclysm unearths ancient secrets, including one “that could reshape the future.
