Announced during the The Game Awards last year, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis brings the Tomb Raider franchise out of a nearly 9-year hibernation period after the completion of the reboot trilogy that concluded with 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
As one of the two currently announced Tomb Raider projects (with the next official game being Tomb Raider Catalyst), Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is a full blown remake of the original 1996 Tomb Raider co-developed by Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog and built on Unreal Engine 5. Legacy of Atlantis aims to take the bones of the original game and grow its scope with an expanded narrative that will better connect to everything that came afterwards on top of new cinematics, explorable areas and secrets alongside modernized gameplay.
During Play Days at Summer Games Fest, Joe and I had the chance to play an hour-long, hands-on playable demo of a pre-alpha version we were told is not fully representative of the final game. We were dropped some ways into the original game’s iconic Peru level, as Lara is tasked to recover a mysterious artifact deep within a hidden temple called the Scion. In this section called “The Lost Valley”, for the first half we got a taste of the game’s exploration and puzzle gameplay, where the second half gave us a taste of the combat.
The first impression I got playing through the first half of the demo is “this looks pretty…but it still needs some work“. While Unreal Engine 5 definitely gives the game a shinier and colorful look that stands in contrast to the grit that was in the reboot trilogy, there is something that felt a little off as I went through this initial section. Lara felt more like she was floating through her environment, different to how she felt in the reboot trilogy, and made the exploration feel floatier, less tactile, and way less polished than I’d like. Despite running on a high end PC, the framerate was also a tad on the choppier side, which definitely hurt the presentation. We also ran into a couple bugs, with our other contributor getting a hilarious glitch where Lara started walking underwater, while both us experienced Lara walking on air as we transitioned to the second half of the demo. Obviously the game still has a ways to go to iron out the kinks. Hopefully its recent delay should give the team enough time to tighten things up to reach the expected polish level.
Despite the rough edges, what was there seemed promising. Legacy of Atlantis still employs the wide linearity that’s become more symbolic of modern Tomb Raider, and it was fun dipping out of the main path to explore and find groups of collectibles that flesh out the narrative alongside other collectibles meant for the game’s skill tree system (which wasn’t enabled for our demo, but our Crystal Dynamics representative told us would be there in the final game). The game did a decent job at letting you explore things by yourself without too obvious signposting. In the event you do need help, Tomb Raider brings back adjustable individual difficulty sliders to help you out, which our other contributor immediately enabled to make puzzle solving easier. I kept everything in Normal difficulty, and found the demo’s water puzzle challenging enough without being too obtuse, though others that demoed the game had more trouble and couldn’t finish it, so mileage may vary.
The final half of the demo gave us a taste of the original game’s classic T-Rex section, though it stopped us from actually facing the big guy. We got to face off against the smaller dinosaurs, where we got to try the game’s combat system. The gunplay definitely feels like its meant to provide a more run-and-gun approach similar to the original game instead of the sort of cover based shooting of the reboot trilogy. You get to manually aim your guns as compared to locking-on like the original, and enemies now carry a health bar that can be quite chunky to whittle down on the Normal difficulty.
Initially I was a bit annoyed at how slow it was to reload your guns when taking on three dinosaurs at once, but then I realized it was in service of you doing the added slow-motion dodge you enable with the right bumper that would immediately reload your weapon and add a stylish bullet time flair to the proceedings. You can only use this three times before it recharges, so the flow of combat will depend on wailing at enemies and engaging in this mechanic with exact precision. Crystal Dynamics highlighted there will be other weapons you’ll get later on in the story, so I’m curious how they will fair with this mechanic.
The demo concluded with a set piece section as you are pursued by the giant T-Rex, and we got a taste of the Uncharted-like cinematic sequence that was commonplace in the reboot trilogy as we escaped the clutches of this monster. While on paper it is exciting to see the reboot trilogy’s penchant for spectacle be applied to this remake of the original, the demo’s polish issues with the feel of Lara’s movement and platforming made the moment fall flat as the conclusion to our hands-on demo. That said, the flair on display makes me excited to see it all come together once Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog apply the final coat of polish to the game’s gameplay and visuals.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis releases on February 12th, 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam and Nintendo Switch 2. Look forward to more coverage soon!
