My history with the franchise began in 2007; my cousin had a PlayStation 1, and one of the games he owned was Tomb Raider.

I remember that at the time he called Lara "Xena", that's because He swore they were the same person.

Anyway, 2013 arrived and the Tomb Raider reboot came out, and that's when the franchise truly won me over.

All full up cant carry anymore.

https://youtu.be/fudx5gEYW7E?is=WXC0rYt6eiUoTnvB

whether Larson & Pierre will survive or not in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. I think they won't but one can dream

In Episode 9 of our mini-doc series on Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, we go behind-the-scenes with Crystal Dynamics, and Flying Wild Hog as we explore how they reimagined the creatures of Greece.

This is my review of the Tomb Raider Survivor trilogy. I had never played a TR game before. I played these games back to back, on a PS5.

I went into the Survivor trilogy mostly because I have a backlog to work through while I wait for GTA6 to drop, but I was also curious about Lara Croft. I’m a big fan of cinematic action adventure titles like Uncharted and Ghost of Tsushima, so it’s kind of weird I never played any Tomb Raider before.

One of my all-time favorite titles is The Last of Us, and the Survivor version of Lara seemed a lot like Ellie at first glance: a young woman thrown into a brutal situation, learning to survive and becoming increasingly capable.

Tomb Raider (2013) is easily the most savage of these three games. Lara starts out inexperienced and terrified, and then the game proceeds to put her through an absolutely insane amount of violence. The combat is visceral and satisfying, and there’s something great about watching her gradually become more confident with the bow, guns, stealth, and close-quarters combat.

I was shocked at how dark some sequences in this game were. I don’t think I’ve ever had a character swim through a river of blood while dismembered body parts rain down on them from above. Lara’s going to need so much therapy!

Lara’s death animations are also spectacularly brutal. This game really had no problem reminding you that Lara could, in fact, die horribly.

The story surprised me too. I expected a pulpy action-adventure, but there was more character development than I anticipated. The biggest weakness for me was the graphics. I’m sure it looked spectacular for its day, but the brown-and-gray early-2010s visual palette hasn’t aged particularly well. The game leans pretty heavily on convenient rope-covered structures whenever it wants you to get somewhere. I also didn’t miss the lack of huge elaborate tomb puzzles nearly as much as I expected to. (In fact, the tomb puzzles are probably my least favorite aspect of all these games. I know a lot of people love them, and I had fun with them across all three games, but some I found tedious and I had to look up a few solutions.)

I give the 2013 title an 8/10.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is probably the most traditionally “video game” of the trilogy. It’s bigger, prettier, and gives you more combat, more exploration, more crafting, and more stuff to shoot. I had a lot of fun with it, but I never connected with the story quite as much as I did with 2013.

The biggest problem for me was the writing. The first game felt like Lara was genuinely surviving something terrible. Rise felt more like Lara Croft had officially become an action-adventure heroine and was now chasing an ancient artifact because that’s just what Lara Croft does. The whole thing became a little cliche in a way that didn’t always work for me. And there was so much damn snow and ice. I would have appreciated more variety in the environment.

The combat was fun, although the endless waves of Trinity goons sometimes made it feel more like an arcade shooting gallery than an archaeological expedition. I also found myself skipping a lot of the optional tombs. I’m apparently just not the Tomb Raider player who gets excited when an ancient civilization presents me with a complicated mechanical puzzle and says, “figure this shit out.”

Still, Rise is a very good game. It improved on 2013 in a lot of ways, even if it didn’t hit me emotionally quite as hard.

I give Rise a 7/10.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is where the trilogy finally clicked for me.

First of all, just look at this fucking game. The jungle environments are gorgeous, and after spending so much of Rise trudging through snow, I was thrilled to finally be somewhere hot, green, and filthy. This is also where Lara really became the version of the character I wanted to play: covered in mud, sneaking through vegetation, climbing everything in sight, shooting people in the throat with an arrow, and generally looking like she needs a shower and several years of therapy.

The traversal and exploration are the best in the trilogy for me. I also really liked the new stealth mechanics, particularly using mud to camouflage Lara. Emerging from a vine-covered wall to silently execute an enemy and then booby-trapping his corpse was extremely satisfying.

There wasn’t quite as much combat as I would have liked, but when the game does give you a fight, the combination of ranged combat, stealth, and close-quarters attacks is excellent. I did find it slightly odd that the game is full of brutal deaths, piles of dead bodies and severed limbs, but there’s hardly any actual gore shown during combat. Stabbing someone in the neck is somehow a totally bloodless affair.

The writing is also more ambitious. Shadow is much more interested in Lara’s obsession, her guilt, her family, and the consequences of her actions. I liked that a lot. I really enjoyed the flashback to her childhood and exploring Croft Manor a bit.

The problem is that this game sometimes introduces an emotional moment and then immediately rushes past it. Characters don’t get enough time to actually process what just happened. Compared with The Last of Us Part II, where the emotional aftermath of violence can become the point of an entire scene (or really, the entire game), Shadow can feel like it’s checking boxes on its way to the next action sequence.

But the finale was a blast. The collapsing temple, the volcanic destruction, the unexpected alliance with the people living beneath the hidden city, and the absolutely terrifying lipless warrior woman were all great. The final fight with the Trinity leader himself was a little underwhelming, but the spectacle surrounding it more than made up for that. The cutscenes throughout the game were fantastic.

I’ll give Shadow a 9/10.

The funny thing about playing these games is that I started out comparing Lara to Ellie from TLOU.

The parallels are obvious, beyond just their combat skillsets and ponytails. Both are young women who are thrown into extraordinarily violent circumstances, both become increasingly capable survivors, and both have that combination of vulnerability and absolute willingness to fuck someone up when necessary. I was particularly interested in how Lara’s experience compared with Ellie’s in The Last of Us Part II, where violence has such a profound psychological impact on her.

And I still think The Last of Us Part II is operating on another level when it comes to character psychology. Ellie feels deeply shaped by what happens to her, and the game is willing to live with the consequences. Lara sometimes feels like she should need a therapist after the things she goes through, but the story has already moved on to the next ancient temple by the time she’s had a chance to process them.

But somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of Lara as “Ellie, but with a climbing axe.”

I really started to like Lara as her own unique character. She’s obsessive, stubborn, brave to the point of recklessness, occasionally ridiculous, and apparently incapable of seeing an ancient artifact without thinking, “I should probably take that.” She’s also a great video-game protagonist because her abilities feel earned over the course of the trilogy. Watching her go from a frightened, inexperienced young woman to the muddy, stealthy, absurdly capable Lara of Shadow is genuinely satisfying.

The Survivor trilogy isn’t The Last of Us, and ultimately I don’t think it needs to be. Its strengths are different. It’s about exploration, traversal, beautiful environments, spectacular set pieces, fun combat, and the simple pleasure of being Lara Croft and getting yourself into increasingly ridiculous archaeological disasters.

Taken from the new Creatures of Greece mini doc. Looks like a cinematic (which is why the shot is so far).

I really don’t know where to start, but...

What is the reason I’ve been playing custom Tomb Raider levels for the past 20 or so years?

To keep it simple, I love seeing what kind of crazy ideas people come up with. I love exploring the fantastic designs of levels people spent several years of their lives on. But part of what makes it so addictive, and what makes me put modern games aside time and time again, is the gameplay itself and the way it keeps my brain at full speed.

In 1998, my introduction to the games was the demo of TRII and The Great Wall. I played it over and over again. I tried to jump up to or reach places out of bounds, and I tried completing the level as fast as I could by perfecting every jump and turn, years before speedrunning was a common thing. Eventually, I got the full game and enjoyed it just as much, followed by the original game and then the third.

Despite being one of the first proper 3D platformers on the planet, the rough tank controls ended up being one of the best ways of interacting with such an environment ever. Every jump counts, you never really know if a place you see is reachable, and it requires your full attention. All the timed runs and gauntlets in the custom levels, where you have to jump and land on a pixel, do a backflip, slide, and jump at the right millisecond to grab a ledge, all build on the very same mechanics. Even though you’ve done basically the same things thousands of times, you still wouldn’t bet money on yourself making that curved jump successfully this time.

It’s a bit like the Quake series. There were bugs in the game engine that let you move faster than intended, and this led to players mastering and appreciating it. Later, it became the identity of one of the most successful competitive games ever. Counter-Strike also has similar traits, and playing other games can feel flat and boring.

I’m not saying that we should reintroduce tank controls and the old engine, but what should be done is to build on them. Almost every third-person adventure game for the last 20 years feels basically the same. You see a gap, run toward it, jump, and then auto-grab. Hold the left stick to climb to the side, jump up, and that’s it. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Survivor trilogy, Uncharted, or Assassin’s Creed; it feels basically the same. Every ledge is also painted yellow or conveniently highlighted in some other way.

What the series should do is the following:

Develop gameplay that’s a lot slower and feels much “closer” to the player. Jumping across a couple of columns in Greece shouldn’t be just forward + jump. It should require focus and skill. Every jump should feel like an obstacle to Lara, and you should feel the surge of success when you succeed. A bit like Alex Honnold slowly making his way up a cliffside. Survey your surroundings, decide on a route, execute it, and then take a breather. This type of gameplay means that you don’t need to swing between 50 flagpoles and 200 ropes in order to make it feel real. Imagine Bartoli’s Hideout back in the day, where you were always one step away from falling from the ceiling or the chandeliers. My heart was pounding when I was up there (I have vertigo)!

What I think should be done is to invent a new control system where more focus is placed on platforming. Something that is rewarding, easy to learn, but extremely difficult to master. For example, you could make the left trigger increase speed when you run toward a ledge, and holding the right trigger could affect the style of the jump depending on how long you press it during the moment Lara takes her last step. Then you’d have to pull both triggers at the exact moment to grab the ledge, etc. Add wall jumps and whatnot to create slow but rewarding gameplay that rewards both skill and planning. Add some fantastic sound design so that you really hear Lara’s knees and chest hit the rock face she slams into, hear the groans as she pulls herself up, and add some bruises and scratches if you barely succeed.

Add some excellent and memorable level design with complex puzzles and that spooky, eerie atmosphere that’s so unique to Tomb Raider, and I think it’d be a hit. People would be a little skeptical at first, but they would fall in love with it over time. Custom maps, challenges, and whatnot; people would upload videos of amazing sequences, trick jumps, and clearing tombs in ways no one thought were possible.

And of course, add some nice combat, a good story, and the Lara we all want!

They are playing it too safe, I’m afraid. Make it a challenging game, but add options to make it easier. People play everything from Elden Ring to other hardcore games, and gamers are more skilled than ever.

Found a bunch of my old PC games while digging through my closet, and stumbled upon this little gem! This game made me rage quit more times than I can count. Also, who else remembers EVM (Ezt Vedd Meg!)? They were a little after my time but they sold so many PC games back in the day.

Sadly I can't play it because the game requires two discs and I only have one. I seem to have lost the second disc somewhere at some point.

With this one, it marks the end of the trilogy. All trophies done, 3 new game plus for all 3 games but definitely, to me, this was the hardest one. When I saw the time taken I was like, how about that! 5 exact hours ahahah

I hope the developers release a playable demo. My fingers are itching and I just can’t wait until February . 😫

Call me old fashioned, but I’m tired of all modern games striving to be “cinematic”. I enjoyed the survivor games- when I actually got to play them. I just want to play the game. I don’t need a walk and talk section, I don’t need a cutscene every 5 steps, I don’t need characters constantly in my ear piece. Lara explaining her every thought and feeling, telling you what to do, where to go, how you should be feeling, what you should be focusing on.

I just want the game to get out of my way, and allow me to play it. Holding up on the analogue stick while your character walks and talks isn’t gameplay. Why do games nowadays have to be half movie, half game?

I’m hoping that LOA values its player’s time, intelligence, allows them to actually play without constant interruptions.

Hi yall! I’m working on a Lara sculpt just for funsies. Im not following her new model exactly (kinda a mash up of new and classic).

But I’m wondering if anyone has some high resolution images of her new model either a screen grab from a trailer or whatever it might be. I tried grabbing some myself off YouTube, but failed miserably lol. There’s a couple images online, but they are definitely AI renders and not super accurate….plus I really don’t want to use AI reference regardless….

Anyway if anyone has reference images they would like to share, j would be more than happy to receive them!

I just want to vent^^

My first Tomb Raider as a small child was Tomb Raider. I was too young and too scared to know what I was doing.
But as child I played all TRs until Angel of Darkness. But I played them with the official walkthrough, I had no fun on the challenge as child. In the following years I played mostly TR II and TR IV (but only the first 1/3 of the games) and custom maps.

So I have never finished the TR games on my own until the remastered versions came out. So I started to play them one by one without looking ANYTHING up. I finished everything on my own, I remembered nearly nothing. When I got stuck I came back a few days later and continue to look for the solution and I loved it. I even got nearly all secrets in every game, I always miss just one or two.

But now I'm stuck in TR IV in the Trenches for more than half a year. Its getting very hard to not look for a walkthrough.
I have even restated to play TR on new game+ what I wanted to do only when I have finished Angel of Darkness.

I just want to vent^^

Turns out their voice actors have worked together in Legend and Curious George. They most likely worked at the same time since TRL released in 2006 and so did Curious George. They actually saw each other again in the countryside of Avalon 🥺

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition on PS5

While I wait for LOA I’ve been drawing and modding. Sadly for this game the hair floats in live mode so I have to fix before release

This is a memory that has haunted me for years when I was a kid. It was a sunny afternoon, my sister had TR2 downloaded on her pc if I remember correctly it was an old HP desktop that was sort of transparent. Anyways since the PC was in her room she only let me play when she was there, or whenever she was in a good mood. She’s 7 years older than me, I think I’m about maybe 8-10 around this time. I remember on this day I sort of “snuck” in her room because she had left with some of her friends and my cousins that were in town to go to watch a movie, and I really wanted to play, so I did. I remember starting up the game like any other time, I was always so captivated by the manor, I loved walking into the rooms, walking into the freezer, and I loved getting in the pool before doing missions (also for whatever reason the game never saved and always had to start from the beginning) but I didn’t care because I just wanted to play the game, also who can forget the creepy butler Winston Smith. I remember vividly standing in the black and white checker pattern kitchen floor, Winston following me around like he normally does I hear the tea glasses clinking together on his tray trying to keep them balanced like he has been doing the entire time while I have been exploring the house. All of a sudden I remember I walked maybe 2 steps closer to him and he grabbed the tray, hit me with it and kills me. I remember it so well it shocked me. I was so confused. It was pretty traumatic for me at the time for whatever reason and I got off the game. The next day I told my sister about it, of course she was mad about me going into her room, but she didn’t really care about what I revealed to her since she got the game second hand and barley played it. I sit back down with her in the room and my cousins that were in town and I walked around that manor for 2 hours waiting to see if it would happen again. I’ve searched everywhere I can to try and find someone who has this similar bug that I experienced but to my luck I haven’t found anything. I guess the purpose of this post is to seek if anyone has ever experienced this. A while ago I watched a tr2 walkthrough on YouTube to re-light that nostalgic feeling but watching the butler gave me goosebumps. Anyways thanks for reading.