Summary
Following the success of the remasteredTomb Raidertrilogy, Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics will now be following suit by remasteringTomb Raider: The Last Revelation,Tomb Raider: Chronicles, andTomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. It has been announced thatTomb Raider 4-6 Remasteredwill arrive onPlayStation 4andPlayStation 5on Jul 27, 2025, but there are a few things the developers need to get right to polish up the next few chapters in Lara Croft’s globe-trotting adventures.
Tomb Raider 4feels like it fits right at home with the original trilogy, butTomb Raider 5serves as one big flashback to the events of the previous installment, andTomb Raider 6(viewed more favorably nowadays)received a lot of criticism upon release for being a stylish entry but lacking true substance compared to its predecessors. None of them are perfect games, even ifTomb Raider 4is arguably the more beloved of the three, and there’s still plenty to iron out to make these titles a more enjoyable experience.
One ofTomb Raider 4’s biggest selling pointsalso happens to be one of its biggest drawbacks.The Last Revelationfeels like everything one would expect from the originalTomb Raidertrilogy, but that’s precisely why it can get quite repetitive. The level design is still superior, as the setting really translates as being a faithful rendition of Egypt, but the levels are less diverse than some of the older games.
Everything takes place in Egypt, which is a great deviation from the norm, but it also means that jumping from Karnak to Cairo and Giza doesn’t offer much variation. For the remaster,Tomb Raider 4would definitely benefit from a rework that creates a distinctive visual separation between each Egyptian environment so that every area feels fresh and not just a rehashed version of the previous major Egyptian city.
Just like Spider-Man’s web shooters, many games benefit from inventive travel mechanics that make the environment feel more interactive. As Lara Croft traverses Rome, the coast of Russia, an island off the coast of Ireland, famous Egyptian landmarks, and good old NYC, it’s important that she has viable means of getting around. But, there were a lot of complaints as to Lara’s rope-swinging escapades, especially inTomb Raider: The Last RevelationandTomb Raider: Chronicles. In fact, players were finding it so troublesome to swing from platform to platform that they found themselves crying out for help in online threads.
For reference, here’s how to properly swing on the ropes inTomb Raider 4andTomb Raider 5:
Although it all sounds fairly straightforward, it would be so much easier for Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics to rework the rope swing system altogether and make it less clunky and more intuitive, especially since it would save Lara Croft from several embarrassing deaths.
As if rope swings weren’t bad enough, there’s also the matter of tightropes inTomb Raider: Chronicles. Granted, it makes sense that Lara Croft doesn’t move across a tightrope like a superhuman, but it’s also off-putting to watch her dawdle across the tightrope as if she isn’tan archeologist renowned for her intelligence and athleticism.
Aside from the fact that the tightrope walk seems to take way too long, the controls aren’t the smoothest either. It’s a real process to get Lara walking forward, and when she starts to wobble as if she might fall off, the trick is to press the directional arrows opposite to whichever way she’s leaning. This is one of the trickiest parts of the Rome level, despite there being no real threat, so it wouldn’t hurt to make the whole motion more fluid and adapt it to incorporate modern PS4/PS5 controls.
As with the remasteredTomb Raidertrilogy, Crystal Dynamics and Aspyr have some prominentbugs to fix for all three games(The Last Revelation, Chronicles, andThe Angel of Darkness), which would make the gameplay experience more enjoyable overall. These bugs pertain to Lara glitching inside of walls and leaping all the way up to higher platforms, triggering enemies and cutscenes from inside said walls, falling through floors, Lara keeping her gun in hand while climbing, and in the case ofTomb Raider 6— the game simply crashing.
Here are some of the known bugs fromTomb Raider: The Last Revelation,Tomb Raider: Chronicles, andTomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness:
InTomb Raider: The Last Revelation, some of the loading screens dragged on for an indeterminate amount of time between new levels/zones. Whileit’s easy to appreciate the architecture inside the tombs— and even the hieroglyphic markings that feel true to the time period — it’s a little disorienting to wait so long between new locations, especially after beating a particularly jarring puzzle.
After completing one level, players are often itching to move on and get their bearings again, so waiting too long to load in can feel tedious. It might not be realistic to remove loading screens altogether, especially as the developers are using the original game’s same engine and code, but it might be more feasible to shorten the loading times, or at least insert a notification instead to let players know which zone they’re entering.
It might sound blasphemous to even consider skipping cutscenes asTomb Raider: Chroniclesis packed with backstorypertaining toTomb Raider: The Last Revelation. However, since the game is mainly one big flashback, it isn’t entirely necessary for seasoned players to watch all the events unfold as they recall them.
If anything, newer players would benefit from the cutscenes, but veterans can just coast by and enjoy the scenery rather than investing too heavily in a story they will likely remember all too well. It wouldn’t necessarily take away fromTomb Raider: Chroniclesto make the cutscenes skippable, but it would fix the same issue as the loading screen argument and make the game flow more seamlessly.
There was a whole debacle over the control scheme ofTomb Raider: The Angel of Darknessupon its release, particularly as the originalcontrols were made identical to the PS1, utilizing the D-pad primarily for movement and leaving out the analogue sticks altogether. At that time, most PS2 games were utilizing the analog stick as a sort of experimental way forward. Sony wasn’t really happy with theTomb Raiderpremiere on the PS2 not featuring the complete controller, so Sony told Core Design to change it. All of this happened when the game was already well behind schedule, so Core Design had time constraints and couldn’t work it out.
This setback resulted in clunky controls forTomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, especially on PC, as none of the original controls would transfer properly on other platforms. The remaster should fix the control issue as a given, which it almost certainly will, butAngel of Darknessshould take out (or rework) its silly strength system (from where the “I feel stronger now” meme originated) and also polish the introductory and Kurtis levels, which both had unfinished/unreachable areas.
