Now, this isn’t the first time the game has gotten a remake or remaster. In fact, its had one remake already with Tomb Raider: Anniversary, and then also the remaster collections of I-III, and IV-VI by Aspyr Media. However, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is looking to do a whole lot more than Anniversary did and expand upon it a bit. That’s why it’s more of a reimaging than it is just a remake.
Lara’s iconic acrobatics make a return like swan diving and handstands.
The goal of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is to rebuild it from the ground up in UE5 with new textures, animations, and environments, but still keeping the spirit and story of the original intact. It’s still about Lara’s hunt for the Scion from Atlantis and there are still definitely Dino encounters, but with expanded levels, more exploration, and additional gadgets. It won’t be like the 2013 reboot series, where they try and go gritty and survival centered. The core of the fun feeling explorer is still there and I really felt that during the demo.
In the demo I was on a mission to recover an artifact locked away in the tomb of Qualopec, which is within The Lost Valley in Peru. The scene opens up to Lara walking through a dense, lush forest and before her a waterfall contraption with three missing cogs. The Lost Valley mission is early in the game designed to teach the players some of the new tools, and the main one that we will be using is the grapple hook. The grapple hook is used on key areas to interact with puzzles or to obviously latch on and swing across gaps. One of the first cogs you can fix is one with a log jammed between it. This requires hooking onto it with the grapple and button mashing to rip it out.
These punks jump at you fast, but summersaults and slow motion focus can clear them easy.
Further exploration through the gorgeous jungle showcases some seriously phenomenal lighting and small details. We’ve been critical of Unreal Engine 5 in the past, but man does Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis look fantastic. Anyway, exploration rewards you with finding collectibles, which range from important ones that will lead to upgrades, to lore based ones. Either way, finding the hidden paths or unlocking them by puzzle interactions were fun and rewarding. Platforming feels solid, definitely more in the lines of the new games, with smoother animations and better directional control. Using the grapple hook to pull over grapple points or yank over swinging poles was pretty common here.
One thing veteran players will be very happy about is the return of acrobatic moves in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Yes, Lara will be able to do her signature hand stands, swan dives, and others in combat. Speaking of combat, after I got through the main cog puzzle to unlock the gate, in came the raptors. Time to whip out those dual pistols! The raptors definitely can overwhelm you if you do not dodge well enough. While dodging, Lara will do summersaults and backflips, which look awesome. You can also build up Focus, which you can use to slow down time and do huge damage to enemies. I went through a few waves of raptors, slow-mo blasting them in the face while backflipping on their corpses… then the T-Rex arrived on the scene.
I can’t fully say how the rest of the T-Rex encounters will play out, but this already feels like they are putting more emphasis on it being extremely powerful. The original game it was crazy to see and fight, but you still just blasted it down. Here, it went into a full on cinematic chase scene with it barreling at me, building the tension with close calls and daring jumps. And just like a dang demo, it ends too soon.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis was an absolute blast and I do think they are nailing a really good balance of the classic while bringing in the new. The most important thing is that it felt like the more whimsical exploration focused Tomb Raider.
