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Amazon Game Studios‘ highly-anticipated 2027 release of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is building excitement among fans with the release of ‘mini-documentaries’, giving a peek at creative choices and behind-the-scenes footage, revealing what players can expect from this iteration of Lara Croft and Tomb Raider as a franchise.
The latest mini-doc covers how they’ve approached puzzles, traps and the wider Tomb Raider environment, harking back to what people loved about the original games. Legacy of Atlantis is produced in collaboration with Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog, with Crystal Dynamics design director, Jason Epps, noting the team had an “ambition to remake the very first Tomb Raider.”
It’s a way for lovers of the original mid-90s games, as well as a new audience, to experience the buried treasure of the beloved franchise, sharing in Lara Croft’s discovery of uncharted corners of the world and mythological relics, opening the game and story in a way which Epps describes as “a treasure box… which celebrates them and the franchise.”
But what exactly is the difference (and familiarity) in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis?
Legacy of Atlantis sees Lara, voiced by Alix Wilton Regan, as a mature, fully formed Lara Croft. Though she bears the wounds and scars of her adventures and standing as a wealthy heiress of the Croft family, she is beloved for her style and wit, making her as charismatic as the treasures she unfolds.
With more tombs in her holsters compared to Square Enix’s ‘Survivor’ trilogy, Lara, doesn’t see herself as ‘that kind of Croft’. Instead, this Lara Croft swan-dives atop waterfalls while maintaining a perfectly maintained braid, sipping champagne in her free time. She’s unafraid and self-assured. The dual-pistol wielding Croft somersaults back into the fray.
The latest episode of Tomb Raider‘s mini-doc highlights the franchise’s philosophy when it comes to crafting puzzles and forming lived-in environments, despite the locations being buried by history and time. They’ve taken aspects of Lara Croft’s personality and weaved them into the environment. In fact, level designer Jarostaw Skwarek says “what differentiates the Tomb Raider puzzle is the archaeological aspect.”
For example, the re-imaginings of the first level, Peru, sees the unveiling of the city of Vilcabamba, an ancient lost city used as a safe haven for the Incan people while the Spanish conquistadors invaded. In Tomb Raider’s re-telling of the story, the scene layout and level design indicates the mountain section was a battlefield, centred around a towering Inca door as a line of defence.
In the episode, Epps strides toward building a world that feels more authentic, but still faithful to its roots in Inca culture. For example, developers decided to base a puzzle on ‘quipus’, an ancient, Incan communication system centred around tied knots as a form of record keeping in ancient times, and incorporating those within the world with the same flair and enthusiasm as Lara Croft would have.
Following the release of their exploration of traversal and movement, Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog Studios make it clear that this version of Tomb Raider leans towards Lara’s archaeological background and sense of discovery, rather than Square Enix’s combat-driven Croft.
Croft’s DNA is embedded into the code, from combat to exploration, like a character study allowing players to fulfil the power fantasy of embodying the gaming icon. Flying Wild Hog lead game designer, Randu Bogos, wants players to “pay attention to things… we will not point out with a flashing icon ‘This will hurt you’, ‘This will kill you’.”
This could be a tongue-in-cheek comment about the Survivor trilogy and its ‘survival instinct’ mechanic, panned for trivialising the games’ difficulty.
