Gaming We Don't Need More Tomb Raider Remasters

The Tomb Raider 1-3 Remaster has been relatively well-received. Tomb Raider fans are glad to finally have something go their way after years in the wilderness, but as well as a reminder of how ahead of her time Lara was, the pendulum has swung both ways - it's also a reminder of how dated these games really are. The tank controls aren't intuitive, and the modern controls are janky in a game built for tanking.

But now we've moved on to discussing what comes next for Tomb Raider. The answer should be the new 'unified' game that ties together the Legend trilogy and the Survivor trilogy, but as ever with Lara Croft in the modern era, it's a swan dive forward and a backflip back. I wrote that this new design was starting the era off on the right foot, except now we've been told this isn't actually the reveal of the new Lara. It's just a new Lara they're revealing. Needlessly confusing. We have no idea when the next Tomb Raider arrives, but the remastered trilogy is teasing Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, AKA Tomb Raider 4. That's not the direction we should go in.

Why Are People Expecting A Tomb Raider 4 Remaster?

The gist of this tease is a GPS marker on a map that points to key locations in the first four Tomb Raider games, despite only the first three being present. Knowing that the fourth game isn't substantial enough on its own in the modern era, fans have extrapolated from here that it will be The Last Revelation, Chronicles, and Angel of Darkness in the next trilogy. This is a square peg in a round hole, and not just because early Tomb Raider games were incapable of making circles.

The first three games in the series go together neatly into a trilogy, so it makes sense to package them this way. Likewise, Tomb Raider (2013), Rise, and Shadow all fit together. Even though my favourite era is Legend in the middle, everything outside of the original trilogy and the most recent trilogy is fairly messy.


The Last Revelation follows on from the first three games, but ends in Lara's death due to the developers wanting to move on to new ideas. But money talks, so development continued and Chronicles was made of flashbacks to Lara's earlier life, while Angel of Darkness rebooted the series. Chronicles and Angel of Darkness were made simultaneously by two different teams and (here's the kicker) were both bad. They're poor choices to be remastered for a variety of reasons.

Note: Maybe you love Angel of Darkness (or nostalgia has convinced you you do). Chronicles and Angel of Darkness are still amongst the lowest scoring, lowest selling, and least fondly remembered Tomb Raider games ever made. Money still talks - they aren't coming back.

Why A Tomb Raider 4 Remaster Won't Work

Quality aside, you have a tonal clash to consider too. The Last Revelation fits with the original trilogy, and could have easily been included. Trilogies sound better than tetralogies (it's not 'quadrilogy'), and TLR is less popular than the other three, so it makes just as much sense to cut it. Maybe it's planned DLC, which is the only thing about this tease that would work. But while The Last Revelation and Chronicles fit together, Angel of Darkness doesn't belong with them or any Tomb Raider game for that matter. The Last Revelation and Chronicles can't survive as a duo, and while AoD at least brings some notoriety, it also brings several complications.

There's A Notable Aesthetic Shift With Angel Of Darkness

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Angel of Darkness had no tank controls on console, but this change was made late in development so, a little like the remastered trilogy, it doesn't suit its own control scheme. Remaking Angel of Darkness would require more complex control adjustments, which would be more expensive. It would also need a more significant graphical polish (some fans are dissatisfied with the art style of the new collection) to show improvements, which would also be more expensive. Not to mention fans would be less charitable to the control issues for Aspyr's second bite at the cherry, and with worse games underneath it all. It would cost far more to remaster a collection that would sell worse. They just won't do it.

Tomb Raider 3 Remastered Graphics Comparison

After Angel of Darkness came Anniversary, a modernised remake of the first game that, while still dated today, embraced modern controls far more than the current remaster and streamlined the level design to feel like a new experience. This was followed by Legend and Underworld, which both built on these ideals, before we come to the next reboot in 2013. Anniversary-Legend-Underworld might make for a suitable remastered trilogy, but then we've just had the first Tomb Raider in this remaster, so doing that again doesn't seem like a smart choice either.

So What Next For Tomb Raider?

Ultimately, we're back where we started. While fans always think their favourite games deserve remasters and Tomb Raider 1-3 has proven popular (VG Insights reports $2m in revenue from Steam already), nothing else in the back catalogue makes financial sense when you factor in development costs. Tomb Raider 1-3 succeeded with limited marketing on the iconic status of the games alone, and nothing else in the series has that pull.

We know a new game is coming and we're into our seventh year of waiting, with nothing but a leak and some key art that isn't key art to go off. Hopefully the success of this trilogy proves there is a hunger for Tomb Raider that will aid development of the upcoming title, but it's time to forget the past and focus on the future.

Source