Tomb raider trilogy series#

Night has fallen and there are tricks everywhere: a statue with missing pieces down in the garden, twin pistols hidden behind a moving bookcase in the library. From Anniversary, the middle game, I think of that wonderful puzzle-box version of Croft Manor. The first Crystal trilogy holds up extremely well in this regard. The buried Sphinx in Tomb Raider 1, the leap from the summit revealing its face. The bottom of the ocean in Tomb Raider 2, or the upside-down ship from the same game with tables and chairs bolted to the ceiling and a shark patrolling outside. Let's celebrate these wonderful games.įor me, the true measure of a Tomb Raider game is if it exists in the mind as a stark, almost isolated, memory of being in a space - often an audaciously crafted space. For the reboot, yes, but also for that trilogy the studio completed just after it took over the franchise, back when Tomb Raider still belonged to Eidos. More than anything how enthused they seemed for what they were doing.īut then real-life memories gave way to game memories, and I realised how much more I had to thank Crystal Dynamics for. At first I thought of an old press trip when I went to see Crystal, which was developing the reboot at the time: how lovely everyone was, how kind to me and my idiotic questions, despite the obvious exhaustion of working on a game like this. Watch on YouTube Tomb Raider: Underworld trailer.Īnd I thought of them on Monday when I read the news that Square-Enix was selling off studios and licenses, including Crystal Dynamics and Tomb Raider in general.

Tomb raider trilogy series#

This was Crystal Dynamic's first outing with the series once they took it on: Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Anniversary (co-developed with Buzz Monkey Software), and Tomb Raider: Underworld. But in between both extremes - marquee, character-arc Lara Croft and crackling, mysterious, old-school Tomb Raider - we got another version too. I like these games a lot: I like their obvious production values and blockbuster sense of occasion, their sense of someone on their way to becoming the person they hope to be. A Lara who fills the screen, who reaches out a hand to steady herself when she makes her way through a flooding cave: such a lovely human detail. Over the last decade we've had rebooted Lara: close-up, crafting her own arrows, skinning wolves and falling on rusty spikes. The long wait for a proper gen-hopping follow-up took place when I shuffled through temp jobs, then the eventual release of The Angel of Darkness. The Core games took me through university - back when 3D itself felt weird and experimental and slightly (thrillingly!) unstable, with those jagged edges around the sides of the screen when Lara was exploring underground corridors. “Our origin trilogy back in 2013 told the story of Lara’s early days when she was forged into a survivor, became a hero and ultimately the Tomb Raider.I am the right age to measure out a lot of my life in Tomb Raiders. “We’ve got big ambitions for the future of Tomb Raider,” said Will Kerslake, Tomb Raider franchise game director at Crystal Dynamics. In a recent video outlining its plans for Tomb Raider’s 25th anniversary this year, developer Crystal Dynamics revealed that Lara Croft’s next video game adventure would “unify” the timelines in Core Design’s original Tomb Raider games and its own reboot trilogy. It’s said it will promote fan art and cosplay alongside various interviews, livestreams and “lots of surprises”. ‘Big ambitions’ for Tomb Radier’s futureĬrystal Dynamics has said it intends to celebrate the Tomb Raider franchise’s 25th anniversary throughout 2021. On PC, the most recent Tomb Raider instalment, 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider, features ray-traced lighting via Nvidia’s GeForce RTX cards. On console, the Tomb Raider games are already playable on Xbox Series X and S via backwards compatibility, though none of the titles have received specific next-gen enhancement patches.įor example, Rise of the Tomb Raider’s 4K quality mode is still capped at 30fps on next-gen consoles, while the 60fps performance mode drops resolution to 1080p. The games are listed as 4K Ultra HD and HDR10 compatible, but there’s no mention of specific next-gen console features such as improved graphics or new features.

“With all the definitive edition content from each game, this Trilogy promises dozens of hours of breathtaking exploration, challenging puzzle-solving, and survival combat with Lara as she becomes the Tomb Raider she was destined to become.” Tomb Raider: Definitive Survivor Trilogy artwork. “Tomb Raider: Definitive Survivor Trilogy is the complete edition of the award-winning Tomb Raider origin games,” the listing reads.