Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics, the developers behind Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Tomb Raider: Underworld are the ones remastering the games from Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation to Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. It is expected to feature a host of quality of life changes and is available for pre – order, it will be released in February of next year for $30.
Who is Crystal Dynamics?
Crystal Dynamics was founded in 1992 and Mark Cerny, the architect behind the design of the PS Vita, PS4 and PS5 had joined that year. Around 1997 due to unexpected losses, Crystal Dynamics had agreed to be bought by British Publishing company Eidos Interactive, who at the time were the publishing company for the first 3 Tomb Raider titles developed by Core Design.
After Eidos bought Crystal Dynamics, they were asked to continue the series due to the devs from Core Design being reluctant to continue the franchise after Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, their 6th game in the franchise.
Crystal Dynamics at first had presented Tomb Raider: Legend, which was released in 2006 and was considered a commercial success, after its success Crystal Dynamics pitched Tomb Raider: Anniversary, which was supposed to be a remake of the original with system that was created for Tomb Raider: Legend, but they had faced difficulty in this, the game was then completed within 9 months with half its length missing from the original.
Square Enix, Why?
Square Enix had expressed interest in the franchise and had offered to buy Eidos, which was approved and from around this time was when Crystal Dynamics was deciding over a variety of different concepts for their own original Trilogy of the Tomb Raider games. After Tomb Raider (2013) and Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015) which proved to be amazing games and commercially successful, Square Enix had decided to create what many consider to be the start of the “live service slop”, Marvel’s Avengers.
Remasters And Remasters
After Marvel’s Avengers, one of the worst games to release as a live service model, Embracer group had shown interest in acquiring Crystal Dynamics, citing that they are interested in Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider and Legacy Of Kain. The acquisition took place on the August on 2022, by the next year Crystal Dynamics had announced remasters for the first 3 of Core Design’s Tomb Raider Games, which was released around February, and the next 3 are set to be released around February of 2025.
How Good Are The Previous 3 That Released?
For starters, what many people found to be a barrier to enjoyment with the old games was the terrible control scheme, the controls felt too janky and thus jumps that would require pinpoint accuracy would be missed for sole reason being the controls, there are many accounts of people dreading to replay any sections where you have to control a tank.
Crystal Dynamics wanted to keep the overall visuals and evoke the 90s game feeling but at the same time apply a new coat of paint to it. Thus these new games have a proper more consistent control scheme, but alas some may consider it to be undercooked as the directional jumping still proves to be a confusing aspect to learn.
Another main issue with the modern control scheme that was implemented was that the camera moves with Lara and thus in tight corners or narrow spaces the camera zooms in and clips through the environment, making it extremely difficult to traverse the area to solve the particular puzzle there.
Another source of frustration is the fact that there are no difficulty settings here making it extremely difficult for new players to jump in, with no autosave feature if you forget to manually and end up dying it will most likely be a frustrating trek back to where you died.
Hopefully Crystal Dynamics Listens To The Feedback
Crystal Dynamics have done an amazing job with the Tomb Raider Reboot, they have proved to be enjoyable, interesting games that was able bring the story of Lara Croft to a modernized system, modern controls and a compelling story, while these remasters are staying true to the original and sometimes clearly to a fault. Crystal Dynamics has to make sure the next 3 that are going to be released have a better modern control system and at least the autosave feature should be available if not the ability to adjust the difficulty.