The soft reset of the Tomb Raider franchise in 2013 was a decision that fueled a beloved franchise of the past decade. Tomb Raider is a game that retells Lara Croft’s story from her humble beginnings as a clueless 21-year-old in a shipwreck.
The Tomb Raider Trilogy is a collection of the three second era Tomb Raider games: Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Tomb Raider: Underworld. It was released on 22 March 2011 in North America and 25 March 2011 in Europe exclusively on PlayStation 3 as part of the Classics HD line. The next Tomb Raider game will be unifying the canonical timelines of both the original installments and the recently rebooted trilogy. For developer Crystal Dynamics, it hence becomes essential. Tomb Raider, also known as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider between 2001 and 2008, is a media franchise that originated with an action-adventure video game series created by British gaming company Core Design. Formerly owned by Eidos Interactive, then by Square Enix Europe after Square Enix 's acquisition of Eidos in 2009, the franchise focuses on.
The game shows you the grueling details of her struggle against the native Solarii brotherhood on the island of Yamatai. In the early hours of the game, those guys aren’t your biggest concern as nature itself is out to get you. In a turn of events, Lara has to make the most primal decision of her life: fight or flight? The decision to fight sends you into a sequence of a game that shines with a gripping tale of survival.
Survival
Unlike previous Tomb Raider games, you aren’t an untouchable badass at the start. If you do everything right, you get to watch Lara barely survive the ordeals she has to face on Yamatai. However, if you fail at any point, Lara will go through some tough struggles for the sake of her own survival. Watching a wolf tear and claw through an innocent girl is not a nice sight to behold. Freezing to death, stepping into traps, falling from heights and starving are a few other ways to see your journey cut short.
Eventually though, the game begins to offer ways to fight back. The evolution of Lara Croft doesn’t suddenly happen like a gift from the gods. You’ll have to craft items, weapons and upgrade your skills. Once you begin to get the hang of it, that’s when the game begins to feel less immersive.
- July 2001 - Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword (Game Boy Color) November 2002 - Tomb Raider: The Prophecy (Game Boy Advance) December 2002 - Tomb Raider for Pocket PC. June 2003 - Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. October 2003 - Tomb Raider for Nokia N-Gage.
- The Tomb Raider series went on to completely redefine the standard for 3D adventure games, thus making Lara one of the most recognizable video game icons of all time. Along with being responsible for pioneering a mainstream female video game protagonist in a predominately male led video gaming era, the Tomb Raider series has sold over 58.
Handholding
After you’ve survived the tumultuous opening hours of Tomb Raider, things just don’t feel intuitive anymore. The game doesn’t really encourage instinctive choices from the player. Instead, you are riddled with a series of quicktime events that feel like a scripted movie. Press X to do this, hold Y to do that.
These forced interactions don’t really offer that “Tomb Raider” experience the name suggests. In addition to the flaws of quicktime, regular interactions with the world aren’t much better with telling you what to do. Obvious item textures indicate your need for a zipline, others indicate a flammable area and yet, exploring other parts of an area just doesn’t provide enough surprises. It feels like playing a movie, which is good depending on who you are, but a video game is supposed to be an experience for the player. With this game, you can easily watch the story YouTube without feeling like you missed out on much.
Story
Tomb Raider has a generic cast of characters for you to meet and interact with. From your shipwreck, there’s a nerdy guy who seems afraid of everything in the world around him, a spiritual dude that has some mystical explanation for everything and a tough black woman.
The villains are the run-off-the-mill bad guys who want to protect the island by killing stranded survivors. However, its main bad guy, even with his little screen time fails to make an impression during the final hours of the game.
Comparisons
Uncharted and Tomb Raider go hand in hand, and this game doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it sets up a good storyline for its much better sequels.
Pros
- Great graphics
- Nice voice acting
- Interesting world
Cons
- Handholding gameplay
- Excessive quicktime events
Tomb Raider manages to provide a great linear experience at the cost of true video game exploration. Regardless, it is fun to play.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is now free for PS Plus subscribers, meaning Sony gamers have arguably the best game of the modern trilogy to enjoy for the additional cost of nothing. This has put Lara Croft under the spotlight once more, and has thus resulted in a few people asking if a new video game will be announced for PS5 and Xbox Series X during 2021. While there’s no official announcement regarding a new video game for consoles, here you’ll discover everything that has been shared about the 12th instalment starring the iconic British heroine.
While no official announcement has been made regarding the continuation of the modern Lara Croft trilogy, the developers of Shadow were “super happy” with sales and DLC, and they even said back in 2019 that they would be “extremely surprised” if fans didn’t see more Lara Croft in the future.
There’s not a whole lot to go on regarding the series’ future in 2021 or beyond, but below you’ll discover some aspects that have been shared about a hypothetical new Tomb Raider video game for PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Tomb Raider Game Release Date
- SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER: How to get multiplayer and co-op
Tomb Raider Games In Order
Will there be a Tomb Raider video game in 2021 for PS5?
Tomb Raider Game List
There’s nothing official to report about a new Tomb Raider video game in 2021 for PS5 or Xbox Series X.
Although there’s nothing official about an announcement happening, fans are hoping that a new Tomb Raider video game for PS5 and Xbox Series X will be announced in 2021 seeing as it is the year of Lara Croft’s 25th anniversary.
The very first Lara Croft video game on PS1 was released all the way back in October 1996, so it’s possible that any hypothetical announcement could be saved until Fall.
It’s possible that Tomb Raider 12 is in development as Crystal Dynamics posted a job listing back in June 2020 for a new ‘AAA title’ which required applicants to be well-versed in “natural and architectural environments”.
Tomb Raider Game List
In addition to the above job listing via Segment Next, Raider Org also posted supposed datamines for the Marvel’s Avengers beta on Twitter which included labels and assets for ‘tr12’ and ‘lara’.
Recent Lara Croft games have come out rapidly with the reboot in 2013, Rise in 2015, and Shadow in 2018. However, despite 2021 marking three years since Shadow, the most fans should realistically be wishful for in regard to a PS5 and Xbox Series X game is a brief announcement/teaser.
Tomb Raider The Ultimate Experience
While we might not get a new video game in 2021, it’s possible that we could get Tomb Raider The Ultimate Experience.
Tomb Raider The Ultimate Experience was reportedly leaked back in 2020 for August 27th, but – obviously – it never came to fruition.
While it’s unlikely that the ‘leaked’ Ultimate Experience will become reality, it’s possible that Square Enix could release a collection of sorts to celebrate Lara Croft’s 25th anniversary.
:format(jpeg)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/47615273/tr1.0.0.jpg "Tomb raider games")
Any hypothetical collection would hopefully include HD remasters/ports of Legend, Anniversary, Underworld, and the modern trilogy, but this is all simply wishful thinking with no credible sources behind it.
- CYBERPUNK 2077: Everything known about the mysterious Mr. Blue Eyes
We do know that a mobile game is releasing this year called Tomb Raider Reloaded, but this surely isn’t good enough on its own for the heroine’s 25th year of existence.