Tomb Raider: Legacy Of Atlantis’ Beautiful Visuals Can’t Quite Hide Its Weird Changes
I know Lara Croft well. At least, I feel like I do. You see, we've grown up together. From the original Tomb Raider games, I was hooked. As a young girl, I had an insatiable sense of wonder following Lara's adventures, and as a teen I was enthused when Crystal Dynamics took over development and rescued Lara from Core Design's clutches back in 2007. I even remained on board for the series reboot in 2013, although my interest in the titular tomb raider had waned slightly. At the time, I was most keen to see how Lara fit into the gaming world almost 20 years on from her debut, and I came away feeling like she was the most realistic version of herself she had ever been--initially frightened and vulnerable, but honing her skills and gaining experience as the reboot trilogy progressed.
Now, with an extra decade under her belt (and mine), Lara Croft is returning to her roots with a reimagining of her classic adventures that has me feeling pretty skeptical. I'm excited for another title in a franchise I adore, yet concerned that I was pretty happy with Lara's origin story, and rehashing it once more could tarnish that experience.
The original Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis announcement left me feeling conflicted. It seemed like the intent was to unify all of the versions of Lara that we've come to know over the years, yet it felt limiting to do that in the form of a reboot of the original game.
By the time I got to my Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis preview at Gamescom, though, I was feeling optimistic. From the trailers and sneak peeks I'd seen so far, Lara was looking better than ever, and the nostalgia value added to my eager anticipation. Unfortunately, nothing I saw during that preview event excited me.
The most intriguing element of the preview content I saw was the way Crystal Dynamics has rebuilt and reimagined the environments. Of course, Greece is a notable location in the Tomb Raider series and features prominently in the original game. We got to see a reimagined version of the Damocles room in St. Francis' Folly, with vast environments making Tomb Raider feel larger than it ever has before, but without affecting the narrative.
The giant falling swords are stunningly redesigned while staying faithful to the original, and the sound design is vastly improved. Crystal Dynamics experience director Jeff Adams says that the team has "sought to preserve what makes these places special, but to find new ways to enhance the beauty, and find new ways for the gameplay to surprise and delight." Sadly, nothing I've seen with the gameplay so far is surprising or delightful.
With the swords of Damocles getting a redesign, the Crystal Dynamics team has also added new functionality: They can now be shot down from the ceiling to remove the future threat of them falling on Lara. But when the team showed us this, they also showcased Lara's brand-new skill tree, which adds the Dead Eye skill to help her shoot the swords that are furthest away. I can't help but feel that Dead Eye is a bit redundant. She could easily have made those shots, and with this being a hands-off preview I can't tell whether there's much difference between having the skill equipped or not.
Sure, the enemy redesigns are nice touches, but there's no way of framing a slightly different pattern of attack from the game's classic swarm of bats that will get anyone enthused. Watching a leopard sneak away from Lara only to circle back around for a stealth attack could have been an impactful and noteworthy interaction, but the nature of the hands-off demo meant that Lara felt more like an omniscient superhero than someone actually in peril or at risk from the enemy redesign.
Lara takes some damage early on in the preview and uses some resources that she collected to craft a healing balm. Rather than feeling like this adds to the experience, it serves as an awkwardly crammed-in mechanic that doesn't enhance the gameplay experience at all. By the time Shadow of the Tomb Raider rolled around in 2018, the crafting had become arduous. There were too many materials to collect, with no clear reason why I was collecting them all. By forcing a similar crafting mechanic into Legacy of Atlantis, I'm concerned that the same crafting fatigue will set in.
Later on, Adams mentions that Lara will be able to craft specific items to give her short-term damage resistance, including specialized damage resistance, such as traps. Of course, closer to release the development team might add some more meaningful crafting recipes, but so far I'm mostly just annoyed that I won't be able to heal unless I've been on some sort of foraging expedition and remembered to craft the correct balms.
Lara's got some new gear to show off, but of everything that I saw used in the preview demo, the scanner seems to be the least useful. The scanner has two purposes. Its primary function is to highlight information that's crucial for environmental puzzles (think the Arkham game's Detective Mode or Assassin's Creed's Eagle Vision). In the preview demo, we were shown Lara using the scanner to figure out that a nearby gate, with four empty slots for keys, will need four keys to be opened. I'm not sure how that's supposed to be helpful, though. I can see that the gate has four empty key slots--of course it needs four keys. It's like the devs feel they cannot trust that the game's environment can tell a story on its own, and there needs to be an item that paints the way forward for the player.
Adams mentions that the hint system is "completely optional," but that the scanner has another use in the game. It can also scan the environment to reveal information and lore about Lara's surroundings. This is merely for interest purposes, and doesn't help you to progress through the game or hand-hold during puzzles.
The inclusion of Relics means that Lara will have a ton of collectibles to seek out. During my preview, she found the Athenian Owl--one of many historically fueled collectibles in the game. Some will grant rewards, too--the owl unlocks the Tomb Raider Legend outfit, for example. This is a nice touch and being able to unlock Lara's classic looks and equip them at any point via her PDA is a great nod on the game's part to the rest of the series' history, and I'm keen to see which other Easter eggs might appear in the full game.
While Adams thankfully mentions that the game will not be adding "additional breadth just for the purposes of doing it," he also says that the game might take longer to complete since the team is looking at the original levels and finding "very targeted opportunities to add greater depth." This means that there will be more explorable areas, as well as the collectible items to discover.
While I'm still looking forward to experiencing Lara Croft's original adventures in a brand-new way, I'm certainly not as excited about it as I was before my preview. Minute changes to enemy attack patterns and mechanics that are forced in for the sake of it detract from the experience, potentially adding a roadblock to enjoyability while you stop to gather the correct materials for a specific targeted recipe. Hopefully the beautiful vistas and stunning reimagined world will lift Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis to a somewhat enjoyable playthrough, but so far, I'm worried.
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