Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis’s gamescom Demo Shows a Classic Reimagined with a Scanner, a Grapple, and a Skill Tree

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis‘s presentation we attended at gamescom 2026 featured an intensive have a look at the Greece stage, which Crystal Dynamics Recreation Director Raul Siqueira described as one of the vital iconic places within the franchise’s historical past, with its towering columns, the grandeur of an historical civilization, and untamed wilderness surrounding it. The hands-off stay demo, which ran on a Pre-Alpha construct of the sport (now due on February 12, 2027, following a delay from the original 2026 target), was the staff’s approach of exhibiting how they’ve approached reimagining the beloved unique traditional.

The final time the sport was proven publicly, Lara was within the Peruvian wilderness. Siqueira confirmed she succeeded in what she got down to do there, however not with out coming into battle with a number of the most harmful forces she has confronted to this point in her adventuring profession. This demo picks up along with her deep within the catacombs beneath St. Francis’ Folly, racing a rival to find the second fragment of the Scion.

That rival is, after all, Pierre, and the demo closed with the 2 of them assembly after Lara clears the extent, buying and selling barbs about who received there first. On reimagining him, Siqueira’s declare was that figuring out what to not change issues as a lot as figuring out what to alter: Pierre’s charismatic persona is subsequently intact, even when a good quantity round him isn’t.

The Scanner, the Grapple, and Non-compulsory Puzzle Assist

The builders introduced two model new instruments. The primary is a scanner, a listing merchandise Lara can use to establish objects on the earth, serving a double objective: nudging gamers towards puzzle options and surfacing extra lore concerning the world round them. Fear not: it is solely elective, and gamers preferring to wander and remedy issues unaided can merely by no means use it.

The second is a grapple, which, no less than in accordance with Siqueira, is doing significantly extra work than a traversal software. Within the demo, it additionally served as a puzzle aspect for interacting with the surroundings, a solution to attain swing factors that open in any other case inaccessible areas, and, in what the Recreation Director referred to as one among his favourite additions, an anchored line that lets Lara ascend and descend freely. The said purpose is to extend verticality and provides gamers multiple approach via an area.

Lara’s all-important acrobatic motion, in the meantime, has been intentionally preserved. Lara can set off her signature traversal thrives by way of a button mixture, however it’s elective, and Siqueira explicitly referred to as out speedrunners as gamers who can bypass it solely and take the direct route.

Fight, the Focus System, and a Model New Ability Tree

Fight in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is quick, fluid, and constructed to benefit from the identical acrobatics, as proven whereas Lara offers with a harmful panther and a swarm of bats. In a maybe extra controversial change, weapons could be upgraded to enhance hearth price, accuracy, and ammo capability, and there is a Focus system that slows time for precision photographs, which was used a number of instances all through the demo.

The brand new ability tree is among the many most fascinating additions of this remake; within the demo, with two swords within the Damocles room sitting too distant to shoot down safely, the developer taking part in the sport opened the tree and picked up a Deadeye ability extending Lara’s efficient vary, then took the shot.

That room has been utterly revamped. The Sword of Damocles is the plain reference level whenever you consider Greece, and the entice now helps being triggered from a protected distance with Lara’s pistols, so gamers who do not fancy dodging falling blades have an alternate.

Among the many most noticeable remaining adjustments is that made to Lara’s therapeutic. Siqueira identified the oddity that is been sitting in Tomb Raider since 1996: Lara restores well being with medpacks she finds mendacity round in places which were actually untouched by civilization for hundreds of years, and stated it is a query the staff requested themselves early in growth.

Their reply was to introduce crafting. Gamers might now collect parts and assets from the surroundings and mix them into therapeutic gadgets and buffs. The demo confirmed a buff that reduces harm taken from traps, which Siqueira stated is an possibility for extra cautious gamers who want to discover with out dying repeatedly. Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis additionally introduces Relics, that are traditionally correct artifacts scattered internationally. Discovering them yields varied rewards.

Outfits, nevertheless, stay purely beauty and could be swapped freely at any level. Siqueira famous that thirty years of franchise historical past means there is a deep nicely of cool Lara outfits to attract from.

The Q&A: Lara’s Characterization and The place This Sits within the Timeline

Following the top of the stay demo, Siqueira and Flying Wild Hog‘s Artwork Director, Arek Tomaszewski, answered a few questions from the assembled press. When requested concerning the steadiness between toughness and emotional vulnerability, with the interviewer citing the detrimental reception to Survivor-era Lara’s response to killing human enemies, Tomaszewski answered first, noting he hadn’t labored on the Survivor video games however had performed them, and that this Lara is a significantly harder individual than she was there with out being a callous one. Siqueira picked it up from the writing aspect: the 1996 unique had little or no dialogue to work with, whereas Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis has considerably extra writing, and it is vital that the Lara gamers meet right here reads because the Survivor-era Lara grown into somebody on the high of her recreation.

That connects on to the timeline query, which was answered with out hedging: that is canonically a continuation of the Survivor trilogy’s timeline, with an older, extra skilled, and extra succesful Lara Croft. Final however not least, when quizzed concerning the mixture of human and animal enemies, the staff described their alternative of placement as deliberate.

This isn’t a canopy shooter with enemies materializing from nowhere, and encounters are supposed to be supported by environmental storytelling explaining who these individuals are and why they’re in that place. So, whereas there could also be extra human enemies than within the unique, they’ve nonetheless been rigorously distributed solely the place it is smart.

Our Take

As a long-time fan of Lara Croft’s adventures, I’m cautiously optimistic about this remake. The unique was a masterpiece, however that was again in 1996; some oddities just like the medkits completely wanted to be mounted. In the case of different adjustments, we’ll have to attend till we even have the sport in our fingers.

I used to be truthfully hoping that the gamescom appointment was a hands-on preview, however alas, that was to not be. It should not be lengthy earlier than Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog give us a direct style of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, although.

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