Tomb Raider I-III: Remastered

My first hour with this collection confirmed two things simultaneously: Aspyr did something genuinely useful here, and the original Tomb Raider games are as uncompromising as you remember. Getting all three titles running cleanly on modern hardware, with overhauled visuals and a new optional control scheme, is not a small feat. For years, the only way to play these on PC was through community mods and workarounds. That barrier is now gone, and that matters. The visual upgrade is the headline act, and it largely delivers. Textures are sharper, character models look closer to what the original marketing promised back in 1996, and the remastered mode runs at a smooth 60 frames per second. The real party trick is the ability to toggle between remastered and original graphics on the fly, even mid-cutscene, which sounds gimmicky but turns out to be genuinely useful. Remastered lighting occasionally kills the atmosphere in ways the old blocky geometry never did, and several reviewers noted that darker sections in the new mode can actually obscure ledges and secret areas that were clearly visible in the original. Swapping back to classic mode for tricky navigation sections is a real and recurring strategy, not just a nostalgia button. The FMV cutscenes are a weak point regardless of which mode you pick: the remastered versions use AI upscaling that muddies them, while the originals just look like 480p video on a modern display. Controls are where the honest conversation gets uncomfortable. Tank controls return in their original form, and Aspyr added a modern third-person scheme as an alternative. Neither is fully satisfying. The modern controls smooth out basic movement but fight against levels that were built around the grid-precise logic of tank input, precise platforming over spike pits and timed jumps into narrow corridors become genuinely punishing when your camera and movement model weren't designed together. The lock-on combat, where Lara pirouettes toward enemies with her dual pistols while you helplessly watch, has not aged gracefully against smaller targets. Spiders, in particular, seem to have survived the remaster completely unbothered by bullets fired at point-blank range. Manual saving also persists, meaning a careless player can wander twenty minutes past their last save point into a death trap. None of this is Aspyr's fault, strictly speaking, but it is the reality of buying this in 2024. The post-launch Challenge Mode update added meaningful replay value for players who finish the campaigns. It functions as a level replay system with a modifier suite: health percentage, enemy count, enemy type, weapon loadouts, health regeneration rate, and more can all be dialed up or down per level. Higher Challenge Ratings unlock ten new outfits for Lara, each carrying actual gameplay bonuses like damage resistance, faster movement, or altered enemy behavior, the Paragon of Peace outfit, for instance, makes non-boss enemies passive unless you attack first. Fifteen new achievements give the mode a structured completion path. It is a smart addition that gives returning players and achievement hunters a concrete reason to go back through levels they already know. The collection also includes the expansion packs: Unfinished Business for the first game, The Golden Mask for the second, and The Lost Artifact for the third. That is a substantial amount of content. If the three base games are already 20-plus hours each for a thorough run, the expansions add meaningful extra mileage. Tomb Raider III in particular benefits from the remaster, its wider locations, greater variety of enemies, and better-balanced pacing make it the strongest of the three by most accounts, and it looks the best in the new visual treatment. Who is this for? Veterans who want a clean, mod-free way to replay formative games will find exactly that. Genre newcomers curious about where action-adventure started will get an honest education, these games do not hold your hand, explain their logic, or apologize for difficulty spikes. Anyone expecting controls or camera systems close to modern standards will hit frustration fast and should approach with adjusted expectations. The Steam rating of 84% positive across more than eight thousand reviews reflects a collection that the existing fanbase is genuinely happy with, even if it is not the ground-up remake that some were hoping for.

Alex · Scout Team

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