Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered

My honest reaction after spending time with all three entries in this collection is that Aspyr has done something genuinely admirable with difficult raw material. The Last Revelation, Chronicles, and The Angel of Darkness are not the beloved classics that made up the first remastered trilogy - they are, by wide consensus, the wobblier half of Core Design's run with Lara Croft. The good news is that the effort here is real. The visual toggle, which lets you flip between original and remastered graphics on the fly, still impresses, and quality-of-life additions like boss health bars, ammo counters, and an on-screen action indicator make moment-to-moment play noticeably less punishing than the originals. Of the three, The Last Revelation is the clear anchor. Set almost entirely in Egypt, it commits fully to atmosphere - cramped corridors under desolate dunes, intricate multi-stage puzzles, and a focused cast of characters give it a coherence the other two can't match. It is also the biggest visual beneficiary of the remaster treatment. The opening unskippable tutorial sequence will test your patience, but push through it and you get the best puzzle design in the entire Core Design era. Chronicles is a looser anthology format - Lara in short, self-contained adventures across jungles, haunted mansions, and rooftops - and while it looks fine, the level design is noticeably more formulaic and the overall energy is that of a development team running on fumes. Angel of Darkness is the most complicated conversation. Notorious at launch for being genuinely unfinished, the remaster does more heavy lifting here than anywhere else: Aspyr restored cut content, reintroduced Lara's dual pistols (the original shipped her with a single pistol, somehow), and even collaborated with modders who had spent years patching the game unofficially. The result is the best version of Angel of Darkness that will probably ever exist. That said, it is still a game that swapped tomb raiding for stealth sections in Paris sewers, introduced a vague strength stat that the game never properly explains, and features CQC takedowns bolted onto controls that were already struggling. The story - Lara framed for murder, tangling with an occult secret society - is legitimately dark and compelling, but the gameplay wobbles badly around it. Post-launch patches have since addressed lingering bugs, added a new hand-to-hand tutorial in the Parisian Ghetto, and smoothed out camera control in modern mode. One post-launch controversy worth flagging: French and Brazilian voice actresses accused Aspyr of using AI-generated voices without consent; Aspyr apologized and removed the lines in a subsequent hotfix, so the version available today is the corrected one. Who is this for? If you played I-III Remastered and want the full Core Design picture, this collection delivers that with care and at a generous price point. If you are a complete newcomer, start with the first trilogy instead - these games are harder to love on their own terms, and the controls, even in modern mode, still carry the archaic DNA of their era. Longtime fans who want to give Angel of Darkness a fair shake for the first time have never had a better opportunity. Everyone else should adjust expectations: you are getting one classic (TR4), one passable filler entry (TR5), and one fascinating trainwreck that has now been partially restored (TR6). The Steam user score sitting around 89 percent positive suggests the fanbase is satisfied, but that audience skews heavily nostalgic. Approach accordingly.

Alex · Scout Team

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