Tomb Raider V: Chronicles

My honest reaction after finishing Chronicles: relief, and then a weird fondness I couldn't fully justify. This is the runt of the classic Core Design litter, produced under circumstances that were almost comically inauspicious. The development team had already tried to kill Lara at the end of The Last Revelation, only for the publisher to insist on another entry. The result is a game shaped by obligation rather than inspiration, and it shows in nearly every level. The structure is genuinely different from what came before, and that counts for something. Rather than one continuous adventure, you get four self-contained episodes told as flashbacks by Lara's friends after her memorial service. Rome gives you classic platform-and-puzzle Tomb Raider, hunting the Philosopher's Stone while dodging returning faces Pierre Dupont and Larson. The Russia arc drops Lara onto a submarine and leans into combat and stealth more than the series usually dares. The Ireland episode, set on a haunted island called Black Isle, strips Lara of all weapons and sends her through legitimately spooky corridors armed only with a tightrope skill and her nerve. The fourth arc puts her inside a high-tech New York skyscraper, where a remote accomplice named Zip guides her through a stealth-heavy heist. The variety is real. The execution is uneven. The tank controls and fixed-camera system carry over unchanged from The Last Revelation, which is a double-edged inheritance. Series veterans will slide right in; newcomers will spend the first hour fighting the inputs before the muscle memory clicks. On PC specifically, the port has real problems. Several Steam reviewers report the game not running full-screen, controllers not being recognized out of the box, and a handful of save-game bugs concentrated in the final levels that can corrupt progress. The first two episodes largely escape this, but the back half of the game was widely observed to feel unfinished at launch, and those issues have not been patched away in the years since. If you are not comfortable hunting down community workarounds, factor that friction into your decision. What Chronicles does exceptionally well, even given all the caveats, is variety of tone. No other entry in the Core era swings this hard between Indiana Jones platforming, claustrophobic stealth, supernatural horror, and a techno-thriller final act. The cutscenes are a genuine highlight, with the memorial framing giving more character depth to supporting players than any previous entry managed. The Windows version also ships with the Tomb Raider Level Editor on a second disc, a package that spawned a modding community that remains active today. That alone gives it some lasting value for the creatively inclined. It is short, probably eight to ten hours on a first run, which at least means it never outstays its welcome. If you have played and enjoyed Tomb Raider one through four, Chronicles functions as a decent coda with enough structural novelty to hold interest. It is not the place to start, and the PC port requires patience. Approach it as what it actually is: a collection of cut-level concepts and leftover ambitions, stitched together by a studio running on fumes.

Alex · Scout Team

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