This time last year, I lamented that Aspyr Media hadn’t gone a little further with the honour of remastering the original trilogy of Tomb Raider games. And now Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered has me reliving history.
Tomb Raider was a milestone for video games, providing an Indiana Jones-esque protagonist for the nineties. Like the previous remaster collection, Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered allows fans to revisit the games that put Lara Croft on the map in all of their tanky, pointy glory. With a tap of the start button players can easily toggle between the original graphics (at modern resolution) or a smooth remastered look; similarly, one can swap between the original “Tank” controls or a refined “Modern” set without fully leaving gameplay.
It’s coming up on 30 years since the series began, however, and this generation of the series has aged into an acquired taste over the decades. The original experience is offered lovingly here—in itself, a win for video game history and preservation. For many longtime fans, that’s all it needs to be.
But it’s also something that could be achieved by putting the games on PlayStation Plus as PSone Classics. This is a remaster collection, after all, and in this regard, Aspyr has turned in the bare minimum again.
“Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered‘s modern control engine is undoubtedly an improvement, but beset with its own flaws.”
The modern graphical upgrade in Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered looks great, for the most part. Essentially a reskin, its quality is situational, depending on the quality of the original assets. Lara’s models shine again, and environments feel much more alive with rippling water, improved textures, and readable signs (gasp!). Now you can actually see details like hieroglyphs, which is very important when one of the games is set in Egypt. Tomb Raider: Chronicles even explains Lara’s wardrobe change at the start of its first level—after fleeing the opera in the FMV intro, her fancy dress is now discarded on a gate in favour of her familiar raiding wardrobe.
Having an easy toggle for the graphic modes became a fun experiment, seeing how different textures or enemies look now. Unfortunately, some of the original environments were very boxy to begin with, so now they’re very nicely-adorned boxes. (And oddly, lighting was a bit of an issue in some places, in either classic or modern graphics.)
In the same vein, the modern control engine is undoubtedly an improvement but is beset with its own flaws. The levels were designed as a grid around Lara’s tank-like moveset, so there are obstacles and challenges that remain just as tricky to overcome with the new controls—while some areas are now even more difficult because of them.
With no new on-screen directions and the in-game tutorial dialogue still referencing the original buttons, the first puzzle players will have to solve is figuring out which button to press for each traversal challenge. Some of the flaws in the Tomb Raider I–III Remastered collection are still present, frustratingly, such as buggy swimming controls.
What sets Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered apart from its predecessor is the calibre of the individual games themselves. After the success of the first two games, the pressure was on to churn out more sequels, leading original developer Core Design to either divide its team or drive key members away. The team was burned out, and it already seemed like the series’ sales had peaked—at least in its current iteration.
By the time the fourth game, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, was finished, the team hatched a plan to kill Lara off while the boss was away and supposedly brought her story to an end. Obviously, this didn’t stick. Core was then split—one team tasked with creating another PS1-era entry (game #5, Tomb Raider: Chronicles) while another paved a new road forward on the PS2 (game #6, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness).
Even beneath the new coat of paint, the strife beneath the games’ original development is still palpable in Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered. Each game in the collection is a historical oddity in its own way, telling a chapter of one of the industry’s most avoidable tragedies.
The Last Revelation takes the bold approach of drilling into Lara’s backstory and focusing entirely on Egypt instead of globetrotting to various exotic locations. It’s a gamble that pays off well, and The Last Revelation holds up as well as the first three games.
Chronicles, a collection of cut levels and concepts stitched together as mourners tell tales at Lara’s funeral, then overcorrects from that focus. Both games follow the original trilogy’s trajectory to a fault, offering a few novel innovations without ever truly addressing the issues that held back the previous games.
“Even beneath the new coat of paint, the strife beneath the games’ original development is still palpable in Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered.”
Angel of Darkness, Lara’s “next-gen” debut on PS2, had ambitions of revitalizing the core gameplay with more stealth and melee combat. It proved to be a flawed, incomplete and rushed game in 2003—to the point that Lara’s return from the supposed dead isn’t addressed—so it still feels flawed in 2025, even with a reskin. That being said, it’s also the most intriguing piece of Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered—and this whole remaster endeavour—to revisit.
The control improvements feel more meaningful, in a way, on this slightly more sophisticated frame. Granted, it’s still too easy to accidentally send Lara to an ugly falling end that would make even the Green Goblin wince. Along the way, though, it’s easier to appreciate what the original devs were trying to go for twenty years ago, and that potential for redemption alone might be enough to justify the price of admission for some veteran players.
If you played the previous collection, you should know exactly what to expect from Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered when it comes to presentation—and there’s a good chance you’re going to buy this second half as well. If you’re a Tomb Raider fan, I can’t think of a reason to advise you otherwise.
Two of these three games are among the lowest-ranked in Lara Croft’s history, victims of the corporate greed that led to the series’ collapse in the first place, and the remasters themselves still feel like the bare minimum effort. But I also enjoy them as historical curiosities—they may be phoned-in games with just enough new paint to hide some warts, but they still harken back to a special time in gaming history.
Without that nostalgia, it’s harder to recommend this second trip to history class. The collection is decently priced, at least, but for the passerby, only The Last Revelation is really worth checking out… unless you want to experience the first collapse of the Croft dynasty firsthand.
I would like to see the remasters continue into the next era of Tomb Raider history, and hold out hope Aspyr (or whoever else Gearbox will muster) will put in a little more effort. Lara still has the potential to be a potent character in today’s landscape, especially as evidenced by the stellar Netflix anime which finally dropped last fall. With a little more than spit-shine, Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered might’ve helped illustrate that.
