In context: Tomb Raider is one of the most iconic franchises in video game history. It’s the reason that the 1996 classic was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame in 2018. Whether it needed a remastered version is debatable, but it got one from a developer best known for his cross-platform Tomb Raider project, OpenLara.
Some of you may be familiar with an ongoing uber-ambitious project called OpenLara. The labor of love aims to recreate the original Tomb Raider games (1-5) on an open-source, cross-platform engine (LibRetro). A playable version of the original Tomb Raider is already playable online via web browser.
Unfortunately, the project has been inexplicably stalled for several months. The modder behind OpenLara, XProger, explained why it has been on hold for over a year. Evidently, Saber Interactive and Aspyr Media had XProger, whose real name is Timur Gagiev, working tirelessly night and day on Tomb Raider I – III Remastered to have it ready for its Valentine’s Day launch.
I’m grateful to the heads of @SaberGames for trusting me to lead the project and assemble a dream team of true fans.
Thanks to @AspyrMedia for providing the source code for their Mac ports to us.
Many thanks to Digital Forms for coming to our aid, you are great pros! (2/4)– XProger (@XProger_san) February 14, 2024
“From the beginning, we had complete freedom and set ourselves an impossible goal, which could only be approached by a small ‘Development Team’ of crazy people, ready to work 24/7 [for the] next year with an absolute vision of what and for whom we are doing,” Gagiev tweeted. “Thanks to the original developers and community, we eagerly read ALL your comments, interviews, reviews and reactions. The responsibility to all of you was higher than the fear of deadlines and the insane amount of work.”
Also read: 27 Years of Tomb Raider & Lara Croft
Tomb Raider Remastered is not Gagiev’s first professional gig. His expertise in video game graphics has landed him positions in several studios working on various well-known games, including Saints Row: The Third – Remastered, Quake: Champions, and World War Z. He was also credited as Rendering Director for the PC version of Bethesda’s Starfield. Gagiev is currently Saber’s Technical Director. Before that, he worked as an Associate and Lead Rendering Director at Sperasoft. He also spent time as a Graphics Engineer at Saber in the late 2010s.
The remastered trilogy has received “generally favorable” reviews from critics and users, averaging high 70s to low 80s scores. The primary complaint is that the mechanics are still just as clunky as the originals despite a modernization of the control scheme. The redone graphics are also a point of contention for some.
“The biggest problem it faces is that the new coat of paint is largely just that – the core gameplay is still rooted in early 3D jankiness and feels awkward to play now – and in some ways, it’s harder to wrap your mind around it now since no control scheme offered up feelings as natural as anything featured in a Tomb Raider game since the PS2 days onward. The new visuals look good in theory but have odd clipping problems in motion, and the animations being rooted in the PS1 games hurts the modern-day wrapper as well.” – Hardcore Gamer review
Much of the game’s natural appeal is with older gamers looking to relive the nostalgia of playing the nearly 30-year-old titles on current hardware regardless of the new paint. To that end, the remakes deliver, especially in Classic mode. Newcomers will likely enjoy the idea of the game but will ultimately see it as “just okay” compared to modern third-person adventures.