Tomb Raider trilogy remasters release tomorrow!

[Raging Justice]

Very excited about this, I hope there will be a physical release at some point. I really miss old school Tomb Raider. I haven't been a fan of where the franchise has gone in recent years. I actually prefer that this is a remaster rather than a remake. I like these old games the way they are and don't want them to be modernized in any way. Crystal Dynamics has already done enough of that. In fact, I read that they're not even involved with this and are also not particularly happy about these old games reaching a new audience. These were done by Aspyr.

[Nexus-X]

I’m holding out for physical. From what I’ve seen, a few things could be improved with updates too. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some patches to adjust lighting and some other collision issues soon. Hopefully a potential disc version would be patched up and it isn’t distributed by some awful limited games distributor.

[marurun]

The DF Retro analysis is that this game is pretty spot on right from the start. Additional polish is always nice, but if classic TR is your jam, this sounds to already be where you’ll want it.

[Limewater]

Why is her pony tail hanging down like that as she's presumably flying through the air?

Was it always this way?

[MrPopo]

That piece of key art was always that way, yes.

[Raging Justice]

Overall, these remasters are pretty cool and faithful to the originals (been playing the Switch version). Though we do have some reminders of how annoying things are in modern gaming like a big long legal document they want you to read before you start the game, followed by a message by Crystal Dynamics telling you how they hate these games because they are apparently offensive, racist, and evil...or something

That's pretty much the extent of their involvement in this project, telling the world how much they hate the franchise they currently have the rights too

Oh, and they censored Pierre DuPont's jacket

Sigh, this is gaming in 2024

All those little things aside though, Aspyr did a tremendous job on these and they deserve all the praise that I will never again give to anything from Crystal Dynamics. I love that you can switch between the new and old graphics at the touch of a button. If LRG does a physical of these (or any company really), I will be super happy. By then, all of the patches/updates, etc. will have released so we can get a proper physical with everything on the cartridge/disc.

[marurun]

followed by a message by Crystal Dynamics telling you how they hate these games because they are apparently offensive, racist, and evil...or something

That's pretty much the extent of their involvement in this project, telling the world how much they hate the franchise they currently have the rights too

Please do not sensationalize or misrepresent this issue. The early Tomb Raider games DO have some racist depictions of native peoples. Acknowledging that is important, or would you rather they just removed that content from the game altogether? There’s an argument from the other side of this issue that suggests the games SHOULD be scrubbed of that content, and that the disclaimer is a cynical means of not putting in the work to fix this harmful depiction.

Crystal Dynamics is currently owned by Embracer, and Embracer recently cut a lot of projects, studios, and developers because they were too aggressive acquiring them during the height of the pandemic. But guess what! Aspyr is ALSO owned by Embracer, and Aspyr is experienced in porting and enhancing older games, where Crystal Dynamics and Eidos are not. So it makes more financial sense to do what Embracer did, let the experts do what they have the most experience with and minimize the costs associated with this release.

[marurun]

Would love to hear some hands-on from folks here about this. While Tomb Raider definitely had some jank, it was also quite an impressive game for the time. I'm curious to know how RBers feel about it getting back into it today.