Remaster and port studio Aspyr has partnered with Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics to release another trilogy remaster. This one will feature entries from the second trilogy, which includes arguably the series’ worst game, The Angel of Darkness.
Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered, announced on Friday, will include The Last Revelation, Chronicles, and the aforementioned The Angel of Darkness. All three will be getting upgrades, with better graphics, the ability to switch between classic and modern control schemes, and more than 150 new trophies for achievement hunters. The photo mode included in Tomb Raider I-III Remastered will also make an appearance. Finally, players will get some boss health bars.
This trilogy marked a very strange time in the history of the franchise. Core Design, Tomb Raider’s original developers, received a mandate from publisher Eidos Interactive to release a new Tomb Raider game every year after the massive success of the original. The burnout led the team to try to kill off Lara Croft, albeit unsuccessfully. The Last Revelation had her die at the end, but of course the game was a big hit, so she lived on. Chronicles came out the following year, but it didn’t sell that well. It was considered the biggest failure in the series — until The Angel of Darkness came along.
The final act in the trilogy was plagued with a lot of problems. Not only was Core done with Eidos’ mandate to release a new game every year, but it was the first Tomb Raider title developed for the PlayStation 2, and featured a lot of technical issues. Regardless of what players thought of the game itself (it sold really well), it proved that the series needed a reboot.
So if you want to play the games that capped off the first era of Tomb Raider, and hopefully with The Angel of Darkness fixed, you can do so on February 14, 2025, for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC for $30.
