The Tomb Raider: 1-2-3 Remastered collection reveals new features coming to the classic titles when it releases on February 14th.
Highlights
Tomb Raider 1-2-3 Remastered collection brings enhanced gameplay and art with modern and classic control options, boss health bars, new models, and real-time lighting effects.
Aspyr collaborated with Crystal Dynamics to maintain the original games' look and feel while updating them for today's gamers.
The remastered collection preserves Lara Croft's iconic original design, providing a modern polish while staying true to the original gameplay.
Aspyr shared tons of new information regarding the Tomb Raider 1-2-3 Remastered collection, mostly about how the original games' gameplay and art have been revamped for the collection's release on February 14. The remastered Tomb Raider games will be available for purchase on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC.
Tomb Raider 1-2-3 Remastered was first announced in September at the Nintendo Direct event. During this announcement, it was revealed that Aspyr was developing the collection. Aspyr specializes in porting games and has decades of experience doing so, and even handled Tomb Raider 2's MacOS port back in 1998. The collection's initial reveal included a short gameplay trailer that gave fans a small glimpse into what the remastered games would look like, but details have otherwise remained hard to come by, until now.
Aspyr focused on two categories, gameplay and art, to showcase the improvements coming to the Tomb Raider 1-2-3 Remastered collection. On the gameplay side of things, the remastered games will introduce modern and classic control options, boss health bars, 3D item sprite replacements, over 200 trophies/achievements, a photo mode, and "a few more surprises." On the art side of things, the remastered titles will introduce real-time lighting effects, new models, modernized environments, and a graphics toggle to switch between the modern and classic presentations. To implement the collection's art updates, Aspyr collaborated with Crystal Dynamics, the studio that develops modern Tomb Raider titles. In addition to the gameplay and art categories, Aspyr also outlined its engineering goals, which focused on maintaining the original games' look and feel while tastefully updating them to satisfy today's gamers.
New Features Coming to the Tomb Raider 1-2-3 Remastered Collection
Gameplay: Modern and classic control options, boss health bars, 3D item sprite replacements, over 200 trophies/achievements, and a photo mode
Art: Real-time lighting effects, new models, modernized environments, and a graphics toggle to switch between the modern and classic presentations
And "a few more surprises"
Aspyr further explained that the Tomb Raider 1-2-3 Remastered collection will keep Lara Croft's iconic original design. The studio's newest update is promising news for Tomb Raider fanatics, who will get to replay the legendary titles with a modern polish while still experiencing how the original games were meant to be played.
It seems that the remastered titles will cover many of the bases that Tomb Raider fans hoped they would, with modernized movement and better lighting being some of the more requested features. However, other requested improvements, like a weapon wheel and more forgiving enemies, have not been confirmed.
It seems that Aspyr was careful not to mess with any of the original Tomb Raiders' classic gameplay or features, so new additions like a weapon wheel or redesigned enemies might have been considered too drastic.