The Tomb Raider series is one of the longest-lasting in the video game industry, going all the way back to 1996. It has graced many different platforms, including Nintendo ones. And with the increased power of the Switch 2, lots of others are coming over too, including the recently released Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration.
But now, a new remake of the first game, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, is coming to Switch 2 next year. At Summer Game Fest 2026, I got to play about 40 minutes of the game and sit down with the developers to talk about bringing protagonist Lara Croft back to her roots.
To be clear, Lara Croft in Legacy of Atlantis is the same one from the Survivor trilogy (Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider). In this new sequel adventure, Lara is much more confident, bringing years of wisdom along with her.
“It’s a re-imagining of the debut adventure coming up on the 30th anniversary, we wanted to celebrate that moment,” said Crystal Dynamics experience director Jeff Adams. “We really wanted to make sure that she’s still bringing all of the experiences from the Survivor era.”
The connection may not be immediately apparent, given that the art style in Legacy of Atlantis is much more stylised than the gritty tone of the Survivor days. However, that was intentional.
We’re trying to meet Lara in this phase where she’s unfettered by the past. It’s a blue sky horizon ahead of her.
“Art direction is always talking about the emotions, so what we’re trying to do is invoke the emotions that people had when they played the original one, which is much more colourful,” Flying Wild Hog art director Arek Tomaszewski said.
Crystal Dynamics game director Raul Siqueira added, “The tone in Legacy of Atlantis is intended by design to be more optimistic. We’re trying to meet Lara in this phase where she’s unfettered by the past. It’s a blue sky horizon ahead of her. So she’s just having fun being the Tomb Raider at this time, and so we wanted the visual tone to reflect that.”
The elephant in the room, however, is that Legacy of the Tomb Raider used AI during the development process. Everyone’s opinions about AI vary, but personally, I didn’t detect anything that stood out to me as blatantly AI in my demo. That might be by design though, as Crystal Dynamics confirmed that AI-assisted assets were replaced by or refined by its human developers.
During the PC demo, I was in a jungle solving a puzzle where I had to find gears throughout the area and connect them to open up a gate. One thing that was noticeable was Lara’s jump, which was surprisingly far. When playing other AAA action games, the player character’s jump often doesn’t go very far, opting for more realism. But when I was playing as Lara here, I felt like I could cross any gap.
“It is important to us to stay faithful to the original, where acrobatics were part of her personality and how she moves, so we wanted to make sure that that was incorporated into it,” Siqueira said. “We wanted to show some sort of personality of Lara that is different from the Lara from [Survivor era], who was more grounded.”
Acrobatics is a huge part of combat now, too. Lara wields two pistols and she can backflip around dinosaurs while shooting at them. When landing shots, Lara builds up Focus, which she can then expend to activate a ‘bullet time’ mechanic and slow down time around her in a cool, cinematic flourish. It’s just another way to build out Lara’s personality.
“It’s also a fantastic example of what re-imagining means, because if you remember in Tomb Raider Anniversary, she did have the adrenaline dodge mechanic, where it did do a time dilation moment for a perfect headshot,” Adams explained. “That was the whole team basically saying, ‘Hey, that was a cool thing. How can we kind of make it feel more modern?’”
Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider franchise has spent the past three decades gracing our TV screens and handhelds. While 2027’s Tomb Raider: Catalyst (a sequel to 2008’s Tomb: Raider Underworld) hasn’t been announced for Switch 2, hopefully Legacy of Atlantis isn’t the end of her journey yet on Nintendo platforms.
“The fact that she can transcend decades, move through different genres and permutations is really what makes her such a defining figure in gaming,” Adams said. “You can make her work in almost every decade, whatever the paradigm is, because at the core of it, she’s just a really engaging character.”
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis launches on 12th February 2027 for Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series, and PC.
