Tomb Raider Reboot Brings Back Popular Feature From Survivor Trilogy

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is reportedly bringing back a popular feature that was introduced during the Survivor trilogy.

From what we’ve seen of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, it seems to be pulling from every era of Lara Croft’s iconic 30-year history.

In this new “unified timeline”, Lara is supposed to the same character as we’ve played in the original Core Design games, the LAU trilogy, and the survivor trilogy.

Being a reimagining of the original 1996 Tomb Raider game (as well as plucking inspiration from its first remake, Tomb Raider: Anniversary), there is more connective tissue between Legacy of Atlantis and the classic games than there are from the more recent Lara Croft adventures you may be familiar with.

However, one feature introduced in Shadow of the Tomb Raider has been confirmed to be making a return, and it sounds like it’s going to be an excellent addition to ensuring the game is approachable to newcomers and long-time fans alike.

Shadow Of The Tomb Raider's Difficulty Settings Make A Triumphant Return

As confirmed by GamesRadar+, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will feature customisable difficulty, allowing players to tweak how difficult each aspect of the game is.

“I think the biggest lesson that we took from [the Survivor Trilogy] is tuning difficulty based on players' expectations,” game director Raul Siqueira told GamesRadar+.

“One of the things I think we got really good at towards the end of that trilogy was we had a lot of different options for players that wanted to tune the experience to their liking.

“We found, because Tomb Raider blends a bunch of different things together, there are people that are really into puzzles and they want puzzles to be very difficult, but they're not great at combat, so they want combat to be easy.”

Siqueira then confirms that adjustable difficulty will be making a return in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, adding that "you can expect a very similar mode for it".

Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Square Enix

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, this was done through three separate difficulty options: Combat, Puzzles, and Exploration, with you being able to set distinct difficulty levels for all three.

Combat does exactly what it implies—it adjusts how many hits Lara can take as well as the health of enemies.

Exploration changes how readable certain climbable surfaces and ledges are within the world, with higher difficulties blending these ledges in with the rest of the scenery, and lower difficulties signposting where you need to go a little more clearly.

Puzzle difficulty, on the other hand, completely changes how some puzzles behave to make them easier or difficult depending on your difficulty level. The option affects if Lara can call out hints, and whether certain interactable objects are highlighted for you.

It meant that if you were struggling with combat but wanted a tougher time solving a puzzle, you could put the former down to Easy and crank the latter up to Hard, and the game could feature these as independent difficulty values.

In our Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis preview, we said it is “certainly on the right track. That delay was a smart move that’ll result in a smoother, more polished gameplay experience which is exactly what a reboot of this calibre deserves.”

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis launches on 12 February, 2027.

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