Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis Needed That Delay, We Played It

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis does feel like a return to form for the series, but after our hands-on session at Summer Game Fest, gamers will be glad about its release date delay.

Lara Croft’s next outing was originally scheduled for later this year but in a new trailer shown during PlayStation’s latest State of Play showcase, the game was given a new release window of February 2027.

Now this was disappointing for many but as usual, it was done for all the right reasons as our hands-on time at SGF was rough.

Everybody Do The Dinosaur

The hands-on session took us through one of the earlier levels in the game, Lost Valley.

Fans will undoubtedly remember this level from the original PlayStation release, as it sees Lara come face-to-face with the impossible. Dinosaurs.

The remake of this level is simply divine. The true scale of this hidden world shines radiantly with lush greenery and crystal clear waters, with even Lara herself making several remarks about its beauty.

Unfortunately, it was gorgeous to look at but so-so to explore. Lara’s a little more acrobatic than she was in the Square Enix Tomb Raider games but slightly less acrobatic than she was in the OGs. In our opinion, Lara’s moveset strikes a strong balance between realism and game-feel.

There’s a couple of kinks that need ironing out though. Like any good Tomb Raider game, there was a lot of platforming involved in the demo, though Lara’s oddly floaty jump made that platforming unpredictable. It also just didn’t feel very good. There were times when it looked like Lara wouldn’t clear the gap before some unseen force miraculously gave her the extra air time she needed to grasp the distant ledge.

Speaking of ledges, we’re thrilled to confirm that there was no yellow paint to be seen in our session.

Amazon Game Studios

Exploration relies solely on what you/Lara can see, prompting you to look carefully at the cliff walls for ledges and scratch marks rather than out-of-place colours.

However, while Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis ignores the gaming fad of painted walls and containers, it collects others in the form of a grappling hook and environmental scanner.

The hook at least makes sense. It’s a Tomb Raider-like tool that Lara can use to manipulate the environment for puzzles and exploration. She can use it to swing from tree branches or, for the purposes of our demo, drag cogs through water before popping them into place for a mechanism.

An environmental scanner is another so-so inclusion. On the one hand, it’s handy for players who can’t figure out the way forward. For instance, it’ll highlight interactive objects needed for puzzles. It’ll be helpful for some, but it’ll feel unnecessary for others.

Now it wouldn’t be Tomb Raider’s Lost Valley without dinosaurs and the brief combat encounter was…fine.

Lara’s trusty dual-wielded pistols continue to serve her well and whittling away the visible health bars of attacking velociraptors was a delightful callback to the OG game that we’re glad to see survived for the remake. Dodging felt okay if not a little janky at times (sometimes you’d still get hit regardless of the dodge) and Lara’s slow-mo bullet time ability is exactly the sort of cinematic hijinks we’d expect from this sort of reimagining.

The demo concluded with a tense chase sequence with the T-Rex, with Lara sprinting, leaping, sliding and swinging her way to freedom as a living fossil tramples the jungle around her.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis 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.

The modern additions and improvements are a mixed bag that either feel like a half-baked attempt of keeping up with the latest gaming trends or a solid quality-of-life improvement.

We’ll need to play the full game in February 2027 for a final verdict, but luckily our hands-on session at Summer Game Fest has done exactly what it needed to, impressed and intrigued us.

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