Crystal Dynamics Talks Remake Philosophy for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis

It has been thirty years since Lara Croft graced our screens, and she has been a powerhouse ever since. With Crystal Dynamics continuing to be behind the wheel of the latest entries (Legacy of Atlantis), we not only were able to get some hands-on time with the upcoming action adventure title, but talked to some of the developers.

We were able to sit down with Crystal Dynamics’ Experience Director Jeff Adams and Game Director Raul Siqueira, along with Fly Wild Hog’s Art Director Arek Tomaszewski at Summer Game Fest to get to know a little bit more about the upcoming Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis.

Speaking With Jeff Adams, Raul Siqueira and Director Arek Tomaszewski

It has been a long time coming. How are you feeling about the game’s release coming up so quickly?

Jeff Adams: Pretty good, actually. I think we were talking about earlier today that it’s been a minute since we shipped something, so the development times have become bigger, longer throughout the years. The bigger a game becomes, the more time it takes to make it.

We’re getting something. To get people to play it, to see marketing do all of this [referring to the Summer Game Fest booth], it’s an exciting time in game development.

Raul Siqueira: We were sitting here talking about earlier: “Wow, these are the first group of people that get the hands on it outside of the development environment.” We have been with it for a while, and now people get to play it, experience it, let us know how they feel about it, and that’s super exciting. It’s like taking your kid to pre-school. Go out there, make friends. It’ll be OK.

Arek Tomaszewski: Everyone we have talked to so far, they were either excited or they enjoy what they see. Obviously, it’s a pre-alpha state of the game, so it’s still completely open to development to improve things, but I think [everyone] is overall excited about it, and I just got this feeling that it’s a really good timing for [Lara] to come back in a way that she does. We bring something fresh, because there’s a bunch of people who played it but don’t remember that much.

What was your philosophy coming into the game? Did you want to make a direct remake or spin on it?

Adams: We never come into it like we want to put our fingerprints on it. That’s not the end goal. Part of getting a chance to be able to work on this is a big responsibility; we want to make sure we aren’t alienating a group of people who spent a lot of hours, a lot of time, immersing themselves in this world, so what we want to do is make sure that you are seeing key moments, key locations recreated in a higher fidelity than we’ve never seen before, but we want to leave the door open to be able to push into some new territories, to be able to take some creative chances. It’ll be more appropriate for what modern gaming audiences are looking for.

Siqueira: Just to add to that, one of the cool parts of it is, we all grew up with that game too. So there’s that level of, we were fans before we were developers, and now we get to take a look at some of the moments that were very important for us, and present that to a new generation of players.

I don’t think I can say it better than Jeff did, but this isn’t about putting a fingerprint on it. It’s about preserving that feeling that was so special for us and for everyone else that played this in ’96 and then in Anniversary, and then just bringing it to a new audience.

One of our favorite things about the demo was just how open it was with no indicators or guidance. But are there going to be any accessibility options for those who want it?

Adams: We are going to have accessibility options, something we will get more into later, but in terms of experience overall, one of the beautiful things about the old games is that, Lara feels like she’s out there in the world. She’s not getting hit over the head with sensory all the time, so she’s basically immersing herself in that. We’re trying to get that feeling back, but we just have so many cool new tools we can use with subtle application, like the music score to make the whole thing feel way more cinematic in its presentation.

But, we don’t want to dimmish the challenge for the sake of legibility. If we feel like we’re hand-holding anyone, then we’re not doing our job correctly. If the feedback is ‘hey, I don’t know where to go,’ and we’re like ‘cool, here’s neon paint on the wall,’ that’s not the right path forward. The path forward is to say, what are we not doing to help at all feel intuitive? And we basically shift our attention towards that.

Siqueira: And I think the original game in ’96 was more of a cerebral challenge. Games back then were more about taking your time, explore, get lost. It’s part of its original design in a way. Figuring out which components of that we are preserving so that the game remains faithful and which ones are like, ‘OK, we also got to make sure this is also playable the modern audiences in 2026’ and accessibility things come in, and we try and find that line between expecting the original and making sure players get the challenge they want, not the challenges we’re imposing on them. So we should tailor how difficult one component of that game is for you, which can be difficult for me, which can be difficult for someone else.

We can assume a lot of the outfits from the original will make an appearance, but can we expect any outfits from more recent entries to make an appearance?

Adams: I think we would be doing a disservice to anybody that reads your articles and spoil anything for them. We are super excited for what folks are going to see; you may have seen a couple of hints in there. People are going to collect things; there’s going to be some cool outfits that Lara is going to be able to put on.

Tomaszewski: Also to that point, when they play the game, they should keep looking. I think that you’ll find stuff that will keep you looking.

Adams: But we’ll have a lot more to talk about what Lara’s able to do with the things she’s harvesting [picking up in the environment] very soon.

How much of the Survivor trilogy influenced this, and can we expect to see elements of a new canonized Lara origin story in Legacy?

Adams: The elephant in the room. I can confidently report that the Lara you see right there, is the same Lara that was in the Survivor series. So, she is in a different phase of her career, she unfettered from the past, she’s at a new place, she’s enjoying doing what she does at the top of her game, and that’s where fans are going to meet her.

Siqueira: And piggybacking off that response, in terms of the gameplay, it’s also something that we consider. We looked at a lot of what we did in the Survivor trilogy and how that resonated with players for the new audience and try to figure out the balance of what old Tomb Raider and new Tomb Raider and finding the merge between the two.

You probably noticed the traversal mechanics are not exactly the same as in Survivor, but you can probably see there is a correlation to it, same thing with combat. We learn something from every game we make. We don’t just make a game and then throw it away. We look at Survivor: what did we like about this and what did players like about it. Cool, let’s make sure we bring that forward for the next one.