Glory to Team Tank

“We had a firm belief that the gameplay of Tomb Raider I, II, and III is timeless, and with our use of the existing source code, we had every jump, secret, enemy, and puzzle exactly as the original development team designed and intended,” wrote Aspyr’s director of product Chris Bashaar. “So the conversation evolved into: how do we surprise and delight these fans? And that’s where we started brainstorming additions instead of revisions.”

It’s the mid-to-late 00s era of Tomb Raiders Legend, Anniversary and Underworld that Aspyr have modelled their modern controller settings after, with Bashaar adding: “These changes are felt mostly in the way Lara moves – the right stick has full camera control and Lara moves directionally based on camera position.

“Just like our approach to the graphical presentation, the original tank-style controls are still available to players via a menu toggle.”

The post also talks about the decision to include boss health bars “to let you know if you should swap to the grenade launcher or if you should keep soaking pistol damage” (grenade launcher always, surely?), as well as why they’ve given “a little more umph” to item pick-ups with their new 3D models. As for the visuals, Aspyr are aiming for that classic “we want the games to look the way they did in your mind” vibe, though you can, of course, toggle between the old and new graphics at any time.

I have quite happy memories of stodgily moving Lara around her early tomb raidingpuzzlesas a young’un, so I’m glad her tank controls are being preserved and maintained like one of the many, many historical artefacts knocking around her old mansion. It’s important that today’s young’uns know the fires in which we were forged, I say, even though there’s a very good chance they’ll switch them on for all of two minutes before recoiling in horror and immediately swapping over to the modern controls forevermore. That’s okay. I can live with that.

Really, as a reformed hardware person, I just have a great fondness foranythingthat let’s you toggle between old and new at the drop of a hat, whether it’s graphics or control schemes. There’s a kind of magic in that, and I look forward once again toaccidentally inflating my play timefor (deep breath) Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft when it comes toSteamon February 14th.