Don't worry, Lara's tank controls are still an option in Tomb Raider I-III Remastered

17.01.2024 - 11:25 / rockpapershotgun.com

As the release of the (deep breath) Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft approaches (yes, that is its full and official Steam title) on February 14th, developers Aspyr have detailed some of the game's new features over on the PlayStation Blog, and how they've approached bringing the art, controls and effects up to date for 2023. Personally, I'm extremely pleased to see they've added a photo mode, for example, as I spent inordinate amounts of time making Lara do creepy side-eye smiles during inappropriate Shadow Of The Tomb Raider scenes. But I'm also heartened to see they've kept in the original tank controls as an optional extra, alongside a more modern control scheme to make them more approachable.

"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 raiding puzzles as 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 for anything