There are many contenders for the dubious honour of being the ‘weirdestTomb Raidergame’. Lara has had a few spin offs, some odd, some bad, some both.Angel of Darkness is an obvious contenderwith its leather-clad gothic brooding.Rise of the Tomb Raideris strange in that it’s so far ahead of its two Survivor trilogy comrades, while Shadow completely loses sight of what a Tomb Raider game is meant to be.
Anniversary could stake a claim too, as a remaster/remake/reboot of the first game before such a concept was in fashion. And, of course, every game has its individual moments of surreal, pulp fiction adventuring. But I might suggest that the title best fits Tomb Raider 4: The Last Revelation, which turns the ripe old age of 25 today.
Tomb Raider 4 Doesn’t Quite Fit Anywhere
On the face of it, Tomb Raider 4 is no weirder than the original trilogy. It has some odd moments, like Lara sitting on Cleopatra’s throne, but is just another Tomb Raider game. When it came out, that was what it was. The only thing strange about it was (spoiler for a 25 year old game) that Lara died at the end, a fact that was (spoiler for a 24 year old game in the follow up Tomb Raider: Chronicles) later revealed to be a fake-out.
What makes TR4 feel like the strangest Tomb Raider game is its place in history. At the time, whenTomb Raider games were coming out once a year (what a world!), it was just another Tomb Raider game. It’s only now that we look back and put them into boxes that TR4 feels out of place.The upcoming remaster of 4-6 only highlights that.
Tomb Raider 4’s natural place is with the original trilogy. But ‘trilogy’ sounds and feels better than ‘tetralogy’ (or ‘quadrilogy’, as the Alien movies decided to call their set of four), especially when you also have to account for the pentalogy created if you include Chronicles. But Tomb Raider 4 did move into a new engine, and thus looked and worked a little differently. It also seemed like while TRs 2 and 3 were made with the brief of ‘the last one, but bigger and better’, Tomb Raider 4 was taking stock and trying something new. Chronicles, told almost entirely through flashbacks, continued this experimental style before Angel of Darkness pushed it too far.
Tomb Raider 4-6’s Reception Will Be Interesting
I wrote when the original trilogy was remastered thatfollowing it up with 4-6 would be a ‘careful what you wish for’ moment for many. The Last Revelation is both an extension of the original trilogy and the next step from it. Chronicles tried to be that again, though many regard it as a step backwards. Angel of Darkness threw most things about Tomb Raider in the trashcan in the name of reinvention, and soon found itself on the scrapheap with them.
While 1-3 is a cohesive trilogy, 4-6 is a gathering of lost children, wandering around aimlessly. Angel of Darkness at least owns this identity as a drastically different game. But 4 and 5, particularly 4, don’t seem to fit anywhere as we look back on the series today. It feels more like Tomb Raider 3 didn’t get a real sequel until Tomb Raider: Legend, with the series treading water until then.
It might not have felt like that at the time - while worse than 1-3, 4 and 5 are still solid games, The Last Revelation especially so. Angel of Darkness doesn’t hold as much charm, and I wonder how its cult rehabilitation will hold up to Aspyr’s quick and nasty remaster style that gives us the game as it was, warts and all. But looking back, this upcoming 4-6 trilogy doesn’t seem to have much identity or purpose.
Well, apart from its obvious purpose of selling well, and after the remasters of 1-3 did, it’s understandable that 4-6 would follow - even if a new Tomb Raider game really should be here by now. But it’s not much of a collection with each game doing something different, nor are any of these games too definitive in terms of ideas, events, or their place in Lara’s history.
The Last Revelation is the strangest Tomb Raider game because the one where Lara canonically dies is also one of the least relevant to her story. 25 years on, it still hasn’t truly found its home. Maybe the upcoming remaster will finally make that happen.
