In Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, the leopard has a thick skin

In Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, Lara Croft meets a leopard. It springs out of a crack in the tomb and attacks her. She draws her dual pistols and fires at the big cat, and it retreats into the walls. Then it comes out, again and again, until Lara pumps a ton of lead into it. It’s clearly not realistic combat, as the leopard has unbelievably thick skin. But it is a fun video game, where the player’s mastery of drawing a gun and hitting a target fast is put to the test over and over. That was part of the demo I saw last week at Gamescom, where Amazon Games and Crystal Dynamics showed off the remake of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, which will debut on February 12, 2027. (See the latest documentary on the game here). The game is a ground-up reimagining of the 1996 classic video game that introduced the character Lara Croft. Built in Unreal Engine, the game will debut from Amazon Games on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC via {LINK REMOVED}Steam, and Nintendo Switch. This year is the original game’s 30th anniversary. Lara Croft is back in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Source: Amazon Games/Crystal Dynamics The demo I saw of the game in Cologne, Germany, at Gamescom was pretty polished. It revealed some puzzles, traversal challenges moving through a giant tomb, and new tools for traversal like the grappling hook. One of the new features was a scanner, an opt-in device where Lara can scan the environment electronically and get clues about her surroundings. It makes the game easier, as you can use it for clues when you get lost, said Raul Siqueira, game director at Crystal Dynamics, in a press briefing. Traversal puzzles are common in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Source: Amazon Games/Crystal Dynamics They showed off a pre-alpha level in the new game that has layered puzzles and traps to avoid, like the falling Swords of Damocles that are bigger than Lara herself. It is a layered puzzle system. It’s filled with traversal challenges, puzzles, and traps that you must navigate, “This is a great canvas for us to show you how we took a classic room from the original 1996 game and we applied our reimagining process to it,” Siqueira said. He noted there are classic favorites like Croft’s dual pistols and a shotgun, where you can improve the weapon capabilities like rate of fire, accuracy and more. Lara finds a hidden city in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Source: Amazon Games/Crystal Dynamics There’s also a skill tree that the devs talked about. “This is another way in which you can customize your playstyle,” Siqueira said. “You might want to spend some points to help improve your traversal, or your combat, or your overall survivability, and there’s crafting.” Rather than find medpacks in the terrain where no human has ever been, like in the original game, Lara can find ingredients to create medpacks in the environment. She combines them to make healing balms and develop combat buffs. In the previous demo from the Summer Game Fest, the devs showed Lara at a waterfall in the wilderness of Peru. There, she finds she’s competing with enemies and rival raiders. The new setting was in Greece, where she goes beneath the catacombs of a church. Can you outsmart the leopard? Source: Amazon Games/Crystal Dynamics “As with everything in Legacy of Atlantis, our level design honors what the original game did, but seeks to find new ways in which we can surprise both longtime fans, but also captivate the first-time fans, so that they can experience the wonder and awe of these environments for the first time,” Siqueira said. Besides the leopard, Lara faces other animal enemies such as a swarm of bats. Lara has to use gadgets and her fluid acrobatics to escape the enemies and bring them down. “We don’t want players to stand still,” Siqueira said. “Part of the reimagining is also finding new gateway to interact with old systems. There’s a lot that we’ve added into this game to make it more accessible, but also faithful to the original.” A discovery in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Source: Amazon Games/Crystal Dynamics You can craft items that reduce the overall damage of traps, or you can shoot them from a distance. Along the way, you can find relics that you can view and admire. You can switch to outfits you like, and you can use your grapple to rappel. “The most important thing for us first was to deliver the iconic areas, locations, enemies, and everything else. Part of reimagining, part of bringing something to a modern audience, always is an opportunity to surprise and then get a couple things in,” Siqueira said. “verything that has been considered, whether it made it to one part or not, has been looked through the lens of does this make sense with the original game?” I noted how the poor leopard took an ungodly number of hits. Siqueira said, “It’s got incredibly thick skin.” The post In Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, the leopard has a thick skin appeared first on GamesBeat.

Sep 2, 2026 - 21:28

In Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, the leopard has a thick skin

In Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, Lara Croft meets a leopard. It springs out of a crack in the tomb and attacks her. She draws her dual pistols and fires at the big cat, and it retreats into the walls. Then it comes out, again and again, until Lara pumps a ton of lead into it.

It’s clearly not realistic combat, as the leopard has unbelievably thick skin. But it is a fun video game, where the player’s mastery of drawing a gun and hitting a target fast is put to the test over and over.

That was part of the demo I saw last week at Gamescom, where Amazon Games and Crystal Dynamics showed off the remake of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, which will debut on February 12, 2027. (See the latest documentary on the game here). The game is a ground-up reimagining of the 1996 classic video game that introduced the character Lara Croft. Built in Unreal Engine, the game will debut from Amazon Games on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC via {LINK REMOVED}Steam, and Nintendo Switch. This year is the original game’s 30th anniversary.

Lara Croft is back in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Source: Amazon Games/Crystal Dynamics
The demo I saw of the game in Cologne, Germany, at Gamescom was pretty polished. It revealed some puzzles, traversal challenges moving through a giant tomb, and new tools for traversal like the grappling hook.

One of the new features was a scanner, an opt-in device where Lara can scan the environment electronically and get clues about her surroundings. It makes the game easier, as you can use it for clues when you get lost, said Raul Siqueira, game director at Crystal Dynamics, in a press briefing.

Traversal puzzles are common in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Source: Amazon Games/Crystal Dynamics They showed off a pre-alpha level in the new game that has layered puzzles and traps to avoid, like the falling Swords of Damocles that are bigger than Lara herself.

It is a layered puzzle system. It’s filled with traversal challenges, puzzles, and traps that you must navigate,

“This is a great canvas for us to show you how we took a classic room from the original 1996 game and we applied our reimagining process to it,” Siqueira said.

He noted there are classic favorites like Croft’s dual pistols and a shotgun, where you can improve the weapon capabilities like rate of fire, accuracy and more.

Lara finds a hidden city in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Source: Amazon Games/Crystal Dynamics There’s also a skill tree that the devs talked about.

“This is another way in which you can customize your playstyle,” Siqueira said. “You might want to spend some points to help improve your traversal, or your combat, or your overall survivability, and there’s crafting.”

Rather than find medpacks in the terrain where no human has ever been, like in the original game, Lara can find ingredients to create medpacks in the environment. She combines them to make healing balms and develop combat buffs.

In the previous demo from the Summer Game Fest, the devs showed Lara at a waterfall in the wilderness of Peru. There, she finds she’s competing with enemies and rival raiders. The new setting was in Greece, where she goes beneath the catacombs of a church.

Can you outsmart the leopard? Source: Amazon Games/Crystal Dynamics “As with everything in Legacy of Atlantis, our level design honors what the original game did, but seeks to find new ways in which we can surprise both longtime fans, but also captivate the first-time fans, so that they can experience the wonder and awe of these environments for the first time,” Siqueira said.

Besides the leopard, Lara faces other animal enemies such as a swarm of bats. Lara has to use gadgets and her fluid acrobatics to escape the enemies and bring them down.

“We don’t want players to stand still,” Siqueira said. “Part of the reimagining is also finding new gateway to interact with old systems. There’s a lot that we’ve added into this game to make it more accessible, but also faithful to the original.”

A discovery in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Source: Amazon Games/Crystal Dynamics You can craft items that reduce the overall damage of traps, or you can shoot them from a distance. Along the way, you can find relics that you can view and admire. You can switch to outfits you like, and you can use your grapple to rappel.

“The most important thing for us first was to deliver the iconic areas, locations, enemies, and everything else. Part of reimagining, part of bringing something to a modern audience, always is an opportunity to surprise and then get a couple things in,” Siqueira said. “verything that has been considered, whether it made it to one part or not, has been looked through the lens of does this make sense with the original game?”

I noted how the poor leopard took an ungodly number of hits. Siqueira said, “It’s got incredibly thick skin.”

The post In Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, the leopard has a thick skin appeared first on GamesBeat.

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