Developers Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog have released a new developer diary for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, giving us a 5-minute-long look at the traversal and movement in the reimagining of the original Tomb Raider. The trailer features developers discussing how the movement systems were developed, including design director Jason Epps, game director Raul Siqueira, lead gameplay designer Bartek Schweiger, and senior combat designer Dmytro Andriuschenki, among others.
“Lara had a physicality, acrobatics, and, at least for those of us who were pretty good at the game, we spent quite a bit of time swan diving and doing the different acrobatic moves to look awesome,” explains Epps. Schweiger went on to discuss how the essence of the original Tomb Raider’s movement systems was for the development team to nail in the upcoming game.
Alix Wilton Regan, who plays Lara Croft in Legacy of Atlantis, discussed how she had to do weight training, running, yoga, and rock climbing to ensure that she could pull off the motion capture for the in-game character. Creative director Michal Kuk noted that there are several subtleties that make Lara’s style of climbing a wall identifiably hers.
“What makes the climbing Lara’s climbing, basically? There are multiple super subtle things that make it Lara Croft’s climbing. Not someone else. It’s through animations, it’s through the dynamics of the animation, how fast she’s jumping from one ledge to another, how far her leap of faith is. All of that was the biggest issue for us, because a regular jump doesn’t mean that it’s Lara Croft’s regular jump, right?”
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will give players plenty of ways to move around the world, from climbing and jumping to her grappling hook that gives her additional capabilities to navigate the verticality of the in-game environments.
“When we released the trailer, there was one specific sequence of moves where she’s jumping from a horizontal pole to a ledge, and then she does a handstand, and then there’s a swan dive,” explained principal technical game designer Grzegorz Grywacz. “And people were all, like, screaming at the screen.”
Crystal Dynamics studio head Scott Amos and game director Will Kerslake had previously spoken about how important it is for the development team to ensure that Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis captures the essence of the 1996 original. In an interview from back in December, they described the title as “a love letter by fans, all of us, to fans.”
“Looking at the opportunity we had with this, we knew the 30th anniversary was coming up and wanted to do something special to both celebrate that moment, but still pay an honor to all of Core Design’s original DNA and intent from this amazing title that launched the franchise. That is literally the debut title that’s set up for what we’re doing now, 30 years later, as part of Tomb Raider,” said Amos.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is being developed for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2 and is slated for release on February 12th, 2027.
