Well, 2021 marks the series' 25th anniversary. I've been a fan for the most part. I remember renting the first game for PS1 probably 3x or so. I decided if I got Christmas money, I'd buy the 2nd game that was releasing that year. The 2nd game was my favorite until the remake of the first with Anniversary on PS2. I loved the new mechanics that Crystal Dynamics had put into the series with Legend. Then the 2013 reboot happened which changed the series pretty dynamically. The reboot has been my favorite in the series since.
I do remember the low points of the series though. When Eidos had told Core that they wanted a new TR game every year, it was bound to ware on the team. You could tell they didn't really care once they got to making TR Chronicles. Then with attempting a reboot with Angel of Darkness, it went downhill pretty quick; at least with the glitches. I couldn't even beat the game with cheats due to game breaking bugs. The low point for the modern iteration for me was Rise of the TR. The gameplay was still intact, but the story written for it was sub-par and predictable. I didn't care about Lara's quest for that game and I believe I've only played it the once.
Still, I own every game that has come to a Playstation platform. I even had the GBA game at one point which was actually pretty fun given the limitations.
So this brings us to what Square is planning for the 25th Anniversary of such a milestone series in gaming history.... and the answer is kind of disappointing to be honest.
1. They have made a deal with Netflix to create an anime based on the series.
2. Various artists are making updated wallpapers that are supposed to be reimagined box arts for the history of games.
3. There's a cookbook for the series.... yeah.... a cookbook.
4. A 25th Anniversary collectors statue of Lara... which we don't know what it will look like but it will probably be expensive.
5. A re-release of the newer trilogy of games for last gen systems (PS4, X1, PC) with no improvements; just all DLC.
6. Then we have a ridiculous cross over with Fortnite of all things.
Much of the fan base was hoping that Square would take this as an opportunity to release the original PS1 and PS2 games in HD. We wouldn't really need a remake of the first as we already got it with TR Anniversary on PS2, but the thought of seeing an original Tomb Raider game re-imagined on the new gen of hardware does give me a bit of hope for the next game.
A new Tomb Raider game is confirmed to be in development. They won't be showing it off any time soon so it won't be revealed during the 25th anniversary time frame. The cool bit is that the developer stated that as the previous three games were showing how Lara became the Tomb Raider we knew from the original titles, the new game is set to merge the newer games with the original timeline. That in itself has me pretty excited.
So what has been your history with the franchise? What was your favorite game? What was your least favorite? Do you like the way the newer games evolved from the original series? I plan to continue buying Tomb Raider games so long as they look like they're delivering a fun adventure.
As a side note, I completed my 4th Shadowbox project which revolved around Uncharted. You can see a couple photos of it in my gallery here in my profile. Not sure why I can't link them here but oh well. My next shadowbox project will be surrounding the Tomb Raider series and TR Anniversary for PS2 will be the inspiration.
