What to expect from the upcoming Tomb Raider IV - VI Remasters

It’s not long now until Aspyr and Sabre Interactive bring us the second remastered collection of the classic Tomb Raider games, and arguably the most interesting of the bunch. With Tomb Raider 4: Revelations, Chronicles, and Angel of Darkness all coming out for modern platforms, with restored cut content, and presentation improvements, these are quite frankly the definitive editions, of the most divisive games in the series.
The Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered collection comes out on February 14th (Lara Croft’s birthday) for PS5, Xbox Series, and PC.

Visual upgrades and additional presentation

Like with the previous remasters, Tomb Raider 4 to 6 will get enhanced visuals with a heavily modified engine used to create the original versions of the games. This means higher levels of detail, clearer visual fidelity, improved lighting, and new assets to fully flesh out the world even more, including revamped and refined items and menus.
The previous remasters showed a lot of love and care, not to remove anything critical to the presentation and aesthetics. We can’t wait to see the new menus which sprawl through various environments in Revelations and Chronicles but also spot all the newly added touches to give the world more character. Recently we saw the addition of Lara’s blue dress on a gate in the opening level of Chronicle. Those who know of the opening where Lara is wearing a blue dress at the opera will be thrilled to spot this nice new detail, showing the developers are thinking of everything special to add in for our fans.

And better yet you can switch between old and new visuals with a click of a button, and it’s all in 60 frames per second and 4K.

New UI features

Aspyr and Sabre are carrying over UI change from the previous remaster into this collection, with boss health bars, icons over items, and much more, making these classic games even more accessible and overall, more user-friendly for both newcomers and old fans. The controls have been granted full 3D movement, so if you’re not a fan of tank controls, you can switch these around in the main menu. Other small tweaks have been added, such as ammo counters and being able to skip cutscenes, for again a more user-friendly experience.

New character models, outfits, and photo mode

Even better than seeing a fully remastered Lara Croft, is being able to don various new outfits, and poses while going about her globe-trotting adventures. Lara has many iconic outfits and now we can switch between them in these remasters with ease. Best of all, the return of photo mode will allow us to do all this and capture it. Just a heads up, while the previous remasters added in different outfits during gameplay later, we’re hoping that the same feature will be available from the get-go with the IV-VI remaster.

Bonus content, and cut content included

The most exciting news is the inclusion of bonus content for Revelations, in the form of a “Times Exclusive Level” where Lara is tasked by The Times lead Editor to explore the tomb of King Tutankhamun, to find out if rumours of a secret tomb are true. But more important, is the inclusion of cut content for the series’ ugly ducking “Angel of Darkness”. A flawed, but ambitious game, that truly was different and wanted to pave the way for a more modern, and innovative Tomb Raider experience.

Aspyr and Sabre have surely been hard at work to restore and fix much of the game’s original gameplay. But there are mentions of previously cut features and content making a return. One such whisper hints at a reworked cover mechanic, where Lara was meant to be able to come out of cover and fire at enemies. This was seen in an old E3 trailer back in 2002, but the feature was cut from the original release back in 2003. This and other additions have returned to the remaster. New purchasable items, unused voice lines, and new levels will be here in the remaster which is amazing!

We’re looking forward to the remaster of Tomb Raider IV to VI more so than the previous ones because these are the most controversial games of the series, but the most interesting. They were flawed, but with these revisions and fixes, they will hopefully live up to the original expectations and define the series in the modern era.

We can’t wait, and we’ll be raiding tombs on February 14th with you! Check out the new footage below.