Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis Preview (Summer Game Fest 2026 Hands On)
When I sat down to play Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis at Summer Game Fest 2026, which is being labelled a reimagining of the 1996 original, I expected to be teleported back to the 90’s. A time when I was glued to the tv, not by choice, but because the controller cord was only six feet long. But it didn't.
Playing Lara Croft’s original adventure on the PS1 will forever be engrained in my memory, but Legacy of Atlantis provided very little nostalgia, but that’s ok because there are different reasons to be excited for the third reboot of this iconic IP.
TOMB RAIDER LEGACY OF ATLANTIS PREVIEW
Legacy of Atlantis isn't the first time Lara’s original adventure has been remade. That would actually be Tomb Raider Anniversary in 2007, which was done by Crystal Dynamics and Buzz Monkey. Similar to Anniversary, Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis is once again being developed by Crystal Dynamics, but this time instead of a primate it’s swine, as thev’ve enlisted Flying Wild Hog to assist in development.
Tomb Raider, as an IP has seen its fair share of people take on the role of Lara in movies, animated shows and video games. Legacy of Atlantis continues this tradition of change as it marks the third time the series has been rebooted after the Legend reboot in 2006 with Tomb Raider Legend, and the Survivor reboot in 2013 with Tomb Raider. However, what’s happening now isn’t a complete reboot, it’s more of a repositioning or realignment.
The entire goal behind Legacy of Atlanis is to combine the original timeline that began in 1996 with the survivor trilogy timeline that ended in 2018 and move forward cohesively. Canonically, everything that happened in the survivor trilogy is still part of Lara’s past. We are now just seeing her at a much later stage in life with more experience under her belt, which is plenty of reason to be excited.
The other reason to be excited is because it’s now been almost a decade since Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End released in 2017 and it wasn’t much longer after it that Shadow of The Tomb Raider, the final entry in the Tomb Raider “Survivor” trilogy released either. This means that there has been a massive gap in the market for adventure games that capture that Indiana Jones magic. There is something different about a historian or archeologist adventure. There have been other adventure games, but they incorporate too much action, combat or RPG mechanics like Star Wars Jedi or the Horizon series.
In the demo we played at Summer Game Fest 2026, it was a taste of the first mission, the one that most people would likely remember if they played the original. The overbearingly grey level where you found yourself inside the cave of a Peruvian mountain needing to find a few cogs to solve a puzzle which was preceded with a cutscene with Lara making the ascent during a blizzard in her iconic shorts and tank top.
The caves looked like a magic eye puzzle with a lot of repeated textures, but for 1997 it was transportive. In 2007, Tomb Raider Anniversary remade the original. Visually, it didn’t stray too far from the original vision, but there were better controls, more open environments and enough small changes that made it feel familiar, yet fresh.
Tomb Raider Anniversary felt like a reimagining of the original. Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis feels like the next step in this progression as it feels less like a reimagining and more like a spiritual successor. This same area now felt wide open, lush with vibrant green jungle and crystal clear turquoise water. The same gear puzzle that was attached to a small wall now had cogs bigger than Lara. This greatly expanded the puzzle as you now needed to figure out how to redirect water to move these giants cogs where you needed them.
Legacy of Atlantis looks to shift the focus back to core classics: Lara Croft’s iconic look, acrobatics, double pistols, and good, old-fashioned puzzles. Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis captures the ethos of the original game with all of the modern essentials such as stunning visuals, sprawling environments, great voice acting and smooth controls. Shooting dinosaurs with double pistols while doing backflips never felt so smooth. It even offers help if you need with a new scanning tool that provides some interesting information about an item and a vague clue about what you need to do. It’s not much, but sometimes all you need is a point in the right direction. In addition, since this is the same Lara we got to know from the survivor trilogy, some things have continued into this new direction including the grappling hook and the climbing axe.
RETURN OF THE QUEEN
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is trying to have its cake and eat it too, which it just might do. It’s easy to understand why, the survivor trilogy was hyper-successful selling around 35 million copies across just three entries from 2013-2018, while also providing the character with greater depth than before. However, it was missing the sex appeal of the classics and sex sells. With the new live-action tv series in development at Amazon, it makes a lot of sense to realign the brand to have one cohesive vision and be more marketable. After playing the demo at Summer Game Fest, I think Legacy of Atlantis manages to capture the best of both worlds.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis gave me the warm and fuzzies, but that’s not because Lara is back in her iconic short shorts and teal tank top. It’s because Legacy of Atlantis is capturing the spirit of the golden age of adventure games. When it comes to iconic treasure hunting archaeologists, Lara Croft was the tip of the spear in the gaming space. Over the next three decades, the genre would be refined until its pinnacle in 2018 with Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. A game that had it all: excellent gameplay, intriguing narrative, deep characters, abundant action, non-stop fun, interesting puzzles, gorgeous environments, and plenty of heart.
Everything that’s old is new again as the saying goes and with Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis coming in February 2027, followed shortly by the completely new Tomb Raider: Catalyst, Lara looks to regain the torch as the treasure hunter at the top. By combining the best of the original trilogy with the best of the survivor trilogy, Tomb Raider has put itself on the path to once again become the pinnacle of adventure games.
