Tomb Raider I-III Remastered heads to Steam from Aspyr

I'm quite interested in these, hopefully they will improve the controls (I heard they could be quite hard).

Judging by the looks of the trailer, it could be much more polished. The sand at 00:13 looks much blockier, straight out of Minecraft.

They should use more bump mapping and normal maps, *that* would be a proper remaster. A few bump maps on these hieroglyphs and walls would look gorgeous. Normal maps could make the sand look much smoother without affecting the geometry.

I feel like this is an area where generative neural networks could shine: recognize patterns, generate displacement maps (and maybe upscaled textures). Normal maps are one of these innovations that have allowed games to reduce polygon count while improving fidelity.


The irony of Aspyr not providing native Mac/Linux versions is not lost on me :)

I'm quite interested in these, hopefully they will improve the controls (I heard they could be quite hard)

Unless they come with a control revamp, I think I'm going to pass on this. I'm not going to say more

And here I was about to start playing them with the old 3dfx patches on my Win98 machine!

IN THIS HOUSEHOLD WE MAKE STUFF RUN UNDER LINUX NO MATTER WHAT!

Even though i have some of the older Tomb raider games on PC, there's still something charming about playing the originals on PS1 just as i remember them, i guess i just like the retro aesthetic. I might pick these up on a bigger sale eventually, after all you can pretty much remaster a lot of retro games yourself now with Ai texture packs and 4k resolution.

i think its not just nostalgia, i often prefer retro graphics even for games i never played, i have a few theories for that:
first blurry textures like on n64 make more sense when we are looking at fiction, i mean if something is low poly it might as well have an blurry texture, even if it dont we can hide the flaws of an texture in the fact that we cant see the full details.
another thing to consider is the abstract aspect of it, such as when you see 3 simbols that form an triangle , despite it not being there:

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when we dont have many details our brain fill in the extra details.

not to mention i grew playing nes games among others even older i never saw an problem in playing with abstract forms.

ohh i agree. The more realistic or true to life the graphics become the less imagination i feel you need to piece it back together again. In fact, isn't part of the appeal of video game graphics that they are an abstract or sorts ? Escapism is more likely to be realized from something that makes your mind share the visual workload than it just being presented to you with no effort. For instance, a dream is not a perfect representation of reality but it allows for you to explore sometimes difficult concepts or move into a different space which is different from the everyday 'reality'.

Im not against hyper real graphics, they have a place.

speaking of your blurry N64 textures it reminded me of how older technology was used to assist the graphics such as the 3-point filtering the N64 used in order to make stairs look on some games, so if you emulate with bi-linear filtering it stops the stairs looking like stairs.

other things about older graphics is that there was a kind of comfy cartoony appeal that a modern day game will fail to emulate due to it having incredible sharp textures as a comparison. Or perhaps the use of fog for draw distance that is not needed anymore that actually created an unintentional certain atmosphere to a game, like on Turok for instance.

anyways im rambling now. Basically modern games miss a lot of things that older games did through hardware limitation and so this leaves true retro games having a unique appeal that makes them worth playing today.


Last edited by Lofty on 15 September 2023 at 5:07 pm UTC

And here I was about to start playing them with the old 3dfx patches on my Win98 machine!

LOL! Same here - with ALLLL the patches! - 4K, Playstation sountracks, etc. I have this on my to-do list before Windows 8.1 buys the farm in January.

QUESTION: Are original purchasers of these games grandfathered-in?

I'll be curious to see how controller support works. Even with in-game and Steam-overlay tweaks, the original D-pad navigation is still pretty wonky.

they won't have a Native Linux version

No macOS version listed, either. Which seems odd, given Aspyr's history. Maybe there's still a chance they will do cross-platform in the end, like they did for Fahrenheit, Total War: Rome, and KOTOR2.

February 14th 1968 is the original Lara Croft's birthdate.

Wow, she'll be raiding the social security office soon!

That is odd, Aspyr is a porting house... did they shift to an enhancement house?

And here I was about to start playing them with the old 3dfx patches on my Win98 machine!

IN THIS HOUSEHOLD WE MAKE STUFF RUN UNDER LINUX NO MATTER WHAT!

Here's my problem with that... IT IS TOO DAMN EASY! Like where is the fun with it just running? Gotten too simple! Getting old crap working on Windows 98 with a mix of weird hardware is just more fun!

a dream is not a perfect representation of reality but it allows for you to explore sometimes difficult concepts or move into a different space which is different from the everyday 'reality'.

i was going to quote dreams but couldnt elaborate futher =p

other things about older graphics is that there was a kind of comfy cartoony appeal that a modern day game will fail to emulate due to it having incredible sharp textures as a comparison.

it dont help much that most games are hyper focused on realism.
ratchet clank is a notable exception. (i havent played it yet though)

Or perhaps the use of fog for draw distance that is not needed anymore that actually created an unintentional certain atmosphere to a game, like on Turok for instance.

yeah fog can do a lot for an game

yeah fog can do a lot for an game

Can't do fog now. fog is bad. game engine must be stronk.

In the meanwhile, which one is better, OpenLara of CroftEngine?

Still waiting for that OpenLara port to the Atari Jaguar :P

Crystal Dynamics already remastered Tomb Raider I, its called Tomb Raider: Anniversary https://store.steampowered.com/app/8000/Tomb_Raider_Anniversary/


Last edited by salamanderrake on 16 September 2023 at 3:29 pm UTC

Maybe there's still a chance they will do cross-platform in the end, like they did for Fahrenheit, Total War: Rome, and KOTOR2.

That is odd, Aspyr is a porting house... did they shift to an enhancement house?

I guess you missed the other remastered games I listed? They have been doing a little bit of everything for a while now: mobile games, publishing for third parties, remasters, maybe even still the occasional macOS port? I believe Civ6 (and DLC) was their last Linux port.

In the meanwhile, which one is better, OpenLara of CroftEngine?

Neither. Tomb1Main

In all seriousness, OpenLara's scope includes supporting tons of devices, so outside of TR1 its progress seems rather slow.
CroftEngine looks like pure eye-candy.

So either of those three will work for TR1. I don't see other ports outside of these for the rest, though:

TR2Main
tomb3
TOMB4
TOMB5

One question is, which ones of these work with Luxtorpeda? Luxtorpeda https://luxtorpeda.gitlab.io/ changes the game engine to open native in Steam for example when enabling it from ProtonUp https://flathub.org/apps/net.davidotek.pupgui2

Nice to see they have Angelina Jolie's face back as Lara. I will be buying these games next year.

Nice to see they have Angelina Jolie's face back as Lara.

I'm sure Jolie was chosen for the role because she looked like the character, but I think five Tomb Raider games had come out before they made the first movie. Did they actually use her face in some sequel?

Maybe there's still a chance they will do cross-platform in the end, like they did for Fahrenheit, Total War: Rome, and KOTOR2.

That is odd, Aspyr is a porting house... did they shift to an enhancement house?

I guess you missed the other remastered games I listed? They have been doing a little bit of everything for a while now: mobile games, publishing for third parties, remasters, maybe even still the occasional macOS port? I believe Civ6 (and DLC) was their last Linux port.

Yeah, seems to me they stopped being a porting house, and became a publisher instead. I don't think they've been supporting their Mac Ports as much as they used to either.

Nice to see they have Angelina Jolie's face back as Lara. I will be buying these games next year.

Ha, there is a story online that Lara was modeled after one of the developers at CORE's sister's. The story said that the dude was pissed that they used her sister in such a way and made her chest huge.

Damned if I can find said article now though... They definitely didn't model it after Angelina Jolie, but she definitely fit the character very well!

Sorry to sound negative but from the trailer that they showed when it was first released, it looked like something a modder could do without having to shell out money to buy this from Aspyr. I was hoping they would make it look nicer than what was shown and despite being able to buy this at 20% on Steam if you own the originals, I'm going to pass on this since I already own all three of them.

Even though i have some of the older Tomb raider games on PC, there's still something charming about playing the originals on PS1 just as i remember them, i guess i just like the retro aesthetic. I might pick these up on a bigger sale eventually, after all you can pretty much remaster a lot of retro games yourself now with Ai texture packs and 4k resolution.

i think its not just nostalgia, i often prefer retro graphics even for games i never played, i have a few theories for that:
first blurry textures like on n64 make more sense when we are looking at fiction, i mean if something is low poly it might as well have an blurry texture, even if it dont we can hide the flaws of an texture in the fact that we cant see the full details.
another thing to consider is the abstract aspect of it, such as when you see 3 simbols that form an triangle , despite it not being there:

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View cookie preferences.
Accept & Show Accept All & Don't show this again   Direct Link

when we dont have many details our brain fill in the extra details.

not to mention i grew playing nes games among others even older i never saw an problem in playing with abstract forms.

ohh i agree. The more realistic or true to life the graphics become the less imagination i feel you need to piece it back together again. In fact, isn't part of the appeal of video game graphics that they are an abstract or sorts ? Escapism is more likely to be realized from something that makes your mind share the visual workload than it just being presented to you with no effort. For instance, a dream is not a perfect representation of reality but it allows for you to explore sometimes difficult concepts or move into a different space which is different from the everyday 'reality'.

Im not against hyper real graphics, they have a place.

speaking of your blurry N64 textures it reminded me of how older technology was used to assist the graphics such as the 3-point filtering the N64 used in order to make stairs look on some games, so if you emulate with bi-linear filtering it stops the stairs looking like stairs.

other things about older graphics is that there was a kind of comfy cartoony appeal that a modern day game will fail to emulate due to it having incredible sharp textures as a comparison. Or perhaps the use of fog for draw distance that is not needed anymore that actually created an unintentional certain atmosphere to a game, like on Turok for instance.

anyways im rambling now. Basically modern games miss a lot of things that older games did through hardware limitation and so this leaves true retro games having a unique appeal that makes them worth playing today.

You can always put grease on your eyes and enjoy new games, same as those crt filters that make me wanna puke, and my first console was an spectrum then nes, I like pixel looks but just for old games, that thing about pixel art while I'm sure same people things 4k means better graphics, and the rtx marketing well, I don't think is very coherent, but to each his own, just sharing my opinion. 👍

Crystal Dynamics already remastered Tomb Raider I, its called Tomb Raider: Anniversary https://store.steampowered.com/app/8000/Tomb_Raider_Anniversary/

Yeah, they simplified a lot of it, and cut some stuff out. I had fun with it, I've beaten Anniversary, I have not completed the original game...

Creating a Self-Aware Lara Croft that Plays Tomb Raider is great, I recommend a watch, make sure you watch the result section. My kids and I are up to level 5. BTW, the AI might not be legit but its still fun to watch.


Last edited by Nod on 10 October 2023 at 6:48 am UTC