Video Game / Tomb Raider: Anniversary

"Sometimes, to understand your present, you have to go back... to your past."

Lara: I'm afraid you've been misled. I only play for sport.
Jacqueline Natla: Which is precisely why I've come to you, Miss Croft. This is a game you've played before.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary was released in 2007 and is the eighth entry in the Tomb Raider series.

A remake of the first game in the series, at one point, an Anniversary edition was being made by Core Design, but this project was shut down because they no longer owned the rights to the series. The development of a game celebrating Tomb Raider's 10-year anniversary was instead transferred to Crystal Dynamics, resulting in this game. The game shepherds in much of the movement and traversal mechanics introduced in Legend, as well as reframing the original's story to tie it in as a prequel to that game.

As in the original, the game centers around Lara Croft looking for a piece of the Scion, a powerful artifact, having been hired by a powerful and enigmatic businesswoman, who wants the artifact for her own reasons. After having braved various deathtraps and aggressive wildlife, Lara gets her hand on the piece, but on her way out she is double-crossed by her employer. She fights off the lackey sent to relieve her of the artifact, and sets out to find the two remaining pieces, for the artifact is speculated to be a vast library of information, which could reveal the mystery behind the disappearance of her mother.

The locations she visits during the game include Peru, Greece, Egypt, and a forgotten island.

Critically, the game was received very well; it pleased those who were irritated by the various changes incorporated in Legend, with the chatty sidekicks gone, a far more complex level design, and a longer game overall. Lara's moveset has been extended far beyond that of her original incarnation, and the level design was changed accordingly, shortening some parts while extending others. Some of the changes came under heavy scrutiny. And while controlling Lara remains as smooth as in its predecessor, platforming is sometimes made unnecessarily hard by an uncooperative camera. Despite playing fluidly and having lush graphics, the game remains the lowest selling entry in the Tomb Raider franchise.

It was released for PC, PlayStation 2, and 3, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, Wii and Mac.

This page may contain unmarked spoilers.

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This game contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Who else if not the poster girl for the trope, Miss Lara Croft herself? Thanks to 11 years of technological improvements, the new engine allows to greatly expand the action part of the gameplay, as Lara is far more nimble and many things could be automated, too.
• Adaptation Distillation: Many areas in the original Tomb Raider game were excised for this remake. Some examples:
  • City of Vilcabamba had no room with swinging blades.
  • Tomb of Qualopec's puzzle rooms are completely different and it only has two instead of three.
  • The Coliseum is lacking the first cave area where you make your way up to the Coliseum.
  • Midas' Palace cut out a lot of the side rooms, simplifying it to just the three "gimmick" rooms (fire room, sand room, spear room).
  • The Cistern is renamed to Tomb of Tihocan in this game when the two were separate levels in the original game. While the central area in The Cistern remains somewhat the same as TR1, it lacks any of the side rooms. Meanwhile, TR1's Tomb of Tihocan and it's level content is absent entirely, save for the titular tomb at the very end of the level.
  • Atlantis is greatly reduced in this game; whereas the version in TR1 was a Marathon Level, the Anniversary version can be beaten in about 10-15 minutes.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • Natla in the original version was shown to be trapped inside a mechanical prison-like structure that was freed from a nuclear explosion and the camera zooms in on her. The remake has her trapped within a crystalline prison where she breaks free and flies away.
  • Lara's first meeting with Larson and Natla plays slightly different in the remake. While Lara reacted to Larson's advancement with hints of teasing, the remake has Lara coldly brushing him off. In Natla's meeting, she tempts Lara to find the Scion by explaining how dangerous the region of the Scion's location is (which appeals to Lara since she likes a challenge). The remake has Natla tempt Lara by telling her that her father had also been looking for the Scion.
  • Pierre's encounters in the original game had him pop up randomly to shoot at Lara until he is forced to flee after taking enough damage and vanishes when out of sight. The remake has him staying out of Lara's sight, but constantly taunts her off screen. His boss fight was changed to a quick time event and instead of dying by Lara's hands, he gets killed by the Atlantean creatures outside.
  • Lara's discovery of Natla's true identity was pushed ahead. The original scene didn't occur until Lara attempted to take the Scion in the final level; the remake has the scene occur directly after Lara acquires the final Scion piece.
  • Larson originally died in the final Egypt level. The remake has him dying in the Natla's mines level where Lara shoots him for not stepping aside. Larson also replaces the Cowboy character from the original game. Likewise, Kold uses a giant knife instead of a shotgun and Jerome doesn't use his skateboard anymore.
  • Natla's motivations changed between games. In the original version, she wanted to kickstart evolution after she saw what she believed mankind to be in a rut and used the Scion to create monsters to help her achieve her goal. The remake has Natla wanting to rule the world and she also offers Lara a spot beside her.
• Adapted Out: All the lions in the game are lionesses, the male lions from the original being completely absent (although they do appear in one promotional art).
• Affably Evil: Larson. He won't go out of his way to hurt or kill Lara unless he has no choice, as shown in the Quick Time Events and generally treats her quite amicably, despite the fact that they're on opposing sides. In one scene, he even shoves one of his allies out of the way and intentionally misses his own shot as Lara jumps off the cliff, allowing her to escape with her life intact.
• A.I. Breaker: You can take advantage of how some enemies cannot jump to literally get the high ground over them and pick them off from a safe place.
• Alliterative Name: Both Kold (Kin Kade) and The Kid (Jerome Johnson) count.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Secrets are replaced with relics and artifacts, which unlock bonus features upon collection. One of such features are new costumes.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Unlike with Legend, if you grab a relic\artifact and die, you don't need to capture it again upon the restart.
• Arc Welding: It turned out that Anniversary was partially made so Natla could be added into the continuing storyline of Legend and later, Underworld.
• Artistic License – Paleontology: The T. rex in Anniversary bears more resemblance to a V. rex than its real-life counterpart with its exaggerated size. According to a recent study published in 2017, the presence of crocodilian scutes on its skin is inaccurate. Scientific evidence doesn't support the rex's hands pronating or featuring a third functional finger shown in concept art. Then there's the too-round, lipless compact head of the rex, unlike the robust, lipped, and elongated head of an actual T. rex.
• Atlantis: From where the Scion and the Three Rulers originated. By the end of the game Lara visits one of the ruined, but still semi-functional outposts.
• Bears Are Bad News: And they usually announce their presence with a none-too-subtle roar.
• Benevolent Architecture: Poles randomly sticking out of walls — allowing Lara to swing her way across — is but one of the many examples.
• Big Bad: Jacqueline Natla, who eventually ends up as the main antagonist and true villain behind all three initial Crystal Dynamics games.
• Big "NO!": Shouted by Natla when Lara destroys the Scion, significantly destabilizing the entire structure of the island and causing it to self-destruct.
• Black Blood: The Abomination boss bleeds yellow blood if Lara slices its weaker arm in half.
• Blatant Item Placement: Various types of ammunition and sterilized, up-to-date medkits both large and small are conveniently lying around in ancient tombs and ruins, where no human being has set foot in a long time. Exaggerated in the final stage of the Egypt level, where you can find a pair of working Uzis that somehow ended up on the head of a sphinx, underground!.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: You can unlock the Silver Uzis, which have an insane rate of fire, and the Golden Shotgun, which does a One-Hit Kill on everything.
• Block Puzzle: Appears, but not with the same frequency as the previous games. And since the game isn't strictly following a grid, players have to measure proper placement of each block on their own.
• Bloodless Carnage: Unlike the original Tomb Raider game, there is surprisingly no blood at all in Anniversary. It's also the only console Tomb Raider game not to have blood at all...if you don't count a possible scene in the Abomination boss fight where Lara can slice its weaker arm in half, spraying yellow blood out.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: Your weapons alone can't bring down the T-Rex and the Abomination. Luring these bosses into a dangerous area in the arena (spikes or the edge of the platform) is the key to defeating them.
• Boss Battle: Several. Usually, but not always, at the end of the level. They always come with a quasi-arena, start with a cutscene, require triggering weaknesses of the boss and conclude with a QTE.
• Boss Room: Each boss has a large arena in which they are fought.
• Bottomless Magazines: Played straight for the Dual Pistols; they have a limited magazine size, but can be reloaded as often as the player wants to. Averted for all other guns Lara may pick up, where ammunition can only be restocked by picking it up in the environment.
• Bottomless Pits: Appears in each of the locations, though the last one usually has lava at the bottom.
• Braids of Action: Lara's hairstyle throughout the entire game. Unlike the original game, this time the engine is capable of giving Lara proper braid without causing a stutter.
• Bullet Time: Lara enters this during an enemy's rage attack, where she will either dodge to the sides, slide away from them or somersault over them. During this brief period, reticules will align themselves over the enemy's weak point, which Lara can then shoot.
• Camera Lock-On: You can lock the camera to one enemy by holding down a shoulder button or key, allowing Lara to get a clear shot on them. On Wii, however, this lock on doesn't snap the Wii Remote's reticle to the enemy, so you'll still need to point at the enemy to make accurate shots, like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
• Cave Behind the Falls: Appears twice in the Lost Valley level, which is entirely based around finding cogs so you can activate a mechanism that will allow you to divert the majestic waterfall that prevents access to the cave behind it. This Trope occurs again within the same level, where Lara can get her hands on an early shotgun (she will acquire it later anyway if you miss out on this one), by finding another Cave Behind the Falls. Two more instances of this trope occur on the Lost Island, once in Natla's Mines, which hides a tunnel you need to go through to progress, and once in Final Conflict, where, for a change of pace, an artifact is hidden behind a lava fall.
• Checkpoint: These frequently double as a Save Point as well, roughtly every 30 seconds.
• Circling Monologue: Natla does this during her We Can Rule Together speech to Lara, going around the room and the stone throne.
• Composite Character: The Larson that appears in this game is a combination of elements from the original Larson and the Cowboy.
• Convection, Schmonvection: The Lost Island's later levels have visuals that are distorted by rising heat, but Lara is unaffected.
• Cool Bike: Lara can be seen driving — and pulling off some great stunts — with one at the end of the Egypt level.
• Cool Crown: Natla wears one as part of her Atlantean ensemble.
• Cool Shades: Lara wears these briefly as she ascends the Peruvian mountains, though the glasses' design differs quite a bit from those of her original incarnation. She takes them off as she enters the first level, after which they aren't seen again. They can be unlocked via a Cheat Code though.
• Crate Expectations: There are some industrial boxes and crates stacked in the early part of Natla's Mines.
• Crouch and Prone: When Lara needs to squeeze through some small gaps.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Although this was played straight in the original, all the boss fights in this remake avert this. None of the bosses can be defeated purely by firing at them (technically, most of the bosses do lose health when Lara fires at them, but the damage is minimal at best) and usually require some kind of tactic involving the Adrenaline Dodge and Head Shot to defeat them.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Death simply sends you back to the last checkpoint with full health and the medipacks you've picked up.
• Designated Girl Fight: The final showdown between Lara and Natla. Unlike the original game, which had an anti-climax confrontation and half of it in a cutscene, this time around it's a proper, two-stage boss battle.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: While Lara does manage to defeat Natla, this is more thanks to her wits than mere gunpower — regular gunfire doesn't even seem to hurt the boss very much, though it did manage to destroy her wings. By temporarily incapacitating her with a well-aimed gunshot, Lara manages to grapple and bring down a pillar upon the villain's body, crushing and trapping her inside the island's crumbling structure.
• Discontinuity Nod: Although the Crystal Dynamics games are separated from the Core Design games, and Anniversary takes liberties with the original Tomb Raider I, there are nods to the Core games. For instance, several costumes are patterned after those from previous games, and memos in Croft Manor refer to plot points from Tomb Raider II.
• Distant Prologue: The opening cutscene is in 1945, featuring a nuclear explosion that accidentally unearths the crystal in which Natla was trapped. We then flash forward to the first meeting between Lara Croft and her soon-to-be employer, Jacqueline Natla.
• Doppelgänger: One of Atlantean origin that mimics Lara's every move. It is left unfazed by regular gunfire, so Lara has it mimic itself into a lava pit, permanently destroying it. Thankfully, the room in which Lara encounters it was entirely symmetrical.
  Lara: " Talk about being your own worst enemy."
• Eldritch Abomination: The giant legless mutant that hatched too early and serves the role of the first boss in the Atlantis. Also known as "Abomination".
• Everything Fades: Like many games released at the time, enemies and other objects fade away after they've been killed, so as not to eat up too much memory. Becomes especially jarring in one instance in Egypt, where Lara destroys a pillar that completely fades away safe for one block, which she needs to progress. Significant enemies are usually the only ones to avert this.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Bats, rats, bears, wolves, crocodiles, gorillas, lionesses, black panthers... about the only wildlife that leaves you relatively undisturbed comes in the form of a small, harmless fish, which will usually subtly guide you towards your objective.
• Evil Is Burning Hot: Natla emerges from the lava somehow still alive, while gaining a demonic appearance in the process.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Kold has a very deep voice.
• Exposed to the Elements: Lara ascends the Peruvian mountains in naught but a sleeveless shirt and some short shorts. Granted, the level gets warmer as you progress, and subsequent locations usually have fairly warm climates, but still, that must've been pretty chilly. Even the original game gave her a cloak for that part.
• Falling Damage: Falling from certain heights will either hurt Lara or kill her outright. Some places are designed to be a deep fall that will always kill Lara, effectively making them Bottomless Pits even though they're not bottomless.
• Femme Fatalons: Natla has these in her reimagining, a first clue that there's more to her than meets the eye.
• Final Boss: Natla, after she's taken a plunge in lava.
• Fireballs: All of the Atlantean creatures can send these flying Lara's way. That includes Natla as well.
• Flaming Hair: It's safe to say that Natla's blond hair did not survive her little swim in the lava.
• French Jerk: Pierre Dupont, who is somehow even smugger in the remake.
• Genre Blindness: Natla suffers from this in the final boss fight where she claims: "Sooner or later, you'll run out of bullets." Looks like she forgot that this is, after all, a Tomb Raider game, and our heroine Lara Croft is the poster girl for Bottomless Magazines.
• Grave Robbing: As the title implies...
• Green Hill Zone: The first part of the game is set in the green jungles of Peru - even though the start of the first stage is a snowy, mountainous entrance.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Though admittedly a pretty minor version. Her backpack just seems a tad too small to carry all those guns, their respective ammunition, the myriad of fancy trinkets she happens to pick up and 20+ medkits, both small and large. It's still averted compared to the Core games — all weapons besides the pistols have a limited amount of maximum ammo.
• Idle Animation: Whenever you stand still for too long, Lara will start stretching or readjusting the laces on her boots... or slapping her butt.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Kold stabs The Kid in the gut because he wanted to be the one to kill Lara, but The Kid was coming quite close to finishing her off himself. He does so with enough force to lift The Kid off the ground and send him flying across the room.
• Impossibly-Low Neckline: Present on Natla's ceremonial robes from Atlantis. It reaches almost to her nipple level, while the dress itself lacks any straps that could keep it all from falling down.
• Indy Escape: Played straight for each rolling boulder trap the game throws at you - you either improvise fast a way out, or you will get crushed while wasting time on thinking.
• Informing the Fourth Wall: Whenever you try to use wrong item in wrong location
  Lara: "No."
• Insistent Terminology: The Lost Island, not Atlantis.
• Justified Tutorial: At the beginning of the Peru level, your guide will break the ladder that gets you up to the entrance of the mountain caves. Lara is thus forced to climb her way up using other terrains, giving the game a convenient opportunity to teach the player the basics.
• Karmic Death:
  • Pierre gets himself killed by two Atlantean centaurs he accidentally awakened when he exited the tomb of Tihocan with the Scion piece. Although he attempts to divert their attention by throwing the artifact to Lara, the centaurs have none of it and stomp him into the ground, breaking his neck.
  • Kold dies from being shot in the back by The Kid, who he had stabbed seconds before for getting too close to killing Lara (he wanted to kill her himself).
• Lady of Adventure: Again Lara Croft is the embodiment of an Adventurer Archaeologist.
• Lava Adds Awesome: Given more emphasis over the Womb Level parts of The Lost Island, compared to the original game. The game commentary outright notes the engine simply freeze when they tried to recreate the original Womb Level aesthetics, forcing to focus on lava and barren rocks.
• Ledge Bats: Giant bats and winged Atlantean can sometimes knock or blast Lara off precipitous platforms to an unfortunate death.
• Lethal Lava Land: The later parts of the Lost Island level. Final Conflict is near-continuous streams of lava.
• Lighter and Softer: The remake is considerably less violent than the original game, eliminating blood effects and toning down animations of Lara being impaled on spikes. According to in-game commentary, the developers chose to do away with the graphic violence because while the original game's outdated graphics made it still suitable for a Teen Rating, they weren't so sure the rating would stand if it carried over to the remake.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Expect this to happen in some parts of the game where there are many places for Lara to be instantly killed - because every time she dies, you'll need to sit through a loading screen to put Lara back at the last checkpoint.
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: Played completely straight; Lara Croft is hired by Jacqueline Natla to retrieve a piece of the Scion, though Lara didn't really intend on giving it back once she'd obtained it. This is exactly as Natla planned, who expected Lara would do so and go after the remaining pieces. The moment Lara collects all three pieces, she is ambushed by Natla and her goons, and the Scion is taken from her.
• Made of Iron: Both Larson and Kold require quite a few bullets before succumbing.
• Malevolent Architecture: No Tomb Raider game is complete without this. Certain ledges seem to exist solely to collapse the moment you get close to them, forcing detours.
• Machete Mayhem: Kold, the resident psychopath carries a knife big enough to qualify as a machete. He lifts Kid up in the air using nothing else than the blade.
• Marathon Level: "St. Francis' Folly". After the first four levels, which were relatively short, this level will take you quite a while to finish. It doesn't help that getting around is a pain since the majority of the level is vertical and requires climbing up and down ledges to advance.
• Misplaced Wildlife: There are lions, gorillas and crocodiles in Greece, black panthers in Egypt, gray wolves and brown bears in Peru. And that's not even mentioning the dinosaurs.
• More Dakka: The Dual Mini SMGs are this for Lara. It takes less time to empty both mags than reloading them.
• Multi-Platform: Released on PCs and almost all mainstream consoles.
• Multiple Gunshot Death: Happens in some quick-time events.
  • If you fail the second step of the QTE sequence at the end of the Egypt levels, Lara is promptly gunned down by the Kid in a hailfire of bullets.
  • Lara's fight with Kold and the Kid ends with the latter emptying a clip of bullets right into the former just as he's about to cut her down with his huge knife.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Lara has this reaction after her obsession with the Scion pushes her to kill Larson.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The Camouflage outfit is one of the outfits worn by Lara in Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.
  • The Wetsuit outfit one of the outfits worn by Lara in Tomb Raider II.
  • The Classic outfit is a model reminiscent of the blocky one Lara had in Tomb Raider I.
  • The Croft Manor Sport outfit is the outfit Lara would wear at home in Tomb Raider I.
  • The Legend outfit is Lara's main outfit in Tomb Raider: Legend.
  • The PSP version has Antarctica from Tomb Raider III and Winter Camo from the Russia section of Tomb Raider Chronicles
• No-Gear Level: Has become a sort of trademark of the series. As in the original, Lara is ambushed as she exits the Egyptian tomb where she found the last piece of the Scion. Although she manages to best her captors, she loses all her weaponry and thus needs to progress through the first part of Natla's Mines without her trademark guns. Makes killing the rats that have been squeaking your ears off during the level much more satisfying though.
• Notice This: Anything the grapple can attach to is usually colored a shiny gold, making it stand out from the environment.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • In the final boss fight, Natla, having given up on convincing Lara to join her, instead berates her for thinking she is any better than her, even though she was just as willing to kill people to reach her goals. Although Lara appears temporarily shaken in her beliefs, she manages to best Natla, and as she escapes the islands, comes to terms with what she needed to do to protect the world.
  • When Lara threatens Kold and refers to her killing Larson, he asks her if she enjoyed it and says "It gets better". While Kin Kade is a lot more enthusiastic about killing than Lara, later games in the series have her much more willing to kill.
• One-Hit Kill: A Cheat Code can give Lara a Golden Shotgun, which turns every shot into one of these.
• Oxygen Meter: For your every-day underwater swimming purposes.
• Pensieve Flashback: Unlike the original game's more traditional visions, this time around Scion puts Lara herself inside the flashbacks from the past.
• Player Headquarters: Croft Manor. Although it isn't actually seen unless you decide to play it as a training level.
• Post-End Game Content: Unlocking all the outfits (which would involve playing through every level anyway) also unlocks the Style Units, a brief, circular level with four different environments that were used during the game's early testing phase. Included in same level are more commentary markers.
• Prequel: Interestingly, rather than being a straight remake plot-wise (as in retelling the original story while possibly rectifying any continuity errors introduced by later installments), this game becomes a prequel to Tomb Raider: Legend by introducing story elements such as Lara's missing mother that wasn't present in the original game's plot. These details would go on to be expanded in Tomb Raider: Underworld.
• Pressure Plate: Invariably linked to various doorways and traps. Certain puzzles require to keep the plate pressed.
• Press X to Not Die: Anniversary carries on the tradition of Quick Time Events, introduced by Legend; which require the player to hit a certain key or button when it shows up, on screen. Failing to do so will result in Lara dying, usually in a gruesome manner.
• Psycho for Hire: "Kold" Kin Kade. His unlockable biography mentions that he spent 15 years in prison after being caught committing an "elaborate" murder and questions how Natla even keeps control over him.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Larson is just doing his job, and he's notably much less willing to use lethal force against Lara than the rest of Natla's goons. Pierre as well; he makes it clear his primary motivation is money and tries to talk Lara into handing over the Scion rather than fighting over it.
• Puzzle Pan: Certain puzzles, especially those requiring a strictly timed platforming, have a camera either roughly following the route or, more often, displaying the whole location at once, to figure out the order of ascending/descending.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Subverted with Natla's goons in this version. They end up killing themselves and Lara never has to fight any other person than Larson, alone.
• Ragdoll Physics: Particularly prevalent on the death scenes, specially the ones by Spikes of Doom so as to not have Lara impaled.
• Raptor Attack: Lost Valley and Tomb of Qualopec crawl with them, per the original. They have some more feathers this time, but they're otherwise scaly.
• Real Is Brown: It's not shy about busting out lush foliage in Peru, but for the rest of the game you'll be looking at a whole lot of grey, brown and beige.
• Really 700 Years Old: Natl has been alive since the existence of Atlantis.
• Real-Time Weapon Change: Lara can seamlessly switch from one weapon to another during combat.
• Riding into the Sunset: At the end, Lara sails away with stolen yacht toward the sun.
• Ring-Out Boss: The Abomination can only be defeated by tricking it into going off the edge of the arena, then shooting its good hand while it hangs on for dear life before being able to hoist itself back up.
• Rope Bridge: Numerous examples. The most recognizable instance of this is an early room that contains an open wolf pit, with two bridges precariously strung over them. While Lara could safely cross these in the original, taking pot shots at the wolves from above, this no longer applies in Anniversary. When Lara crosses the first bridge, the thing snaps under her weight, dropping her into the wolf pit below. Makes crossing the second one just a bit tenser.
• Scary Black Man: Kold fits the description to a T, being a sociopathic killer literally bought out of the prison. He's more than aware of his image and hones it up further.
• Scenery Porn: Most of the areas have been made more open and doubled in size, making things look a lot prettier than in the days of the PlayStation 1.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Tihocan and Qualopec freeze Natla in a stasis as a punishment for her betrayal.
• Sequel Hook: Qualopec gets up out of his throne, Tihocan's body is missing from his coffin, and Natla swears she will find another remnant of Atlantis.
• Short-Range Shotgun: The Shotgun has the shortest range of all weapons and the stopping power drops considerably the further the range.
• Shout-Out: In the developer commentary, they explain that the ark was removed from the manor because it might have been trademarked.
  • In the Tomb of Qualopec, there's a giant rolling-boulder-of-doom-trap that Lara needs to trigger in order to proceed. If the Trope name doesn't clue you into what this might be a reference too, it was later discovered that the boulder had a bullwhip and fedora flattened onto it.
  • The Croft Manor's appearance is modeled after the one in the movies.
  • Two references to the Legacy of Kain franchise:
    • A painting of Kain can be seen hanging in Croft Manor.
    • Raziel's emblem is stamped on the Wetsuit, one of the unlockable outfits.
• Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: These kinds of traps are like standard decorations in the Egyptian corridors. Though they are quite simple at first, the difficulty is soon increased by combining them with bottomless pits and thin vertical poles upon which Lara must precariously balance, carefully timing each jump.
• Soft Water: Doesn't matter from which height Lara drops, as long as there's a body of water below, she'll be completely fine. Appears most prominently in the early Peru levels, where new players are very likely to get washed away by the river and down the waterfall at least once during their playthrough.
• Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography: The unique terrain of each of the game's four acts transitions from lush greens to sandy and stony temples and finally a treacherous volcanic island that sets the stage for a climatic showdown.
• Spikes of Doom: Appears mostly in the Greece levels. Fail the jump, run too fast or don't check the ceiling and you get impaled.
• Spinventory: In a nice Call-Back to the original, the items are arranged in a Ring Menu that needs to be spun around for selection.
• Spy Catsuit: The Catsuit, one of the unlockable outfits.
• Steam Vent Obstacle: Damaged pipes occasionally blowing bursts of steam are seen in Natla's Mines. The steam is blown at regular intervals, meaning Lara can easily climb past. Should she get hit, she'll merely lose some health while staying attached to the pipe.
• Sticks to the Back: The shotgun does this, always hanging on Lara's shoulder once she obtains it. It's the only weapon that subverts Hyperspace Arsenal.
• Surprise Slide Staircase: Inverted; in the Obelisk of Khamoon level, Lara enters a room from the top, with a giant slide downwards appearing to be the only way to progress. After pulling a lever (and dispatching of a nasty Atlantean Mummy), part of the slide retracts into the wall, turning it into a giant staircase. Unfortunately, the stairs are too tall for Lara to climb back up again.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Subverted. The four major boss battles are nigh-impossible to win if the player doesn't enrage the boss into performing a particular attack that Lara can dodge to gain a critical advantage over them.
• Taken for Granite: One of the two rage attacks of the twin centaur boss is to turn Lara to stone if she looks at them. You'll have to let go of the target lock button to avoid being petrified.
• Teleporting Keycard Squad: In The Lost Valley, expect hostile wildlife to assault you after you pick up a cog above and behind the big waterfall.
• Terrifying Tyrannosaur: The first boss is a Tyrannosaurus in The Lost Valley, as in the original, only this time it's even bigger.
• These Hands Have Killed: Lara stares at her hands after killing Larson and even repeatedly wipes her hands afterward.
• Time Trial: One of the challenges added to increase replay value. Complete a certain level under the given time and you unlock some nifty cheats.
• Title In: The beginning of each level briefly displays its title.
• Treacherous Quest Giver: Both Larson, who is sent as a messenger, and Natla. He's supposed to rob Lara after she Qualopec's piece of the Scion, while Natla continuously uses Miss Croft to get the whole artifact.
• Trophy Room: There's one in the Croft Manor, where the relics you've found will be displayed.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: In the very last level of the game, Final Conflict, there is a room with a lava pit and a small cage you need to push around to reach higher platforms. There's nothing stopping you from pushing the cage into the lava, where it will disappear and not respawn...or saving the game at any point after that happens. If you save after pushing the cage of the lava, particularly after triggering a checkpoint, your save file will be hosed and you will have to reload an earlier save (or start over if you didn't have one). It would hurt a lot to have to have this design oversight force you to start all the way over after you've spent so much time getting all the way to the end.
• Unique Enemy: Just like in the original, there are only three bears in the entire game, and while panthers show up more frequently here, they still only appear in the level they are introduced in.
• Unlockable Content: Collecting all the rewards hidden in a level will unlock various things for you such as biographies, concept art, cheats...
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: The sheer amount of gymnastics Lara can preform in this game is even larger than the previous game.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: There's some of this present between Lara and Larson, though Lara remains mostly aloof to him.
• Unwitting Pawn: Lara was used the whole time and even when she supposedly gained an upper hand, it was still part of the plan to get all three pieces of the Scion from her, without paying and probably leaving her body behind.
• Version-Exclusive Content: The Wii version has over "three hours" of exclusive content, including first-person puzzles that involve using the Wii Remote. For example, certain switches in all other versions that Lara can use with ease are initially inoperable in the Wii version because of a missing cog or two that must be collected nearby that is part of the lever mechanism. The player must then play a minigame where the player must arrange the missing cog(s), along with other cogs inside the lever mechanism such that they will make the lever work.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The volcanic innards of the Lost Island's Great Pyramid in the last two levels of the game are much tougher and more climatic than the two tombs of the Atlantean rulers and the Sanctuary of the Scion that ended each of the prior three acts.
• Video Game Remake: A remake of the original Tomb Raider with superior graphics, controls and voice work. New puzzles were also added.
• We Can Rule Together: Near the end of the game Natla offers Lara the chance to rule at her side.
• Where's My Gun?: Lara is suspended in a trance when she gets all three pieces of the MacGuffin together and is shown a vision of the past that shows how Atlantis collapsed. When she returns to reality, Natla steals the artifact. Lara reaches for her guns, only to be confused when she sees that her guns are mysteriously gone before she gets restrained by Kold. Natla's goons show that they were the ones that stole her weapons.
• White Gangbangers: The Kid has this appearance in his reimagining. His info blurb outright describes him as this.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Larson didn't believe Lara would shoot him so she could put a stop to Natla's plans. Sadly, he was wrong.