Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered Review

Aspyr's Tomb Raider I-III Remastered earned considerable goodwill from longtime fans, so its follow-up, bundling The Last Revelation, Chronicles, and the notoriously troubled Angel of Darkness, arrived with real anticipation and, for the third game especially, genuine hope that decades-old wrongs might finally be righted. Reviewers agree the collection succeeds at making three classic-era Tomb Raider games accessible and playable again with real modern comforts. Where they diverge sharply is on how evenly that care was applied across the three very different games bundled together.

Chronicles is the clear standout, and The Last Revelation starts strong

Reviewers consistently single out Tomb Raider Chronicles as receiving the most complete and thoughtful remastering work of the three, with enhanced geometry, additional environmental detail, and lighting improvements that hold up throughout the entire game rather than tapering off. Chronicles' structure, a series of flashback missions spanning different moments in Lara's past, also earns praise for its variety, ranging from stealth-focused sections to a horror-tinged level, even as reviewers warn its lack of carried-over inventory between missions makes its intense final stages genuinely punishing. The Last Revelation fares well initially, with its opening Egyptian levels around Angkor Wat and the Valley of the Kings drawing some of the collection's most enthusiastic praise for enhanced geometry and texture work. That enthusiasm cools noticeably as the game progresses; multiple detailed reviews report that later areas, particularly once the game reaches Alexandria, receive comparatively little additional remastering attention beyond refreshed textures, leaving blocky geometry and a visibly uneven level of polish within a single game.

Angel of Darkness remains the collection's sore point

Angel of Darkness carries a difficult legacy. Its original 2003 release is widely remembered as rushed and unfinished, cut short by publisher pressure before Crystal Dynamics could realise its ambitious, more mature vision for the series. The remaster brings real, welcome improvements: modern controls that make the game considerably more playable than its infamously clunky original scheme, restored voice lines that fill in previously incomplete dialogue, a new training area, dual pistols, and a functioning quicksave system that removes one of the original's biggest frustrations. But reviewers are consistent that these fixes stop well short of the deeper repair fans hoped for. Several detailed reviews describe large sections of Angel of Darkness as barely touched beyond basic texture refreshes, with character models left unchanged, level geometry left blocky, and classic-era PC effects like reflections, cubemaps, and bump mapping absent entirely. One reviewer who logged nearly 40 hours across the collection calls the Angel of Darkness remaster "barely in alpha state" and says the package feels like it was rushed to meet a release date rather than given the same care as Chronicles, a criticism echoed by several others who note the historical irony of a rushed remaster undermining a game already infamous for being rushed the first time around.

The classic Tomb Raider experience, warts and all

Reviewers are largely honest that these remasters don't, and were never going to, fix the fundamental design choices that make 1999-2003-era Tomb Raider a demanding, occasionally frustrating experience by modern standards. Tank controls, fixed or semi-fixed camera angles that clash awkwardly with the collection's new modern control scheme, and level design built around finding a single overlooked switch before large areas become solvable are all fully intact, and several reviewers describe getting stuck for long stretches through no fault other than the games' age. A functioning photo mode, which lets players freely scout ahead for traps and hazards, becomes an unofficial workaround for that dated design as much as a creative tool, and more than one reviewer openly recommends pairing the collection with an online walkthrough rather than treating it as a modern, self-contained experience. For players who came up with these games, or who specifically want the old-school challenge, that's part of the appeal; for newcomers expecting anything resembling a contemporary action-adventure game, the friction is real and unapologetic.

Solid technical footing and an eye toward what comes next

Whatever reviewers make of the remastering effort itself, there's broad agreement that the collection runs well. Multiple reviews report smooth performance on Steam Deck and modest hardware alike, wide native controller support covering Xbox, DualSense, and generic gamepads, and a toggle that lets players flip between the original and remastered visuals at any point rather than locking that choice in at the start of a level. The photo mode carries over from the earlier Tomb Raider I-III Remastered and earns similar praise here, letting players freely pan the camera to scout dangerous rooms ahead of time, a feature some reviewers admit they lean on as much for practical survival as for screenshots. Pricing draws a mixed but largely favourable reaction: at roughly NZ$44 for three full games, reviewers generally call it fair value even accounting for the uneven remastering work, particularly compared to buying the originals individually through other storefronts. That goodwill feeds into a recurring theme across reviews: strong, explicit hope that Aspyr continues the remaster project into the PS2-era Tomb Raider Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld trilogy, with several reviewers framing this collection's shortcomings as reasons to hold the developer to a higher standard next time rather than reasons to give up on the series' back catalogue altogether.

Final Verdict

Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered succeeds at its most basic goal of making three classic-era Tomb Raider games playable again with real modern conveniences, and Chronicles in particular shows what the collection could have been across the board. But the uneven distribution of care, strong early work on The Last Revelation that fades, and an Angel of Darkness remaster that leaves the original's most glaring rough edges largely intact, keeps this from being the complete restoration longtime fans were hoping for. It's still a worthwhile trip back to one of the series' darker eras at a fair price, provided you go in knowing which of the three games got the real remaster treatment and which one is still waiting for it.