Tomb Raider: Legend Turns 20 — Celebrating 20 Years with Uncovered Early Gameplay

Tomb Raider: Legend turns 20 today!

To celebrate this round anniversary, we uncovered an ancient artefact for all digital archaeologists in the Tomb Raider community; a never-before-seen early development playthrough footage of a level from Tomb Raider: Legend.

At the beginning of development, Crystal Dynamics created their own version of the Lara Croft model from Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness with the intention of keeping the iconic aspects of her character. This model was used as the base model for early concept art and gameplay testing before Toby Gard joined the team and played a major role in Lara’s redesign along with character artist Kam Yu. That is why the Angel of Darkness model appears in this video playthrough.

The level opens with Lara leaping from a helicopter into a warzone territory, searching for a map hidden inside a temple. This level represents an early version of what would later become the Bolivia level.

We hope you enjoy this uncovered part of the franchise’s history as we also celebrate 30 years of Tomb Raider.

Video Games

Tomb Raider: Legend