Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis Will Have to Adjust the Original Game’s Brutal Difficulty for ‘Modern Player Tastes,’ but Dev Insists You’ll Still See ‘Big Rolling Balls’

The team behind the reimagining of the original Lara Croft adventure, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, have opened up on how they’re approaching the 1996 game’s difficulty and instakills, acknowledging it will have to be adjusted for “modern player tastes.”

Speaking at a press event and captured by GamesRadar+, Crystal Dynamics’ game director Will Kerslake said: “part of reimagining a game right is adjusting that game evolving for modern player tastes.”

He also hinted at what kind of gameplay we can expect to see, insisting “it is core to the Tomb Raider experience that there are puzzles in combat and traversal and death-defying action.” However, Kerslake stressed that the things we remember from the original game will remain, adding: “you’ll see big rolling balls, and you know, the things that you expect in a Tomb Raider game are going to be there in spades.”

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is due out at some point in 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC via Steam. Alix Wilton Regan will now play Lara Croft in both Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis and 2027’s Tomb Raider: Catalyst, with Camilla Luddington, who portrayed Lara Croft in the Survivor Trilogy, issuing a heartfelt goodbye to the character this week.

Meanwhile, some Tomb Raider fans are bracing themselves for retcons, given the need to fit both Legacy of Atlantis and Catalyst in a new, unified Tomb Raider timeline. There’s also the upcoming Amazon TV show to consider. The live-action Tomb Raider Prime Video series, which will star Game of Thrones alum Sophie Turner, will “reinvent the franchise on a massive scale” and interconnect “live-action television series and video games into a unified storytelling universe.”

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.