Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis just gave the internet its first real look at the new St. Francis’ Folly — one of the best levels from the classic game Legacy of Atlantis reimagines. The new level comes complete with a fully-rebuilt Sword of Damocles room…that, now, will be a stunning traversal puzzle instead of an instant death trap. While rooms and levels from this franchise have gotten updates in the past, across three decades, the shape of a Tomb Raider level rarely changes. Tackle these ten Tomb Raider levels, and you’ll get a puzzle to figure out, something to shoot, a run against a closing wall or a draining pool of air, and at least one jump you will absolutely botch the first time.
10
St. Francis’ Folly, Tomb Raider (1996)
What’s Lara up against this time? A six-story shrine dedicated to four different gods.
If you’ve never played the classic Tomb Raider games (they’re wildly difficult, and you absolutely should), know this: St. Francis’ Folly is the first level that truly feels like the game instead of tutorials and exposition. After escaping the Peruvian mountains that opened the game and clawing through a set of underground caves crawling with wolves and bats, Lara gets dropped into a creepy, very yellowish-brown Grecian monastery populated by hungry lions. Here, Lara finds four doors, named for mostly Greek heroes and gods: Atlas, Damocles, Neptune, and Thor. Behind each is a different way to almost die: A rolling boulder, swords suspended from the ceiling, a threateningly-poised gigantic hammer, and a pool in which to definitely not drown. Rival treasure hunter Pierre is also patrolling, ready to pick you off if you perform a jump poorly. Clear all four doors, and the exit doesn’t so much reward you as let you leave before Pierre gets another shot.
9
The Great Wall, Tomb Raider 2 (1997)
What’s Lara up against this time? Two T-Rexes and zero warning.
Tomb Raider 2’s opening level wastes no time informing you that you’re picking right up where the original Tomb Raider left off. There’s no tutorial. Instead, compared to the ending of the previous game, the difficulty skyrockets. Your travels quickly take Lara on a stealthy climb past tigers and bloodthirsty spiders, through the comically-stacked death traps waiting inside the Great Wall itself (…did it need to have so many disappearing floors and spike walls?) to a pit containing a fully-grown T-Rex…and, possibly, a second. Tomb Raider 2 wanted you to know, from its very first level, that the rules had changed — and that you had to level up your own skills quickly.
8
Venice and Bartoli’s Hideout, Tomb Raider 2 (1997)
What’s Lara up against this time? Grand theft gondola.
Venice hands you a speedboat and a canal full of parked gondolas. Your natural conclusion is to steer toward the gondolas and ram straight through them at full speed, which is as satisfying and cinematic as it sounds. Once this daring stunt grants you access to villain Bartoli’s hideout, you escape the streets of Venice to enter a sprawling, atmospheric mansion. Think: Sunken basements, a library you’d actually want to linger in were it not so creepy, and a ballroom with three tempting chandeliers to swing from. Subtlety is not Tomb Raider’s strong suit, so there’s a decent chance you’ll end the level by blowing the hideout to bits — perhaps the only ending that could top the level’s earlier speedboat-jumping shenanigans.
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7
Area 51, Tomb Raider 3 (1998)
What’s Lara up against this time? Ancient artifacts 100% tied to alien conspiracy theories.
The first two games took Lara through temples, shipwrecks, and jungle ruins. Now, in the third game, it’s time for Lara to visit a fictionalized version of Area 51. There, you’re tasked with picking through laser tripwires and armed guards one minute…then walking into an actual alien autopsy room the next. And that’s before you climb inside a UFO that’s almost certainly larger on the inside than the outside. Crates stamped with references to the Majestic 12 conspiracy theory line the halls, a wink toward the actual Area 51. Reactions to this level have been split since 1998. Some players call it a franchise highlight, others haven’t forgiven the tonal whiplash, still others wonder why there are orcas in this level. Either way, nobody forgets it.
6
Temple of Karnak, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (1999)
What’s Lara up against this time? Learning how to swing…and even walk on water.
Here, Lara first learns to grab a rope and swing across a gap – an action that’s such a central mechanic in the later games that it’s wild to realize it took until the fourth game in the series. The Temple of Karnak level is built as a loop: Visit the Temple, then the Great Hypostyle Hall, and the Sacred Lake. Circle back through all three again once you’ve tracked down a set of canopic jars scattered between them…all while dodging poisonous black scorpions skittering across the sand. Find the jars, solve the puzzle, and Lara earns the ability to walk across water for the rest of the game – a thrilling reward for a puzzle, and one that will absolutely have you circling these same three rooms for hours, wondering what you’ve missed.
5
Tokyo, Tomb Raider: Legend (2006)
What’s Lara up against this time? Forget ancient ruins. The skyline, here, is your obstacle course.
Tomb Raider: Legend, the 2006 game that relaunched the series after The Angel of Darkness‘s rocky reception, briefly abandons temples as Lara’s stomping grounds and instead drops her into modern Tokyo. Her skills are useful here, too: It’s mere moments before she’s scaling storefront signs on the outside of skyscrapers instead of finding footholds in crumbling stone. Later in the level, Lara will tear across Tokyo’s rooftops on a motorcycle before launching off one building and crashing directly through the window of another — an entrance often cited as one of the coolest single moments in the entire franchise.
4
Croft Manor, Tomb Raider: Underworld (2008)
What’s Lara up against this time? A home invasion that will require years of renovations to recover from.
Underworld, the third and final entry in the Legend-Anniversary-Underworld trilogy, sends Lara back to her childhood home searching for a hidden chapel and her father’s secret study buried beneath the floorboards. You know, normal house things. Once she finds them, she doesn’t get a moment to appreciate her findings in peace: A doppelganger breaks into Croft Manor, kills her companion, steals a critical artifact, and sets the entire mansion on fire while Lara’s still inside. This is a rare Tomb Raider level that is built entirely around personal stakes instead of a mechanical puzzle or new toy to test out in a tomb thousands of miles from home.
3
Mountain Temple and Shipwreck Beach, Tomb Raider (2013)
What’s Lara up against this time? Surviving her own rescue.
Before this version of Lara, introduced in the 2013 series reboot as a rawer, more vulnerable take on the character, ever picks up a weapon or solves a puzzle, she has to escape being strung upside-down by her captors. She doesn’t have a bow or her dual pistols. Her only weapons are desperation, momentum, and a fire blazing conveniently nearby. After she sets herself on fire and falls to her freedom, Lara’s put through a gauntlet of collapsing scaffolding, a wolf attack, and a desperate scramble through a corpse-filled cave — proof, scene by scene, that surviving her own rescue was never going to be the easy part.
2
Geothermal Valley and Soviet Installation, Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015)
What’s Lara up against this time? Attempting to shoot a chicken.
The sprawling Geothermal Valley connects to the Soviet Installation, an abandoned research base repurposed by the game’s antagonists, by a single broken wooden bridge. Rise of the Tomb Raider expects you to cross back and forth over that bridge three separate times, exploring challenge tombs like the House of the Afflicted and the Pit of Judgment, and reporting back to the Remnant village’s own herbalist, who pays you in gold coins for every tomb you clear along the way. This level is home to the Remnant, a hidden community of survivors scattered across huts and guard towers built into the valley itself, plus enough wildlife roaming around that the developers built an entire achievement around shooting a chicken clean out of the sky with a flaming arrow.
1
Hidden City of Paititi, Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)
What’s Lara up against this time? Llamas that you can pet!!!
Paititi – the largest hub area in the series to date – is designed around a hypothetical alternate universe in which the Maya and Inca civilizations had developed side by side instead of continents apart. The game goes all in on immersion: NPCs speak their own native language by default, an entire barter economy runs underneath the main story, and the city sprawls out in layered tiers built into a jungle mountainside rather than the tight corridors most Tomb Raider levels rely on. Wander too far off the beaten path, and you’ll run into hostile cultists patrolling the lower tiers, or a flash flood event that turns the city’s canals into a Lara-harming hazard rather than pretty background scenery.
Now that Lara’s back in action — or will be next February, when Legacy of Atlantis releases — it’s a fair bet that she’ll soon be swinging, jumping, and climbing her way around a new set of harrowing levels. Whatever Legacy of Atlantis gameplay we see next, here’s hoping it involves a chandelier, a rope swing, or, if the developers are feeling brave, a second T-Rex.