Ever since its release I’ve been checking into news and videos about the newly leaked/released Tomb Raider Anniversary, and it seems to be getting all kinds of love from the fans; Patches are being released every other day to make the game more playable, they got the netcode fixed for multiplayer, actual multiplayer! YouTubers have been making all kinds of videos showcasing this relic, and today I was happy to hear that the Midas Level is actually loadable now in the latest patch!
In its current state the game is a giant puzzle piece in need of being solved, and thanks to the Tomb Raider fan community they have accomplished so much and we’re barely into the new year! Imagine if they finally get this game running in full from start to finish, and it’s own splash screen instead of National Treasure. It would certainly be interesting to finally experience Core’s original vision for their anniversary, with help from those devoted to making the proper efforts!
Now if I could just run it on a keyboard, or get it to see my damn controllers…
I downloaded Core Design’s recently leaked Tomb Raider Anniversary, and I’m not disappointed at all in what I see. Not all of the levels are accessible, and being this is an alpha release this is nowhere near a perfect state, but diehard fans are patching the game what seems like every other day over at archive.org to make the game all the more playable. Right now the only way to play it is on your C: Drive, and the game folder has to be on the root drive (can’t be placed in a Programs Folder for organization), and as a result I can’t get the Alpha to run under Linux properly via Proton or Wine. I’m not well versed enough in Wine to figure out how to get a game to run properly, not sure how to keep the proper directory structure. I did learn that if you don’t patch the game properly you’ll be visited by 3D Nicholas Cage.
The Incredible Nicolas Cage
Once Core Design discovered they were not going to be able to publish their version of Tomb Raider Anniversary, they decided to recycle the assets and make a game based on the 2004 Movie National Treasure starring Nicholas Cage. This leak even includes a splash screen even after you fix it to load Tomb Raider content:
Oh no not the bees of cancellation!!!
I’m not sure how much of this was converted from their original Tomb Raider idea, but trying to start the game only results in crashing.
This level shows up when I try to load The Great Abyss. From what I can tell this is part of The Lost Valley but in its own enclosed map.
I knew Natla was evil but holy shit.
Apparently in this build of the game Natla is a Nazi? There are a few nazi flags hanging about, along with the nazi eagle as you wander deeper into the mine. I’m not sure if this was in transitioning from Tomb Raider to National Treasure (did National Treasure even have nazis? I never watched the movie), or because it had something else to do with the Indiana Jones project name. Still I was taken aback by it while turning around in the level just to happen upon… that. Kind of a jarring coincidence in these jarring times.
In this build of the game Lara is fucking invincible. She can walk on lava, manages to avoid drowning, and survive boulders and spikes completely going through her.
I didn’t want to sleep tonight anyway…I thought they were cows at first.
In this stage of the game all enemies are currently incomplete. They have no loading animations and little to no texture details.
Peru is probably one of the more finished looking maps out what I’ve seen thus far. There’s this really cool effect that happens when you enter this corridor, where these stone faces roll around and begin to spit darts. It only made me wonder what the rest of this game would have looked like had Core Design been able to finish it?
To no surprise a lot of the levels use the original textures from the first Tomb Raider, and in some cases even models. It makes sense as that would save time on making any more textures than necessary. This makes it easier to focus on other aspects of the game, like level design, game mechanics, etc.
This game requires a controller for it to work properly, with the best one being a Dualshock 4. I do own a DS4, but no matter what I did the game couldn’t read any one of my controllers. The game doesn’t really have a keyboard and mouse setup since this was originally designed for a PSP, and the release is new enough that I don’t know of a solution. I’ll be keeping an eye out for patches or any more information I can get my hands on, I really wanted to livestream this, but at the moment my controls are quite limited. Still, what I’ve been able to see so far has been an adventure in itself! I might try installing this on my laptop to see if I can get different results.
I always like finding early builds of games just to see how things have changed and progressed from the time of creation all the way to the final product, and for many years I often wondered what the Core Design version of Tomb Raider Anniversary would have been like if Eidos didn’t fire them and go with Crystal Dynamics.
Thanks to archive.org and Core Design, we now can! I’m sure it’s riddled with bugs galore, being this is an unreleased released game and all, but there’s just something cool about seeings things that could have been, what could have changed, and from what I’ve read the Core Design version was more faithful to the original rather than the Crystal Dynamics version, not to say it was a terrible game (though I could have done with fewer QTE’s and a less annoying puzzle for climbing Natla’s Pyramid). I have the files downloaded, might have to check a look into this time capsule during my weekend downtime.
