With a 2013 reboot going portable and two big-budget projects on the horizon, Tomb Raider is entering a rare phase where three different Laras will coexist. Here’s how Crystal Dynamics and its partners are trying to modernize and preserve every era of the series at once.
Tomb Raider is about to have a very crowded 30th birthday.
Across 2026 and beyond, three distinct versions of Lara Croft are going to be active at the same time: the young survivor of the 2013 reboot, the classic-style adventurer of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, and the seasoned pro headlining Tomb Raider Catalyst. It is a rare situation for any long-running series, and it raises a big question: how do you move a franchise forward while also preserving two different “past” Laras in parallel?
Crystal Dynamics seems intent on using every platform it can to answer that.
The 2013 reboot heads to mobile
The first piece of the new slate is the most familiar: the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot is getting a fully featured portable edition for iOS and Android on February 12, 2026. Feral Interactive is handling the port, which includes all 12 DLC packs in a $20 premium release.
Mechanically, this is the same game that reset Lara’s origin story on the island of Yamatai and led into Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. On mobile, the focus is on preservation and accessibility rather than radical change. Feral is promising a customizable touchscreen interface, full controller support and even gyroscopic aiming on supported devices, the sort of options you expect from a modern premium mobile port rather than a cut-down spin-off.
That matters because Tomb Raider 2013 sits in an awkward place for the series. It is too recent to be considered retro, but it is now more than a decade old and tracing the design language of a generation of cinematic action games that has already started to fade. Putting it on phones and tablets extends its life not as a nostalgia piece, but as a still-viable, big-budget adventure that fits in your bag.
It also quietly gives Crystal Dynamics a way to keep the survivor-era Lara visible without committing to a new sequel. While Catalyst is confirmed to be a fresh take with a new lead actress, the mobile port lets the 2013 characterization live on in a convenient, evergreen form.
Legacy of Atlantis: rebuilding the 1996 classic for 2026
If mobile is about preservation through reach, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is about preservation through reconstruction.
Announced at The Game Awards with a 2026 target, Legacy of Atlantis is Crystal Dynamics’ second attempt at rebuilding Lara’s 1996 debut, following 2007’s Tomb Raider Anniversary. This time the studio is calling it a reimagining rather than a straight remake, built in Unreal Engine 5 and co-developed with Shadow Warrior studio Flying Wild Hog.
In a recent interview, studio head Scott Amos described Legacy of Atlantis as a love letter to Core Design’s original work, timed around Tomb Raider’s 30th anniversary. The team talks a lot about honoring the original DNA and intent, even as they modernize almost everything else. Iconic scenes like the T. rex encounter or the early wolf den and collapsing bridges are touchstones the developers keep referencing. The aim is to rebuild them so they look and feel like players remember, not necessarily how they actually were on 90s hardware.
That philosophy extends beyond visuals. The first Tomb Raider was notorious for its harsh, grid-based platforming, rigid camera, and frequent instant-death traps. Legacy of Atlantis will soften some of those rough edges for contemporary players while keeping the underlying tension. Crystal is explicit about wanting the game to still be about careful traversal, methodical puzzle solving and the constant awareness that every pressure plate or suspicious floor tile could still kill you. The tricks will be more readable and the controls more forgiving, but the mood is meant to be the same.
At the same time, Legacy of Atlantis is the first of the new projects to feature a unified modern Lara Croft. Alix Wilton Regan is stepping into the role across both Legacy and Catalyst, with Crystal emphasizing her ability to bridge wry confidence and emotional nuance. Where Anniversary still treated classic Lara as an almost mythic action figure, Legacy of Atlantis looks set to give even early-era Lara more internal life, while keeping the silhouette, iconic outfit and dual pistols that older fans expect.
Catalyst: a new frontier for a unified Lara
The other half of the console future is Tomb Raider Catalyst, a brand new mainline game targeting 2027. While Legacy of Atlantis looks back, Catalyst is pure forward motion.
Set in northern India, Catalyst presents Lara as an established, highly competent adventurer rather than the untested survivor of the 2013 trilogy. Crystal Dynamics has described her as being at the top of her game, which positions Catalyst as the first major attempt in years to show a fully realized, confident Lara in a modern blockbuster framework.
Narratively, Catalyst sits in a deliberately flexible place. It is not a direct continuation of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and the studio has framed this as a fresh starting point. At the same time, Crystal has been careful to say that Lara in Legacy of Atlantis and Lara in Catalyst are the same person at different points in her life. That gives them room to pull references from across the series without locking Catalyst into any one timeline.
In practical terms, Catalyst is the flagship of the future slate. It is the game that has to prove Lara can still headline a new-gen action adventure next to whatever Naughty Dog, Capcom and others are shipping in the same window. Where the mobile port and Legacy of Atlantis are about revisiting older designs, Catalyst is where new systems, new traversal ideas and a more systemic approach to tombs and combat are most likely to appear.
Mapping Lara’s 2026 and beyond
Looked at as a whole, the Tomb Raider schedule after a relatively quiet decade suddenly feels crowded.
February 12, 2026 brings Tomb Raider (2013) to iOS and Android, preserving the survivor trilogy’s origin story on new hardware and introducing it to an audience that may have skipped consoles entirely. Later that year, Legacy of Atlantis is planned to arrive on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S as a reimagined version of the 1996 game, acting as both a 30th anniversary celebration and a modern reboot of classic Lara. Then, in 2027, Catalyst is set to follow on the same platforms as the first original entry of this new era.
Layered on top of that, Amazon is producing a live-action Tomb Raider series, and Amazon Games is publishing Legacy of Atlantis. Between the TV project, the mobile port and two big console releases, it is clear that Tomb Raider is being repositioned as a cross-media, multi-platform brand rather than a single ongoing timeline.
From a player’s perspective, that means a strange but potentially rich situation where three overlapping Laras coexist. On mobile, you have the anxious, violently initiated Lara of 2013. On console in Legacy of Atlantis, you get a polished interpretation of the classic 90s adventurer. In Catalyst, if Crystal sticks to its stated goals, you will see an experienced, contemporary Lara who synthesizes traits from both.
Preserving every era at once
What makes this strategy interesting is how consciously it tries to address the different ways Tomb Raider fans relate to Lara.
For long-time PC and PlayStation players, the original 1996 game is a piece of gaming history as much as an action platformer. Legacy of Atlantis aims at that group directly, promising to keep the sharp, lonely atmosphere of those early tombs intact even as it replaces tank controls and low-poly models with modern animation and lighting. It is preservation by reinterpretation, the same way Resident Evil 2 and Final Fantasy VII Remake reimagined their source material.
For those who discovered Tomb Raider through the 2013 reboot, the mobile port is a kind of time capsule. By bundling all DLC and giving it modern input options, Crystal and Feral can keep the survivor trilogy accessible even if console storefronts or backward compatibility options change in the future. It effectively turns the reboot into a permanent app that can follow you across phones and tablets.
Catalyst, meanwhile, is less about preservation and more about synthesis. The studio keeps talking about a Lara who embodies the DNA of every prior version: the athletic confidence of the 90s games, the emotional vulnerability of the survivor trilogy and the puzzle-first focus that old fans often say they miss. Unifying Lara’s voice actor across Legacy and Catalyst is a signal that Crystal wants one coherent modern Lara, even if the specific stories and timelines are being shuffled.
It is a difficult balance to strike. Lean too hard on nostalgia and Catalyst risks feeling like a museum piece. Push only into new territory and the older audience might feel as if their history with the character has been discarded. By putting preservation projects and a new tentpole game on the calendar at the same time, Crystal Dynamics is effectively betting that different Laras can serve different roles in the same few-year window.
The challenge of modernizing Lara without losing her
Underneath the individual announcements is a larger question about what a modern Lara Croft should look and feel like.
Crystal Dynamics’ messaging around Legacy of Atlantis stresses that it is not trying to sand away all the danger and opacity that made the 1996 game memorable. There is an admission, though, that tastes have changed. Puzzle design that once leaned on trial-and-error and unseen instant deaths will be reworked so that failure feels like the result of a choice you could understand, not a lack of clairvoyance. Camera systems and traversal will likely be smoother and less rigid, but the studio insists that you should still feel the weight of every jump.
Catalyst will have to extend that philosophy into an open-ended structure. Tomb Raider has been pulled between scripted cinematic sequences and more systemic exploration for years. If Catalyst can take the readability and accessibility of the newer games and combine it with spaces that feel as intricate as the 90s tombs, it could finally settle Tomb Raider into a stable modern identity.
The mobile port of Tomb Raider 2013, while less glamorous, is part of the same equation. By making it playable in a context where control schemes are flexible and accessibility options are expected, Crystal can soften some of the friction that put off players in 2013 without touching the game’s content itself.
A rare chance to define Tomb Raider’s next decade
The next few years are a test of whether Tomb Raider can be more than a fondly remembered logo.
Legacy of Atlantis is tasked with proving that classic Lara still works in 2026 if she is framed correctly. Catalyst has to show that a unified, mature Lara can stand next to the biggest action-adventure heroes of the current generation. The mobile version of Tomb Raider 2013 ensures that the last successful reinvention of the series remains easy to discover and revisit.
If all three find their audiences, Crystal Dynamics and its partners will have built a kind of playable museum for the entire franchise, from its harsh 90s roots through its gritty reboot to whatever comes next. That would be a fitting way to mark Lara Croft’s 30th anniversary: not by choosing one true version of her, but by making sure every era of Tomb Raider has a place in the present.