Tomb Raider on PS1: A Dad’s Return to 1996 Lara Croft

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What It Is

Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game developed by Core Design in Derby and published by Eidos Interactive in 1996, initially on PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and DOS. You play Lara Croft, a British archaeologist-adventurer, on a four-location hunt for an artefact called the Scion, which takes her through ruins in Peru, Greece, Egypt, and the lost city of Atlantis. Gameplay is equal parts platforming, puzzle-solving, and combat. The movement is grid-based — Lara runs, jumps, hangs, and shimmies on a tile system that governs precisely where she can go.

Two things made the original Tomb Raider genuinely important. First, it was one of the earliest 3D action-adventure games that felt properly three-dimensional — camera control, verticality, environments that rewarded thinking in all axes. Second, Lara Croft became the first video-game character, female or otherwise, to be a genuine pop-cultural figure. Magazine covers, film deals, cultural commentary. This is the PS1 title that convinced the mainstream that video games were a form of entertainment on the same tier as films.

Why This One Matters To Me

Tomb Raider landed the same year as a lot of PS1 greats, but it occupied a very specific space. In late 1996 I was 16, and the PS1 had just arrived at friends’ houses, and Tomb Raider was what we played when we wanted something slower and more considered than Crash Bandicoot or Ridge Racer. The demo disc on a magazine cover had the T-Rex in the St Francis Folly level. Everyone who played it remembers the moment the T-Rex turned the corner and roared.

That sense of discovery is what the game is mostly about. You enter a tomb, you work out how it fits together, you swim through a submerged passage, you jump across an abyss, you solve a switch puzzle, you shoot a wolf. There was no map, no objective marker, no quest log. The level itself was the tutorial, and figuring it out was the gameplay.

Coming back to it in 2026, two things are immediately striking. The grid-based movement feels archaic at first — modern third-person games have free-form locomotion, and Tomb Raider’s tile-snap system looks stiff. Give it ten minutes and it starts to make sense. The stiffness is the system — every jump is a decision, every shimmy a calculation, every running leap a committed act. It is not a game about dexterity. It is a game about reading the space and choosing correctly.

The kids engaged with it longer than I expected. The atmosphere is thick — quiet footsteps echoing in stone rooms, animals hiding in shadows — and even on PS1 graphics, that atmosphere translates. My ten-year-old asked questions about the puzzles. My seven-year-old asked why Lara could not swim faster. The game held their attention for longer than most arcade titles have.

The Dad Filter

Worth Full Price?

Buy. The Remastered edition of Tomb Raider I-III (2024) is available on modern platforms for around ten to fifteen pounds. It is the same game with optional modernised textures and a modern save system. Both original and remastered visuals are selectable on the fly.

If you have a PS1, boxed originals are around £6 to £12 on eBay. The Remastered version is the better practical option for most people in 2026 — especially because the original save-crystal system is controversial and the remastered version lets you opt out.

Kid Appeal

Medium. Kids raised on modern third-person action games may struggle with the grid movement and the slower pace. But the atmosphere, the verticality, and the exploration hold up surprisingly well. Both my boys engaged with it longer than they have with most games on this retro list.

There is violence — wolves and bears can be shot — and the PEGI rating is 16 for the combat content. For sensitive kids, the T-Rex jump-scare is genuinely memorable. Parental guidance for younger players.

Parent Tolerance

High. Tomb Raider is a puzzle-first, combat-light adventure. Most rooms are about figuring out how to move through them, not about shooting things. The combat is sparse enough that it never becomes the main activity. The atmosphere is genuinely good, even on a CRT.

The music is minimalist by modern standards — mostly ambient room tone, with stings when something dramatic happens. This is a feature, not a bug. It makes the dramatic moments land harder.

Family Play Value

Hot-seat. Tomb Raider is a single-player game, but it invites commentary. Watching someone solve a Tomb Raider room is genuinely interesting. My ten-year-old enjoyed being the armchair navigator while I played, calling out ledges and pointing at switches.

Hand the controller between adults and older kids between rooms. This works well. It does not work for real co-operative play — it is not designed for that — but as a discussion-driven family sit-down, it holds up.

Time Respect

Medium. The original save-crystal system forced you to collect scarce save points to save your progress. This is a design choice that feels painful in 2026. The Remastered version adds a modern save-anywhere mode, which is the one you want.

Individual rooms are bounded. You can play for 20 minutes, solve something, and put the controller down without losing progress. That makes this a friendlier dad-game than its reputation suggests.

Replay Chances

Medium. Tomb Raider is a strongly story-driven game with linear progression. Once you have solved a room, it is solved. One full playthrough is 15 to 20 hours, which is a substantial commitment.

The appeal of a second playthrough is mostly in speedrunning or in aesthetic appreciation of the level design. Not a game you will replay casually. A game you will remember.

The Verdict

Buy. Tomb Raider on PS1 was the game that proved third-person action-adventure could be a mainstream form. Lara Croft as a character is a separate cultural phenomenon. The level design is still genuinely good — better than most modern Tomb Raider games, arguably. And the Remastered version smooths out the quality-of-life issues that made the original hard to revisit.

This is one of a handful of 1996 games that defined what video games could look like. Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil, and Tomb Raider were all shaping what the PlayStation generation would remember. If you missed Tomb Raider the first time round — or if you want to show your older kid what action-adventure looked like before the modern genre conventions calcified — it is absolutely worth the time.

The grid movement will feel strange for ten minutes. Then it will feel right. Then you will wonder why modern games have lost so much of the deliberation that made this one compelling. Pay for it. Play it. Let it remind you why the PS1 generation thought gaming had finally arrived.

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• TurboGeek Gaming Hub — Every review, guide, and parent resource in one place.
• The Dad Filter Manifesto — How and why I review games as a dad, not a gamer.