A previously unreleased Tomb Raider is now available as a playable alpha version in Internet Archive released. The game is a remake of the first series part, which was created by the original developer Core Design, but was lost for years.
It’s called Tomb Raider: 10th Anniversary Edition and is said to have been almost ready for a release in 2006, ten years after the original was released. But the story unfolded to the disadvantage of Core Design.
What happened?
It has been a long time since a remake of the very first Tomb Raider was released, namely in 2007. The original game is much longer back – in 1996 Lara Croft went hunting for relics on the original Playstation. What many players might not know: There was another remake.
Originally it should come from the original developer Core Design and be much closer to the gameplay of the first part of the series, like PC Gamer reported. However, the contract from the rights holder at the time, Eidos, was awarded to Crystal Dynamics, which also brought Tomb Raider: Anniversary up to date in terms of gameplay. The almost finished game by Core Design never appeared and was not findable for years.
And this game, at least as an alpha version, was made now published in playable and modable condition. Anyone who takes some effort to get the game up and running will be able to explore multiple levels as Lara Croft. Opponents are missing, but the typical climbing and puzzle gameplay already works, as this YouTube video shows:
Link to YouTube content
Later, the Tomb Raider Foundation even became fashioned into an Indiana Jones game, which also never saw the light of day. At least until now, because the data published on the Internet Archive encompasses the entire package.
Who published the game?
The fan blog Tomb of Ash takes responsibility for the publication of the material on the Internet Archive. Operator Ash Kaprielov describes himself as a devoted Tomb Raider fan.
As Kaprielov writes, he tried several times over a long period of time to contact Crystal Dynamics and asked for permission to publish the data, but received no response.
Therefore he decided to make the data available to the Internet Archive. In the US, the organization made it in 2003 for old software Exemption from Law regarding copyright.
