The refresh of Lara Croft's classic tomb-stealing and dinosaur-shooting adventures was largely well-received by fans – we even gave it a very respectable 78% in our Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered review. Turns out it could have been even better if – see my notes here – you bought it from the Epic Games Store. Wait, really?
As several players have noted, there appear to be two different versions of the remaster – the one available on Steam/GOG and the one available on the Epic Games Store (Thanks, Eurogamer).
This was originally discovered by one Maciej Wyżgowski on YouTube, who posted a video with the cute caption “Instead of the ceiling, I have such a beautiful view” – their version of the Palace Midas level was missing the roof. This was then picked up by a Twitter user kroft_kwhich prompted a channel called Small Medipack to investigate.
In one (n ongoing thread Small Medipack documented the differences, noting that the Epic Games version features a whopping 21 photo mode poses, updated textures, better snowflakes, improved water – the entire nine yards.
They also shared a video from YouTuber the so-called, which made a direct comparison in the game's Greece levels. As you can see for yourself, the differences in lighting are quite significant – in some areas there is a completely different atmosphere.
Players on the game's official Discord also got wise. As if to prove that they weren't all just hallucinating, one player even transferred their Steam save directly to Epic Games. In fact, phantom panels appeared where none existed before.
As if that wasn't enough, it turns out that the Steam/GOG versions of the game are missing an entire bonus stage: All Hallows. In the original game, you reached this stage by finding every secret in the game. The same applies here – unless you play on Steam or GOG.
The only downside to the Epic Games version of the remaster right now? Successes are broken. That's it. I've reached out to the game's publisher, Aspyr, for comment and will update this article if I get a response – but nothing like that is the case unheard from. Delays in updates between platforms can occur for various reasons.
It's just that you're usually told what's going on and why, and at the time of writing, players were left relatively in the dark with no skylight in sight to show them the way.
