Of all the things I planned on doing in 2024, I never expected to fulfill an ambition that I’ve kept around since childhood. But, by way of the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Collection, I can finally say it - I have completed the very first Tomb Raider! Obviously, the rest of my to-do list was based on more grown-up things, such as ‘drink less’ and ‘try to finish a half marathon without dying’. And while I managed to also complete both of these, they didn’t quite give me the same sense of fulfillment as sliding my way out of The Great Pyramid to complete Lara Croft’s first grand adventure.
So what is left to be done after such a Herculean achievement? To blog about every level, and rank them in order of how much I enjoyed them, of course! Just don’t hate me too much if I trash your favourite.
15. The Cistern
Lara's quest for the Scion, an ancient Atlantean artefact of remarkable power, covers plenty of highs and a few lows. And for me, the lowest point was unquestionably the arduous slog of a toilet tank that was The Cistern.
As the penultimate level of the game’s Greek chapter, The Cistern is a vast aquatic chamber whose plumbing alone provides the maze that hides the Tomb of Tihocan, the second resting place of Atlantean royalty that hides a piece of the Scion. Just like most of the levels in TR1, it tries to visually impress. There it all is - one giant pool of luminous water, lots of ornate columns, and Greek sculptures to gawp at. Then the main theme tune kicks in - you know the drill. And then you begin to explore the level, and you realize how annoying it is to miss the ledges around the walls of the hall, how much time you have to spend underwater, how much back-tracking, and how many door switches there are and - *ugh* - it’s all so bloody tedious.
Classic Tomb Raider gameplay is at its best when there’s a flow to it, and the only thing that flows in The Cistern is the water that makes up so much of it. It’s bitty, annoying and so, so dull.
14. Caves
The first of Peru’s levels is incredibly straightforward and could even have served as a tutorial if not for Lara’s house appearing in the game. Nonetheless, the ghostly echoes off the cavern walls, the rope bridges, and the creepy Incan mummy you find are essential moments in the TR1 experience. Not to mention the first encounter with those pesky bears…
13. City of Vilcabamba
Level two of the Peru stages is another level overshadowed by the vast labyrinths Lara encounters later in the game. Still, it’s nice that the level tries to capture the look of a pre-Columbian settlement, with loads of weaving motifs and a few Aztec skull walls to make up the ambience. The wolf den halfway through provides a tricky battle, and the water temple that makes up the level’s main obstacle is also a subtle hint at far bigger puzzles to come.
12. City of Khamoon
Time to annoy a few of the TR1 diehards. An Egyptian level this far down the list?! Cue ensuing of outrage.
For sure, Tomb Raider’s third chapter in Egypt offers some of the most breathtaking moments this first outing has to offer. However, I don’t think that can be said of its first level. The obelisk and little sphinx at the start certainly look cool - at least until you get to the later Egyptian levels, and marvel at far bigger examples of each.
Really, the City of Khamoon feels more like a teaser for the rest of the Egyptian levels, and there isn’t much else - save for maybe the panther pit at the end - that serves as an exciting or deadly moment.
11. The Great Pyramid
TR1’s finale is definitely memorable. You finally square off with Natla, an Atlantean queen disguised as the shadowy corporate boss who hired Lara to collect the pieces of the Scion in the first place. Even better, you get to bring an end to her scheme to revive Atlantis and its army of twisted mutants.
The very start of the level puts you face to face with Natla's mutated magnum opus - a legless, yellow-eyed ball of rage and arms that will fling you around like a ragdoll if you let it get too close. It’s a great start, but the escape afterward features the most fiendish gauntlet of traps the game has thrown at you yet. It’s frustrating enough to feel like a cheap wall between you and the end of the game.
Then when you eventually make it through, there’s Natla herself, who is an absolute cinch to put down. That’s kind of all The Great Pyramid is - a trap sandwich with bosses for bread. An epic conclusion? Sure. But a short, nasty one at that.
10. Tomb of Qualopec
The Peru chapter’s final level is one of its high points. After several levels of drafty, ice-laden caverns that all looked the same, you find yourself at the magnificent resting place of the first piece of the Scion - and its long-deceased guardian, Qualopec.
It’s the first time the game actually gets to play up all the Atlantean legend that the plot builds itself around, putting you slap-bang in a mausoleum saturated in regal splendour and mystery. Elaborate hieroglyphs adorn the red and gold walls, giant sliding block puzzles block the way forward and raptors from the Lost Valley continue to hunt you in the corridors. Are those mummies in the burial chamber still alive…?
9. Tomb of Tihocan
The resting place for the second piece of the Scion, the Tomb of Tihocan, closes out the game’s iconic Greek chapter.
Originally being the conclusive part of The Cistern, it was actually split into its own level due to memory/space constraints. And just like The Cistern, the first part is essentially one big water maze that is no fun at all.
But once you come sliding through Poseidon’s mouth (yeah, a bit weird) into the subterranean lake that surrounds the tomb itself, this level goes full ‘classic Tomb Raider’ mood. The lighting around the cavern, those ominous centaur statues that line the tomb’s entrance, and the final showdown with your dastardly rival, Pierre Dupont: all are highlights in a memorable conclusion to Lara’s escapade in Greece.
8. The Colosseum
After outwitting the deadly riddles of St. Francis’ Folly, you find yourself standing outside an immense marble-columned structure of ancient renown. You traverse around its exterior, finding keys here and shooting hungry lions there, and eventually, you find your way inside. And what you see is incredible - a living, breathing ancient arena in stunning 3-D!
Seriously, in 1996, this level blew me away. It was one of the first real examples of what was to come with the 3-D revolution to follow. TR1’s Colosseum packs a proper gladiatorial pit (complete with wild beasts to fight), actual spectator stands, and even a ‘nobles’ box serving as the level’s final section.
It was also huge—so big that when standing from one end of the pit to the other, you couldn’t even see the wall at the other end. And what were graphical limitations for the time only added to the moody atmosphere. For its sheer sense of scene alone, the Colosseum was incredible.
7. Lost Valley
Now we’re really getting to the business end. It says a lot about the quality of TR1 as a whole that we now get to talk about an unforgettable moment in the history of early 3-D games, and we’re only at number 7 on this list.
The Lost Valley - Peru’s best level - takes more than an ounce of inspiration from the Jurassic Park franchise. Its start sees you clambering through the same old caves you’ve gotten used to so far. But step through an opening and all of a sudden, you’re in a dense jungle valley. And velociraptors are charging at you. What’s going on?!
That’s not even half of it. Wander further and you’ll soon find, coming out of the darkness, a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex stampeding over to have their dinner - you.
If TR1 was released as a new game today - in our age of online over-engagement - such a moment would have been put into a social media trailer to get people hyped up for its release. And it would have been utterly spoiled. The fact that you had no idea what the first Tomb Raider would throw at you added to its intrigue, and critically made your first encounter with the Lost Valley’s T-Rex both exhilarating and terrifying. The rest of the level is fairly unremarkable, but this one moment was worth it all.
6. Atlantis
The penultimate level of TR1 is where everything finally comes home to roost. Judging from the bizarre mutated creatures the Egyptian levels had you fighting, at this point in the game you might be starting to wonder that there’s something fishy about all this Scion business. And you’d be right - at least if the pulsating flesh walls and exploding mutant pods of Atlantis are anything to go by!
The result of Natla’s bio-experiments with the Scion, Atlantis isn’t just a tribute to gross-out body horror, it’s also the most challenging level of the game so far. The layout is linear, essentially having you scale the interior of a gigantic pyramid, overcoming some kind of trap or challenge at each storey. But the challenges themselves are daunting. Not only is there an entire horde of monsters in your way, but also your own bio-mutated doppelganger (lovingly dubbed by fans as ‘Bacon Lara’).
Bacon Lara mirrors all your moves and can only be overcome by forcing her to walk into a deadly pit of lava. No mean feat, and an ingenious late-game puzzle.
5. Palace Midas
There’s a lot to love about the Greek levels in this game, and but for one particular level we’ll be getting to later on, they don’t deserve more adoration than the beautifully designed Palace Midas.
Often feeling like multiple levels in one, Palace Midas packs a lot of puzzles. It might not have the vast splendour of The Colosseum or the later Egypt levels, but it is tons of fun. There’s the inner courtyard with the multiple switches, the sprawling croc-infested aqueduct, and that ‘golden’ encounter with a giant statue of Midas himself (don’t climb on the hand!).
But the best part is finding the three lead bars that you need to turn to gold to beat the level. The trek for the third one is an impossibly crammed, smartly constructed tour through places you’ve already visited across the palace grounds, and it is brilliantly done. All in all, a genuine TR1 highlight.
4. Natla’s Mines
People either love Natla’s Mines or hate it with a burning passion. It’s easy to understand the latter - all of the ancient ruin theme is removed and replaced with a colder modern-tech setting and tons of block pushing. Personally, I love it because of just how much it throws at you. There are giant rolling ball traps galore, the puzzle to lower the portable building to get your guns back, and that utterly brutal back-and-forth across the lava river that can burn you to a crisp. It’s horrendously tough, but not as awful as The Great Pyramid.
The best part though is the physical ‘narrative’ of the level’s second half. As you climb up through the mines and through the foundations of the Atlantean pyramid, finally making it to its golden entrance - defeating Natla’s henchmen as you go - there’s a real sense that you’re building toward the game’s exciting climax.
3. Obelisk of Khamoon
In the same way that Palace Midas was fun with its gauntlet of puzzles, the Obelisk of Khamoon - Egypt’s second level - is also a problem solver’s delight. But the difference here is that all of the puzzles are intricately centered around the giant obelisk of the level’s name, requiring you to lower four drawbridges connected to it to grab all the artifacts required to escape the level.
Each trial you face on this level is both diverse and well crafted, from problems that involve shifting sands to staircases and back, to underwater areas that, for once, don’t actually feel annoying. There’s also a significant but necessary uptick in the difficulty too: those vicious mutants are growing by the dozen at this point.
Beautiful both in visuals and layout, the Obelisk ranks this high up not just because its puzzles were clever: they made you feel clever for solving them.
2. Sanctuary of the Scion
Levels in Tomb Raider 1 tend to follow one of two themes - either a vast open space or areas that are confined and complex. The Sanctuary of the Scion, Egypt’s final level, combines both of these elements.
If not for our number one on this list (and I’m sure you know what that is by now), the Sanctuary would be the quintessential Tomb Raider experience. Everything about it is stunning: the giant sphinx that is its centerpiece, the mind-bogglingly vast cavern you need to scale the walls of for keys to get inside it, and the even larger statue chamber that somehow sits beneath it all.
It also has a little bit of all the TR elements - water, hard-to-find switches, frantic battles in tight chambers, etc. - and executes them flawlessly. As far as Tomb Raider levels go, they don’t come bigger, or more ambitious, than the Sanctuary of the Scion.
1. St. Francis’ Folly
Okay, so no real spoiler here. St. Francis’ Folly is the best level of the first Tomb Raider. It’s probably also the best Tomb Raider level of all time. I know it. You know it. Even your dog who’s watched you play Tomb Raider knows it. You were probably only here to see where everything else ranked.
But why is this one so beloved? Simply because, for a game from 1996, it remains captivating - a perilous multi-storey maze of pillars and Penrose stairs where every wrong jump promises a deadly fall to the bottom. It’s also the first level of the game that truly captures the series’ theme of awe and wonder. You know from the very moment you come on to the ledge that opens out into the hall and the music starts playing, that you’ve stumbled into somewhere very special. And all you need to realize why is to look down.
Not only is the Folly incredibly designed, but it was also the first level to do the ‘gauntlet of trials’ idea copied by later efforts. At each storey of the hall, there is a room named after a different mythical figure - Thor, Damocles, Atlas, and Neptune - each hiding a key with their own themed challenge, each of them guaranteeing death from some horrible fate. The Thor room had you jumping across a tiled floor to avoid a glorified Tesla coil that would electrocute you if you dallied for too long. The Damocles room was notorious for the giant blades that would drop on you from the ceiling if you were too hasty in your movement. It was all such a jump up from the Peru levels in terms of difficulty as to almost be unfair. But there was no greater sense of accomplishment this game offered than finally getting to the bottom of this sprawling, vertically imposing labyrinth with the exit keys intact - even if your own sanity wasn’t.
Remarkable in layout and tough in challenge, St. Francis’ Folly is Tomb Raider perfection and the bar for everything in the franchise that has followed.
Honourable Mention: The Temple of the Cat (Unfinished Business)
Haven’t I rambled on long enough? Yes, I have. But I couldn’t exit this post without a little mention of my favourite level from TR1’s free expansion pack, Unfinished Business. That would be the Egyptian shrine dedicated to all things feline, the Temple of the Cat.
The expansion pack’s previous level, Return To Egypt, sees Lara retracing her steps through the old City of Khamoon, which has since flooded. Swimming underwater near the old cat shrine of that level now reveals a brand new area. This area leads into an open desert under a twilight sky - and a huge, sprawling ruin to explore.
Cat motifs adorn the walls and panthers prowl the gantries in a level that is as extravagant as it is long. There are plenty of rolling ball traps to dodge in the desert, as well as those monstrous Atlantean mummies lurking in the shadows of the temple.
Your reward for it all? A gigantic cat sphinx to marvel at in the final area, plus a statue of the Egyptian goddess, Bastet, which Lara’s mansion has on full display in the sequels. Fair compensation for a level that’s a real Bastet to beat.
