Internet Find of the Week Tomb Raider: Side-Scroller Edition
I’m currently deep in a Tomb Raider nostalgia spiral. Got the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered trilogy on Steam a while ago, finished TR1 last weekend after dragging myself through the Lost Island and its absolute trial-by-fire final stretch, and I’m somewhere mid-TR2 now, still figuring out if the Great Wall of China opening is a banger or just the game refusing to let me inside and look at cool stuff yet. The point is: I’m in the zone. Peak 90s Lara brain. So when the internet dropped Tomb Raider: Side-Scroller Edition into my lap this week, the timing was almost unfair.
I didn’t know I wanted this. I didn’t even know it was possible to want this. But boy, I did!
The project is by Delca and Trxye – both of them veteran names in the Tomb Raider community and, notably, people who’ve already worked on the official Remastered collection. So this isn’t some rough weekend jam – it’s a years-long passion project, developed in public since at least 2022, that just hit its full release on May 1st. Free download, no account required, no strings, just Lara doing Lara things but sideways.
The concept is exactly what it sounds like: 10 (+1) levels pulled from TR1, 2, and 3, rebuilt from scratch as 2D side-scrollers. Same engine, same audio, same PS1-era Lara model, same move set – running, swimming, rolling, shooting, all of it – just flattened into a horizontal plane. Your brain adjusts almost immediately, which says something about how much of Tomb Raider’s DNA was always rooted in platforming and spatial reading rather than the 3D perspective itself. Remove the free camera, and what’s left still feels like Tomb Raider. Honestly, it feels weirdly like Prince of Persia at points, which makes perfect sense when you remember that’s basically what TR1 was building on to begin with.
The level selection is a love letter. You get Venice, Lara’s Home, Temple Ruins, 40 Fathoms, Floating Islands, and the entire Antarctica chapter from TR3 as its own multi-part stretch. There are some left-field choices too – Highland Fling and It’s a Madhouse from the TR2 Golden Mask expansion, which are genuine hidden gems that most people haven’t touched. There’s even Lud’s Gate from TR3, which may be the most divisive level in the whole franchise (infamous for its underwater maze section, which the side-scroller version cheekily references outside the playable area but spares you from having to actually do). And there’s a bonus level, Viva Las Vegas, unlocked only if you collect all 100 crystals across the ten main game levels. I have not done that yet – but I will!
What genuinely surprised me is how cleverly the two-folks-team adapted iconic challenges into 2D. Spike traps, boulder runs, chandelier climbs, timed escapes – they don’t just transpose these from 3D, they rebuild them for a new perspective in ways that feel right. Some of it is pure platformer. Some of it has this Crash Bandicoot-on-a-deadline energy that’s completely new but fits the vibe perfectly. The game even turns the final boss fight against Dr. Willard into a platforming section, which is… honestly better than the original.
The only real friction points are small mechanical things: Lara can’t turn around on the spot, requiring a roll to change direction (which takes more space than you’d expect, just like in the original games), and the combat against ranged enemies is a bit awkward now that you can’t dodge sideways (medipacks FTW). Neither is game-breaking. Both are the price of admission for what this conversion pulls off.
It’s free. It runs off TRCustoms. It took me a while to get going but once I was in, a few hours evaporated with zero resistance, which is about the highest recommendation I have for anything.
If you grew up with classic Tomb Raider and you have any love for cinematic platformers – Prince of Persia, Flashback, Another World, that whole lineage – this is your thing. Go give it a shot!
Hero image: Screenshot from Tomb Raider: Side-Scroller Edition project on TRCustoms.