Upcoming Tomb Raider side scroller fan project looks like a great lost 90s classic

Just when you thought you’d seen every possible angle on Tomb Raider, along comes something that flips the whole formula on its head. Or, more accurately, onto its side. A new fan-made project, Tomb Raider: Side Scroller Edition, is taking Lara Croft’s classic adventures and rebuilding them as a 2.5D action-platformer. That means ancient ruins, deadly traps, and precision jumping all make the cut — but now everything unfolds from a side-on perspective that feels like it’s been pulled straight out of the late ‘90s. And here’s the surprise: it doesn’t feel like a gimmick. It actually feels right. Back in the day, Tomb Raider wasn’t about non-stop action or cinematic bombast. It was slower, more deliberate, and far more dangerous. Every jump mattered. Every ledge was a risk. One wrong move and you were staring at a loading screen. Strip away a dimension, and all of that tension is still there — maybe even stronger. With the camera locked to the side, the focus shifts squarely onto platforming and timing. You can see the structure of the levels more clearly, feel the rhythm of each jump, and appreciate just how carefully designed those early environments really were. It’s less about spectacle and more about survival, which is exactly what made the original games so gripping in the first place.

What really sells the project, though, is its sense of authenticity. This isn’t just Lara dropped into a random side-scroller. The environments feel familiar. The tone is spot-on. There’s a quiet, slightly eerie atmosphere that instantly recalls the original trilogy. It’s the same lonely exploration, the same sense of being somewhere you probably shouldn’t be — only now it’s presented in a completely different way. In fact, it looks uncannily like the sort of spin-off you might have read about in a 1997 magazine and assumed you’d never get to play. One of those strange alternate versions of a big-name game that somehow only existed in screenshots and rumors. Except this time, it’s real. The choice to revisit recognizable locations from the original trilogy makes the whole thing even more appealing. For longtime fans, there’s a real thrill in seeing these classic areas reimagined from a new perspective. It’s familiar, but not predictable. You know the spaces, but you don’t quite know how they’ll play anymore. That’s a rare trick to pull off. Most retro-inspired projects lean heavily on nostalgia without adding much of their own. This one feels like it’s doing something smarter. It’s not just recreating Tomb Raider — it’s reinterpreting it, finding a new angle on what made it work and pushing that idea as far as it can go.

There’s also a confidence to the whole thing that sets it apart from typical fan projects. Too often, these kinds of releases look promising at first glance but fall apart once you spend time with them. Here, there’s a clear understanding of what Tomb Raider is supposed to feel like. The pacing, the danger, the movement — it all seems carefully considered rather than thrown together for novelty’s sake. That’s why this one stands out. In an era where “retro revival” usually means a fresh coat of paint on something you’ve already played, Tomb Raider: Side Scroller Edition feels like a genuine what-if scenario. What if Lara Croft had taken a different path? What if her earliest adventures had been built as cinematic platformers instead of full 3D explorations? Looking at this, it’s not hard to imagine that version of history. And if it had happened, chances are we’d still be talking about it today. Fan projects don’t always get the attention they deserve, but every now and then one comes along that’s too inventive to ignore. This looks like one of them. Tomb Raider has gone side-on — and somehow, it hasn’t lost a step. The game will be available for free on TRCustoms.org, a website for all Tomb Raider fangames. Available exclusively on PC (Windows). Planned release: May 2026.

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