Tomb Raider side-scroller edition is finally available as a free fan game

Lara Croft has scaled cliffs, raided tombs, outrun boulders, locked butlers in freezers, and survived more reboots than most gaming icons ever see. Now, she’s doing something that feels both brand-new and oddly inevitable: moving side to side. Tomb Raider: Side-Scroller Edition is now available as a free fan-made release, reimagining the classic Tomb Raider trilogy through a 2D side-scrolling lens. Developed by Delca and Trxye, both linked to work on Tomb Raider: Remastered, the project has been in public development since at least 2022 and is now downloadable via TRCustoms. The idea sounds simple, but it lands with a surprising amount of retro logic. Tomb Raider has always been about reading spaces: measuring jumps, watching trap patterns, inching toward ledges, and trusting that Lara’s next leap will be the right one. Strip away the 3D camera, and what remains is a game that looks closer to cinematic platformers like Prince of Persia or Flashback, while still keeping the tension of Core Design’s original tomb-crawling formula.

Rather than offering a straight demake, Side-Scroller Edition rebuilds familiar locations around a new perspective. The game features 10 stages, with Lara travelling through iconic destinations including India, Greece, and Venice. Completionists also have a serious treasure hunt ahead: 100 optional Golden Crystals are hidden throughout, and collecting them all unlocks a bonus stage. That structure is what makes the project especially interesting. The original Tomb Raider games were never only about combat or spectacle; they were about mastery. A room was a puzzle box. A jump was a calculation. A secret was a dare. By shifting the action into 2D, this fan project appears to sharpen those ideas into something more immediate, where every platform, spike, switch, and climb has to communicate clearly from a single angle. It also arrives at a moment when Tomb Raider nostalgia is in full swing. The classic games have been reappraised through remasters, fan restorations, ports, custom levels, and new community projects.

Side-Scroller Edition feels like part of that same preservation-minded wave, but with a twist: it does not simply polish the past, it asks what Tomb Raider might have looked like had Lara taken a different path through the 1990s. Fan games can often feel like curiosities, but this one has the kind of clean hook that makes it instantly understandable. Tomb Raider, but sideways. Lara Croft, but viewed like a lost 32-bit platform adventure. The classic trilogy, but rearranged into a new rhythm of traps, jumps, and collectible crystals. For longtime fans, it is a chance to revisit familiar tombs from an unfamiliar angle. For retro players, it is a reminder that Tomb Raider’s DNA has always had more in common with precision platforming than its polygonal reputation suggests. And for anyone who has ever wondered how Lara might fare in a world of scrolling screens and perfectly timed jumps, the answer is finally here: she still looks right at home.

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