The Tomb Raider series first had its beginnings in October 1996 on the Sega Saturn in Europe, with the Sony PlayStation and MS-DOS versions releasing the following month. From its humble beginnings, Tomb Raider has seen several changes in both developers and reboots over the past several decades. The first major shift was the end of the Core Design era, with Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, released in 2003, being the final nail in the coffin. Three years later, Lara Croft received a make-over and retcon with the release of Tomb Raider Legend. Its sequel, Tomb Raider Underworld, was released in 2008. The third, and current, reboot in Lara's story took place in 2013 starting with the aptly named Tomb Raider.
In 2007, players saw a re-imagining of the original Tomb Raider titled Tomb Raider Anniversary by Crystal Dynamics. Core Design expressed interest in remaking the original game back in 2005 before the studio lost the license. A few days ago, an alpha build unearthed itself to the public. While veteran fans of Tomb Raider can appreciate the classic Core Design-based Tomb Raider demo complete with upgraded graphics, some fans have had their eyes set on another project that has been three years in the making.
In 2017, fan-creator Nicobass gave Tomb Raider fans a treat with the 1997 release, Tomb Raider 2 in mind. Built from the ground up via Unreal Engine 4, Tomb Raider: Dagger of Xian, is a remake of Tomb Raider 2. It's far more than a simple remaster, however, as the game is meant to envision Tomb Raider 2 with the modern games in mind.
The Dagger of Xian fan project is nothing more than a project created with love from the franchise. Throughout the development history, Nicobass has denied donations and has even reached out to Crystal Dynamics so as to not step on any toes. News has remained stagnant since the public demo was released three years ago, with many thinking that the project was scrapped.
However, over the past several months, Nikobass shared several photos showing off the progress made within the project. A recent tweet shows off Lara's butler, Winston, in the UE4 build. Nicobass also refers to a humorous easter egg involving the butler in one of their tweets. In Tomb Raider 2, as Lara roams around her mansion, the butler can follow her wherever she went. Taking advantage of this, gamers could lure Winston inside of a freezer and lock him inside, preventing him from following Lara. This event was even referenced in modern Tomb Raider games.
With only 150 tweets on his Twitter account at the time of writing, Nicobass rarely makes appearances on social media. However, it comes as great news for fans of the project and Tomb Raider alike to see that this project is being worked on. Hopefully, fans can experience another playable demo sometime in the near future. Until then, PlayStation fans still have Shadow of the Tomb Raider to enjoy for free this month.
Source: Nicobass (via Twitter)