The whirlwind adventure that is ‘Tomb Raider Chronicles’ comes to a dramatic finale as Lara Croft dons a leather catsuit and infiltrates the high-security Von Croy Enterprises building in New York City, or rather Jersey City – if the positioning of the Manhattan skyline in the distance can be used as a marker.

I should explain the geography a little here, as I was quite keen to learn the exact location of where this adventure was taking place. With the World Trade Centre featuring prominently in the background whenever our heroine positioned herself close to a window overlooking the river, I thought it would be interesting to use this view to pinpoint where this fictional building was supposed to be.

Now, I’ve never been to New York City so correct me if I am wrong here. If you logically follow the three photos above – factoring in that the building Lara is standing in is a little further back from the river – then I think a reasonably accurate location for the Von Croy headquarters would be somewhere within the yellow circle on the map.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did the developers keep the World Trade Centre in the remastered version of the game, but actually enhanced the view to a considerable degree. Whenever I entered a room with a window, I often stayed there for a while to admire the scenery; and sometimes would use the zoom to scan up and down the skyline.

But I should now move onto the story itself, where Lara’s mission is to break into the high-tech building and steal the powerful Iris artifact. Easier said than done!

Standing in Lara’s way are dozens of armed security guards, laser traps and machine gun turrets that are motion sensor activated. Fortunately, there are a few employees who are not as good at their jobs as some of their more trigger-happy colleagues – like old mate in the screenshot below.

Like every other level in this game, these chapters play out more along the lines of vignettes rather than expansive, complicated missions as seen in previous Tomb Raider titles. However, keeping the areas brief and the pace moving at a decent speed does have its advantages – and there were more than enough tricky puzzles, dangerous opponents and difficult stunts in these levels to satisfy most fans.

Having stolen the Iris at the end of the first chapter titled ‘The 13th Floor’, the next stage is the aptly-named ‘Escape With The Iris’ and begins with Lara having to disarm herself in order not to set off the deadly sensors in a scene reminiscent of ‘Total Recall‘ – see photo below.

Having to deal with armed guards without any weapons to fire back at them was a little testy at times, but some of the cloths and bottles of chloroform left lying around the place certainly came in handy. Exactly why these items would be found in the executive’s offices is a little beyond me, but I’ll take any help where I can get it!

I should also point out that the decor of the building reminded me of Nakatomi Plaza in ‘Die Hard’, and I suspect the game designers were heavily-inspired by this film – and that includes when Lara is crawling through the ventilation shafts.

The final level of the game is titled ‘Red Alert’ – and is all about Lara’s quest to gain access to the rooftop helipad in order to escape the building. This time around, there are some truly formidable foes – including a crazy helicopter that blasts machine gun rounds through the windows whenever Lara comes into view (see photo below).

There are two cyborgs hunting Lara down as well, and both are extremely difficult to kill. The first one needs to be electrocuted by flooding a room with water and then shot up a few times, with the second cyborg needing to be trapped and then gassed. Both mechanical men hold one half of the escape key, so Lara cannot get away until these villains have been dealt with.

Once you combine the key, it is a simple matter of backtracking to the exit and opening the door – where the game ends with a cut scene of Lara escaping on a hang glider.

Overall, I thought that some of the puzzles and jumping tricks featured in these levels – especially in the elevator shafts and broken stairwell – were some of the hardest to pass through in the entire game. In fact, I’m going out on a limb here and will say that the Von Croy Building was the most difficult of all the locations featured in ‘Tomb Raider Chronicles.’

For those old enough to remember the original PlayStation game from 2000, it was a shame that back then the final level was ruined by numerous bugs and glitches – where one false save in the wrong place meant you had to start the entire stage from the beginning. If I recall correctly, there were doors that wouldn’t open and missing grappling hook ammo – meaning that the ‘Red Alert’ level was impossible to pass. The good news is that all of these issues have been sorted out in the remastered edition.

I will now present a few comparison screenshots – with the 2025 version on top, and the original from all those years ago featured on the bottom. I will pick the ones that best highlight the improvements made for the newer game.

I would rate ‘Tomb Raider Chronicles’ as an enjoyable – but lightweight – entry into the series. To be honest, after the Rome and Russian Submarine stories, the chances of me rating this release highly were not looking good – but the second half of the game set in Ireland and New York were quite strong and got it over the line.

I still think this remains one of the weaker Tomb Raider games, and with the exception of the Hydra fight in Rome and a rope swinging trick in the Ireland levels, I did not come across too many frustrating hurdles during my progress. There was the odd timed-switch run and one-off challenges here and there, but it felt like there were a few extra seconds afforded to these sprints when compared to similar tests in earlier titles.

At times, the narrative did feel more like deleted scenes or excess adventures that had been slapped together hastily to create a full game and cash in at the height of Lara Croft’s popularity – which would have been at around the turn of the century. But as I mentioned above, the second half of the game featured some good storytelling and unique surroundings, and it’s always better to finish strongly than to fade away.

My final score for this game is a handy 6.5* out of 10.

*As with all the other remastered Tomb Raider titles, the work that has gone in to update and modernise this game has been brilliant to say the least – and this certainly adds marks to the final score.

All screenshots are courtesy of Aspyr, Crystal Dynamics, PlayStation and Google Maps.