A lot of scorn has been heaped upon Tomb Raider VI: The Angel of Darkness over the years. Returning to it, at the end of a 13-month journey through Aspyr’s remastered Tomb Raider games, left me with a begrudging admiration for what Core Design hoped to achieve – at least what remained of them by that point. Two decades on, it’s easier to appreciate the unrealised potential and how some of that DNA would re-emerge in the two Crystal Dynamics trilogies after Eidos transferred the IP to them. All of which is not to imply The Angel of Darkness is unfairly criticised or underappreciated, as playing it in its remastered form still makes for a frustrating experience.
The classic-era Tomb Raiders have always struggled to remain playable thanks to their archaic tank controls, but I found returning to the first five games intuitive enough as they make sense within the context of a blocky world. In contrast, The Angel of Darkness retains that sluggish tank-like control scheme for navigating more natural environments and a handful a set-pieces that impose time limits, require precision movement, and sometimes both. Every level I found myself wondering if Core Design had managed to implement a snappy control scheme like in Tomb Raider: Legends, would it have been far better received?
Of course, The Angel of Darkness was also saddled with development troubles like working with new PS2 hardware, an expanding team, poor management, and delays. Troubles that manifest throughout the game but most notably in the narrative. The Angel of Darkness picks up with Lara responding to a desperate call for help from her former mentor Von Croy; an argument over why he left her in Egypt (which he didn’t based on the final cutscene of Tomb Raider V: Chronicles); and Von Croy’s death at the hands of “The Monstrum”, a serial killer stalking Paris. With a single contact and his notes on the mysterious “Obscura Paintings” he was researching, Lara’s adventure sees her explore the Parisian streets, infiltrate the Louvre Museum and the ancient ruins below, travel to Prague to investigate an art merchant and his link to an ancient order of alchemists, and finally raid their stronghold and the twisted laboratories within.
It’s a focussed adventure with fewer locations, a small but recurring cast, and more in-game or CG cutscenes to push the plot forward – often returning to the opening cutscene as Lara recalls more about the attack. I enjoyed the darker plot, the theatrical villain, and a handful of reveals, but the tone is inconsistent and tries to be edgy in the way so many early- to mid-2000s games were. There are moments you can choose Lara’s response in dialogue – with some light changes to how the following scene plays out – but she’s predominantly aggressive and unlikeable, coming off as a simple gender-swap of the male anti-heroes popular at the time. She loses most of the personality and growth Core Design worked hard on building up in Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation and Chronicles, and if you want to treat the three trilogies as interconnected, that means jumping into Tomb Raider: Legends next with a wildly different Lara Croft.
The Angel of Darkness feels just as inconsistent when it comes to the gameplay loop. Replaying it with the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think it ever lost that classic Tomb Raider spirit, given you’re still hunting for keys and solving elaborate puzzles while traversing environments that are either actual tombs or bizarrely constructed modern facilities that function as one. You still run, jump, climb, shimmy, crawl, or swim everywhere, and most enemies or bosses will fall over with the application of enough bullets. The problem is The Angel of Darkness complicates everything to a degree that many new or tweaked mechanics feel half-baked in their implementation, and the control scheme never feels fit for purpose.
An early section in which you explore the Parisian streets and sewers, pick the NPC you’d rather assist, and experience a slightly different path to your objective works well enough – for the one and only time the structure is used. There’s a notebook mechanic that feels like a precursor to what we’d see in the Uncharted games, with diagrams and clues you need to return to solve later puzzles. Lara’s expanded arsenal, which includes basic unarmed brawling and non-lethal weapons like a taser or dart-gun, make sense when she’s facing policemen or museum guards instead of mercenaries. Even brief levels controlling secondary protagonist Kurtis inject some much-needed variety during the second half with a survival-horror-inspired vibe. The problem is for every positive change in The Angel of Darkness, there are negatives that’ll frustrate you to the point of forgetting what it does well.
One example is how the dialogue- and puzzle-heavy sections in Paris and Prague can look and play like an early David Cage game, with too much aimless wondering as you exhaust dialogue options and hunt for keys or interactive objects. Lara is more agile and the updated climbing mechanics look fantastic, but another example is the introduction of a stamina meter that’s tied to a poorly implemented “upgrade” system. As you explore, random actions – think kicking in some doors or pushing around some objects – grant upper- or lower-body strength upgrades that improve Lara’s stamina and introduce new abilities that allow you to progress (or sometimes backtrack for a few item staches that are rarely worth the effort). It functions as a crude progression blocker so you can’t run past key items like you could in prior games, but it leaves some sections feeling like a point-and-click game in which you need to figure out the correct sequence of actions.
All those issues are compounded by the rubbish controls I mentioned earlier. No matter what you’re doing in The Angel of Darkness you’ll be fighting the controls. You’ve got the choice of stiff and imprecise “classic” tank controls, or the remasters twitchy and imprecise “modern” controls. My save file indicated it took 9 hours to clear The Angel of Darkness, but it felt almost twice as long factoring in the constant quick-saving and quick-loading needed to offset a control scheme that is not up for the task when so many platforming and puzzle sections require precise alignment or timing. The appalling boss fights also highlight this issue, often requiring careful movement under fire or trying to dodge charging foes and hit weak points without getting stun-locked to death. Oh, and you can even run out of ammunition during these battles now, as Lara’s iconic and infinite dual pistols are missing.
To keep things balanced, there are other positives about this remaster I should mention. The restored tutorial area introduces the stealth mechanics properly, new notebook entries and some restored dialogue offer more guidance, there are more useful items to purchase with the Euros Lara collects, and Kurtis can finally use his fancy glaive in combat – assuming you can ever get it to target correctly. In addition to higher rendering resolutions, a rock-solid framerate, and widescreen support, the character models are improved, and many textures are better shaded to match the scene lighting. As with the recent Soul Reaver 2 remaster, the effect can be incredibly subtle depending on the location, and some textures have been smoothed out the point I prefer the pixelated classic textures with more obvious detail. One element that needed no change was Peter Connelly and Martin Iveson’s symphonic soundtrack, with a title theme I could listen to on repeat all day.
Wrapping up, Tomb Raider VI: The Angel of Darkness was compelling enough to keep me pushing forward despite near constant frustration. I don’t know if that was just the power of nostalgia, evidence there’s some good ideas underneath multiple layers of bad design, or just my awful taste in games. Regardless, as this is part of a cheap remastered trilogy and bundled with the excellent The Last Revelation and weird-but-fun Chronicles, I’d say it still has value as a historical curiosity. Give it a go, appreciate the few modern game design elements they were aiming for, and don’t feel ashamed to use the classic cheats to arm yourself to the teeth or simply skip the most frustrating stages to see the ending.
Tomb Raider VI: The Angel of Darkness was reviewed on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One, PS4/5, and Nintendo Switch.
