Legacy of Atlantis developers address yellow paint debate and the challenge of modernising the original Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis developers Flying Wild Hog sat down with VGC over Summer Game Fest to discuss the upcoming reimagining of Lara Croft’s first adventure.

Jeff Hays, the franchise’s experience director, Raul Siqueira, the game’s director, and Arek Tomaszewski, the game’s art director, spoke to VGC following our hands-on demo with the game.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is a reimagining of Lara Croft’s first adventure, retold with modern visuals and a central performance from Alix Winton Regan.

When asked about balancing the game’s exploration mechanics with not making the game too easy for players, the game’s director Raul Siqueira described it as “the most difficult thing in game development.”

“A lot of game development rests on iteration. It rests on us theorising something and testing it, we have the hypothesis and test it. We won’t know until fans play it.”

The developers also discussed the ideal length of modern single-player games, the online discussion over “yellow paint,” leading the players between objectives, and some of the struggles of bringing Lara Croft back for a modern audience.

VGC got the chance to play 20 minutes of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis during Summer Game Fest. 

“So far, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis isn’t the most convincing prospect. It looks brilliant, and the bullet time mechanic is a lot of fun, but there’s certainly room for improvement. The jumping, specifically, simply has to be changed before release or it will make large swaths of the game’s platforming deeply unpleasant.”

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is planned for release on February 12, 2027.

Legacy of Atlantis is one of two upcoming Tomb Raider games that were announced during The Game Awards in December 2025. The other, Tomb Raider: Catalyst, is planned for release in 2027 and will see Lara exploring Northern India.