Tomb Raider Side Scroller Edition has been announced and a few videos released. Former developers that worked on Tomb Raider Remastered are releasing updated videos showing their fan game in action. What is wild, this is not the first time a 3D game has been remade in 2D, or 2.5D. Tomb Raider Side Scroller Edition is expected in May 2026.
New View, New Action
3D is great but for me, 2D is best for my adventuring. Unless we are talking about a live service game, or a role-playing game (and ignoring sports altogether here), 2D is my favorite genre. 2.5D is even better to me. I was enamored with the 32-bit generation until I saw 2.5D was not going to be used much on the new PlayStation console so I leaned more towards Saturn (which burned me in other ways).
I was one of the fans that picked up Duke Nukem The Manhattan Project on PC and enjoyed it a lot. More than I did the 3D original, honestly (I have never really taken to FPS games). To see someone making a 2.5D Tomb Raider is exciting for me.
2.5D makes the game more action focused while 3D is great for exploration. I cannot wait to see how this plays.
Fans Doing What Companies Won’t
I say it a lot because it is true. Fans will do what companies won’t. To me, these fan games are almost free advertising. People come into a franchise via a free fan game and then explore the other entries that are paid. Everyone wins in the end.
This is definitely a release I plan on grabbing immediately upon release. It just strikes too many chords for me. I was a huge fan of the PSOne games, skipped everything up to the remake and Legend and that whole generation.
Source – Time Extension