Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis Is Being Built From Scratch on Unreal Engine 5, Director Says

"No old code exists," Adams said. "We are basically taking it and remaking it, or not remaking, reimagining it. We are bringing it from the ground up." He confirmed the team is working in Unreal Engine 5.

Adams said the engine also allowed Crystal Dynamics to create custom technology for the project. That included "our own custom implementation for physics in the engine," he said, which meant engineering its own features, custom physics, and general upgrades. He said this helped make Legacy of Atlantis a modern reimagining of the classic title.

"Unreal creates a really great sandbox platform for building a game," Adams said, "but when we're making a specific type of experience, we're going to have things that we really want to target and get to a right fidelity level where we're happy with it." He added that Nanite and Lumen, which offer realistic graphics capability, help create a beautiful game environment, but there are times when the team wants features to work better. "That's when we'll break out and say, our engineers will create something custom that helps solve that issue, so that we can make sure that we're delivering an authentic Tomb Raider experience on Unreal."

Adams cited Lara Croft's long braid, which reacts to her movement, as "a perfect example" of that custom work.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is scheduled to launch on February 27, 2027, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC, according to TechRadar.