Ranking Tomb Raider Levels

Tomb Raider was always a series I was somewhat afraid to approach, mostly due to its infamous tank controls. Even as someone who tends to disagree with the concept of "games aging", I was never sure if I would be able to adapt to Tomb Raider's more deliberate and punishing style of platforming. Now that I've just played the first game though, I really shouldn't have been worried. The first Tomb Raider game is great, and still a total blast to this day. It makes the most of the hardware capabilities of the time to foster a palpable sense of exploration and discovery, the platforming puzzles are incredibly satisfying to nail, and it truly paves the way for so many of my favorite adventure games. But most importantly, the level design remains pretty spectacular across the entire game, perfectly balancing exploration, platforming, puzzle-solving, and combat. With so many good stages, I thought this would be a perfect game to do a ranking. So here's my ranking of Tomb Raider 1's stages:

16. Natla's Mines
In theory, Natla's Mines should've been my favorite of the bunch. Outside of a few boss fights, it's almost entirely devoid of content, instead prioritizing puzzle-solving over all else. However, compared to some of the best puzzles in the game, I found Natla's Mines to be really tepid and kinda dull. There were a few memorable visuals like dropping the house and climbing the pyramid at the end, but most of the stage was running back and forth through samey looking caverns and dealing with tedious block-pushing puzzles. It also doesn't help that the boss fights themselves were all really bad since they were against human opponents, who Tomb Raider's combat system is just not equipped to properly handle. And to top it all off, this is easily the longest stage in the game and it really drags. Natla's Mines isn't a bad stage, but it was the one I was the most bored playing.

15. Lara's Home
Even though it's a tutorial and not technically part of the main campaign, I decided to count Lara's Home regardless since it is still technically a "stage" in its own right. The concept of getting to run around in the main protagonist's house and messing around with the controls in a variety of different training rooms is honestly really charming and starts Tomb Raider on a pretty good foot. Lara's tutorialization strikes a nice balance between being charmingly delivered and effectively instructive, while still giving the player the space they need to learn how the movement works. That being said, it is still a very linear tutorial and it's entirely devoid of any form of exploration so you can't really expect me to rank it too high.

14. Tomb Of Thihocan
I remember reading that this stage was meant to be part of The Cistern but ended up getting broken off into its own stage, and it's not hard to see how. Most of it boasts a very similar aesthetic to The Cistern and expands on its central gimmick of raising and lowering the water levels by introducing blocks that float on top of the water. It's a much more linear affair than The Cistern though, bridging its rooms together with tight underwater corridors, but it also doesn't do too much to stand out from the previous stage. The titular Tomb Of Thihocan looks really cool, but it's a single room with two basic boss fights, one of which is entirely skippable.

13. City Of Vilcabamba
City Of Vilcabamba kinda feels like two levels sandwiched together, and both being of uneven quality. The first half is the first truly wide open space filled with water tunnels, enemies, and hidden nooks that you must search to find the key that lets you move onto the next part. While I do appreciate the openness, I can't exactly say there are any particularly memorable setpieces here and a decent chunk of the rooms feel entirely optional. The second half has you scale a few towers to unlock the gates to the exit and it's a lot more fun in my opinion, being the first setpiece in the game that truly tests your platforming skills. Carefully scaling the first tower as the (very good) Tomb Raider theme plays really stands out as the high point of the stage.

12. The Great Pyramid
As a whole, I thought the Atlantis world was the weakest of the bunch, even if it wasn't bad. The Great Pyramid mostly just suffers from being the final boss stage, so it's naturally not as complex, puzzle-focused, or atmospheric as the best in the game. That being said, it was a strong finale with two of the better boss fights in Tomb Raider (though that is faint praise), and an unbelievably chaotic escape sequence where the game tosses every single trap variation at you in increasingly cruel and complex ways.

11. Caves
Being the first stage in the entire Tomb Raider franchise, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that Caves is fairly simple. However, it's a really well-designed first stage that silently teaches you everything you need to know about the game. It's mostly linear, but there are just enough branching paths and hidden secrets to make exploration feel rewarding, and the stage has a decent amount of environmental variety from the iconic snowcap opening to the lush greenery of the interior ruins to that dingy final area. 

10. City Of Khamoon
The first Egypt level is generally pretty strong, even if I wouldn't say it's one of the more memorable stages overall. It has some awe-inspiring wide open areas, a few memorable setpieces like climbing up a sphinx and filling up a room with sand to escape, and even a near full level skip that can be pulled off pretty easily. That being said, I think what really holds it back for me is a singular room, the panther room. If you've played this stage, you probably know which one I'm talking about. Between my repeated failed attempts at jumping onto the pillar in the center, having to tediously fight six panthers all at once (despite the guide I was following claiming it was four), and that mummy jumpscare in the cramped hallway right after, I was just not having a good time. The rest of this stage was great, but that one singular room really soured my mood by the end.

9. The Colosseum
The coolest thing about the Colosseum is its titular setpiece. Walking into a massive colosseum so big and open that the game can't even render it all at once must've been one of those big jaw-dropping moments back in 1996, and once again, the open layout of the stage does really help it stand out. That being said, The Colosseum is a very combat-focused stage, constantly tossing in lions and gorillas for you to deal with on occasions and including a whole bunch of Pierre encounters. While exploring The Colosseum on its own is really fun, the abundance of combat, which has always been this game's weakest aspect, does hold it back from being one of my favorite stages.

 8. Tomb Of Qualopec
This is technically the first proper tomb you visit in Tomb Raider and it makes a strong impression. After three stages of cavernous ruins, the Tomb Of Qualopec immediately stands out with its ornate scarlet and gold interiors. It's got a nice array of booby traps and puzzles, from boulder chases, to crumbling tiles, to moving platforms around with switches, and the build-up and payoff to retrieving the first piece of the scion is a really memorable moment. It's very obvious that Tomb Raider is heavily inspired by Indiana Jones, but this stage more than any other feels like I'm playing through the opening of Raiders.

7. Atlantis
While I was a bit wary about this stage knowing that it would be a lot more combat-centric than the two stages it was sandwiched between, I'm pleased to say that Atlantis is a really strong endgame stage. It makes a lot of clever layout choices, from giving many of its rooms multiple layers for fighting the different kinds of enemies, to building itself around a tall vertical room you repeatedly visit to convey a sense of progression, to having its secrets lead to shortcuts that make the stage easier. As a result, Atlantis is able to test you on everything you've learned throughout the game without feeling downright frustrating or like you're being dealt too much of a bad hand. Also props to that incredibly creative doppleganger setpiece, it would easily be my favorite boss fight in the game if it counted as one.

6. Obelisk Of Khamoon
Something you'll notice is that I really like the more puzzle box-y stages, and Obelisk Of Khamoon is a really solid puzzle box. The main premise is that there is an obelisk with four artifacts hanging from it, and you need to activate four bridges to reach them. The stage gives you a lot of freedom to take this puzzle in whatever order you want, but each of the bridge switches aren't in disconnected rooms either, everything clicks together in a really satisfying way and each shortcut you discover makes the whole stage easier to navigate. It doesn't have any of the huge memorable setpieces that some of Tomb Raider's most iconic stages have, but it's a consistently strong puzzle with few low points.

5. Palace Midas
Palace Midas is another one of those stages where you have to find all of the things to unlock the gate to the exit, and they really do tend to be my favorite stages in the game. Palace Midas just has a nice balance of pretty much everything that makes Tomb Raider great, from large aquaduct structures to scale, to memorable puzzles, to surprising setpieces like Midas's Hand that will turn anything you give it into gold, including Lara herself. This is also the first stage to really force you to make awkward diagonal jumps and the punishment can be pretty severe, but as long as you're patient and careful, it still feels really satisfying to conquer. Also that one garden room stands out for how lush it is amidst an otherwise very orange stage.

4. St Francis' Folly
From what I hear this is the most beloved Tomb Raider stage and I kind of understand it. The big setpiece is this large vertical room where you have to open up four smaller challenge rooms, get all the keys within those challenge rooms, and use them to unlock the door. The challenge rooms are each themed after gods like Thor, Atlas, and Damocles which helps them really stand out. Aside from the shoddy hit detection with the lightning in Thor's room, each of these rooms are really fun and memorable, and exploring that vertical central room is Tomb Raider platforming at its best. That being said, there is about 10 or so minutes of content prior to this iconic setpiece and most of it is pretty uninteresting. This is a great stage overall but it does take a bit to really get going. I'm also very much not a fan of that one missable secret placement with the ramps, if you know you know.

3. Sanctuary Of The Scion
Despite how primitive it may seem now, I think the low draw distance can really help some of Tomb Raider's locals feel vaster than they actually are, and none of that is more apparent than in Sanctuary Of The Scion. This stage puts a big emphasis on precariously climbing across giant Egyptian strucutres, from a massive sphinx to large Set and Horus statues, and the vast scope of each room does so much to make the player feel small in comparison. While dealing with the mutants for the first time can be a tad tense, the vast majority of this final Egypt stage is on exploring those aforementioned massive rooms and really tough but satisfying platforming sequences. Out of the final stages for each area, I think Sanctuary Of The Scion has the most climactic feel to it.

2. The Cistern
From what I can tell, The Cistern is often singled out as TR1's worst stage and I can kinda see why. It's a pretty dingy sewer stage filled with rats and crocodiles, it's incredibly wide open and confusing to navigate, and it's built around raising and lowering the water level to access a variety of rooms. Put simply, it's basically this game's version of the Water Temple. But if you know anything about me, you'd know I love the Water Temple for its tough spatial navigation puzzles and soothing atmosphere, and The Cistern is no different. The whole map is really well laid-out and once you figure out how everything connects, it's really seamless to get from one area to the next (also you only need to change the water level once if you know what you're doing). There's a nice balance of swimming and platforming, the blue hues of the walls and minimal enemies give the stage a calming atmosphere, and the memorable checkerboard floor room helps end The Cistern on a strong note. While it still has a few flaws like that infamous softlock and a few too many Pierre encounters, this was still one of my favorite stages to crack open just from how thoughtful its design was.

1. The Lost Valley
The Lost Valley is one of the most iconic stages in the entire PS1's library. While I was personally spoiled on the appearance of a hulking T-Rex, I can only imagine what a huge surprise it must've been for someone playing in 1996. But that's just a single moment, and I'd say The Lost Valley as a whole still manages to live up to that iconic shot. I really like the more open and explorative design, giving you this vast jungle area filled with cave systems and tunnels and just letting you run loose to find the three cogs you need to access the exit. The platforming setpieces are also very memorable, from that tense bridge jump to hopping back and forth over a rushing river. And with a whopping five secrets, there truly is so much to discover here on repeat playthroughs. From a pure exploration standpoint, The Lost Valley easily stands out as a high point in the first Tomb Raider.