The bad and the ugly of Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Patch 5
A swan-dive from grace
Up until March 12, 2026, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered was considered a home run by many - me included. All three games, including the expansions, were made available for modern platforms and PC to high acclaim, complete with features like photo mode and impressive redone textures. But thanks to patch 5, a recent update that brought a Challenge Mode and new outfits, a baffling amount of bugs is quickly changing that acclaim to disappointment.
After being hinted at via Tomb Raider's social channels, the big deal was a Challenge Mode. You can now replay the levels you've completed so far, but with different enemies, weapons, amounts of health, and more. But as the days pass, more bugs are being found across all six games, fast eroding the good faith that these remasters have brought for two years since their February 2024 debut.
A mobile port also came out on the same day, and whilst it's great to play these on iPhones, iPads, and Android devices, there are some strange issues there too. For example, Infinity Tomb Raider on Bluesky had spotted that the first loading screen of the mobile port is from 2018's Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Having experienced a bunch of bugs myself with this latest patch, I've been looking into who's behind this and why it's crucial for Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics to immediately begin damage control.
Where the Magic isn't happening
The first red flag was discovering that this update wasn't developed by any of the original team at Saber Interactive. Instead, a company called Magic Media is responsible. Previously known for blockchain and Web3 development, Aspyr hired them to create Challenge Mode for the remaster, leaving out Saber.
I like Challenge Mode. It mixes up how you can play the levels, and it also brings some unexpected comedy to others. As the screen above shows, random enemies and helpers from other levels appeared in Temple of Puna in TR3, which made no sense, but was fun to replay. However, some of the menus are confusing, such as the number of weapons you can choose. 'All Weapons' does not mean all weapons, with no way of using the Rocket Launcher. When you die, restarting the level puts you into the base game instead of Challenge Mode.
But to make it worse, the outfits that you unlock via completing the levels under certain conditions simply look terrible. None of them look like they're from a Tomb Raider game, even down to their names. For example, Atlantean Bio Armour sounds LLM-generated. In addition, as fans have highlighted, the textures are terribly low-res, with some not fitting correctly on Lara. I'm all for rewards, but I can't help but think that a better way could have been to play as different characters instead. This could have included Pierre and Larson from TR1, or Sophia Leigh from TR3. This would have also made it work for classic mode, too, not just remastered.
But this is only the cusp of where patch 5's problems lie. It seems like Magic Media merely created this mode and didn't test anything else. It's led to countless bugs across all three games and expansions. I've encountered the title theme playing in-game, or certain objects, like the floating meteorite in TR3's Meteorite Cavern level, stuttering and slowly disappearing when all artefacts are collected.
But what makes it worse to me is that members of Magic Studio are praising the update on LinkedIn and positioning it as if they created the remasters. The following is taken from someone involved in the QA (Quality Assurance) at Magic Media, who posted this verbatim on LinkedIn:
Excited to see Tomb Raider I-III Remastered launch today! This brings the first three adventures of Lara Croft back to modern platforms while preserving the feel of the original games. As the QA Manager of the Magic Media Team, I was responsible for managing QA processes on the project to ensure the smooth delivery of this amazing game to all of you! Our team supported development across several areas of the project, but l'd like to give a special thanks to the amazing team of Magic Media QA Testers who worked on the project. Please make sure to check a completely new game mode - Challenge Mode!
This post reads strange at best, and at worst, disengenuous. It's led some of the original developers of the remasters to take to social media and clarify:
Hey folks, just to clarify. I was not involved in the art direction of this new patch with the Challenge Mode for Tomb Raider I-II-III Remastered. Nome of the original developers at Saber was involvement in it.
— Giovanni Lucca (@playeroldskool) March 12, 2026
At the time of writing, recent reviews on Steam are now mostly negative because of patch 5. So where do we go from here?
How to erode goodwill in less than seven days
Since the update, fans have reached out to me about how disappointed they are in how the remasters now look and play. Danielle Hughes emailed me this:
Aspyr’s most recent update has brought with it quite the array of issues: misspelt menu titles, mediocre outfit textures, and menu music mishaps, just to name a few. Whilst the arduous Challenge Mode is a clever addition to make more experienced players like myself feel truly tested again, one cannot overlook the disappointingly designed and completely arbitrary outfits that have been selected as the prizes. The developers truly have overlooked some glittering choices and could have opted for more true-to-character selections - the TR5 Opera House dress, all-gold Palace Midas Lara, Lara with her hair down, or even the alternate coloured classic ensemble - if they had truly wanted to impress their players.
Tomb Raider I-III Remastered has been the go-to way of playing the first three games and the expansions since February 2024. But as things stand, we've already regressed to a point where playing the games on a PlayStation 1 console or via a decompiled version are far better options.
There is a petition to Aspyr, as well as open letters to Crystal Dynamics, but I feel that's not enough. Submit your grievances to Aspyr directly, as well as mentioning them and Crystal Dynamics via their social accounts. Give them constructive feedback as to why patch 5 is a failure. I did reach out to Aspyr and Magic Media to answer some questions I sent over, but I've received no response from either at the time of writing.
It would be great for the remasters to be given to Saber Interactive immediately, in order to fix the mess of this patch. In addition, if Magic Media is already working on something similar for Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered, it should be removed from the team immediately.
As things stand, both Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics are on a cliff-edge when it comes to goodwill with the fans of these games. Some immediate changes should be made by way of a new patch. But if they don't, seeing as they're happy to export a collection that was passionately created by a team who grew up with the series, to a team who have currently broken the collection, it sets a bad precedent for all future ports and remasters if left unaddressed.
