Tomb Raider, the classic adventure first released in 1996 for PC’s and consoles, is finally getting a port to the Sega 32X console. Considering the Sega 32X came out two years prior, and was dead at retail in 1996, it is no surprise that Core Design never even thought of such a port. That is not stopping fans from doing it. Independent homebrew developer, XProger, is doing just that and the results are amazing so far.
Not much competition
If you think about it, Tomb Raider was in the right place at the right time. Nintendo launched the 3D action platform genre into the stratosphere with Mario 64. While there were attempts to create 3D adventure titles, they were mostly downtrodden with problems. Many problems that Tomb Raider was able to avoid or eliminate in its design.
Off the top of my head, I cannot name any titles that came out before Tomb Raider that took on a similar view. I know there were some but Google searches give results after 1996. Anyhow, much like Mario 64, Tomb Raider did a lot of things right and that is part of why it took off so well.
Where we are right now
Right now, there is not a whole lot available. The last update was from almost a year ago at that. What was last shown though is part of the opening level. We get to see Lara do some signature moves, some animation is shown off.
Most importantly, we get to see just how detailed the game world is. It is important to note, if you dig deep on the Twitter thread, that this WIP is running on one of the two main CPUs inside the 32X.
Chances that it would improve graphically are minimal but we could see more smoothness in the engine. It is worth noting, right now, no enemies are shown either. That is something that will surely benefit from having the second CPU working.
This port is running on the OpenLara engine and is being developed using vicious/32XDK.
Source: Twitter