Tomb Raider 2 fan remake gets a photomode, looks slick

Lara Croft, as seen in a fan remake of Tomb Raider 2

(Image credit: Nicobass)

Tomb Raider: The Dagger of Xian is a partial remake of Tomb Raider 2 in Unreal Engine 4 being made by fans. There's a demo you can play, and it's just been updated with a photomode as well as some other improvements, including new water simulation rendering, volumetric lighting, an alternative outfit for Lara and more characters models in the Rewards menu, as well as an option to highlight climbable ledges with white decals. Of course that can be turned off if you prefer your old-school difficulty.

The Dagger of Xian is the work of a modder named Nicobass, with help from a few other fans. It's only a slice of the full game, and apparently a future update will add Croft Manor as a playable area. Before you take to the comments to shout about an incoming cease-and-desist, Crystal Dynamics has said that it's OK with this fan project as long as it remains strictly not-for-profit.

You can download the current 1.2 demo of The Dagger of Xian from here. Good luck fighting the spiders.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.