The 10 Best Tomb Raider Levels of All Time

From ancient temples and dangerous traps to Tokyo rooftops and a surprisingly friendly llama, these are the ten Tomb Raider levels that best capture the series’ mix of exploration, combat and platforming.

The formula is familiar: solve a puzzle, survive a fight, outrun a collapsing hazard and miss at least one intimidating jump. Across three decades, however, the best levels have found new ways to make that structure feel fresh. This list also looks ahead to Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, which reimagines classic locations including the Sword of Damocles room as traversal puzzles rather than instant-death traps.

10. St. Francis’ Folly — Tomb Raider (1996)

Main challenge: A six-storey shrine dedicated to four gods.

St. Francis’ Folly is where the original Tomb Raider truly establishes its identity. After Peru’s mountains and wolf-filled caves, Lara reaches a gloomy Grecian monastery patrolled by lions. Four doors lead to distinct trials: Atlas brings a rolling boulder, Damocles suspends swords above Lara, Thor introduces a huge hammer and Neptune offers a pool where drowning is a constant threat.

Pierre, Lara’s rival treasure hunter, adds pressure throughout the area. Completing all four challenges opens the way out, although the real reward is simply escaping before Pierre gets another chance to attack.

9. The Great Wall — Tomb Raider 2 (1997)

Main challenge: Two T-Rexes, with almost no warning.

The opening stage of Tomb Raider 2 immediately raises the difficulty. Lara sneaks past tigers and spiders before entering the Great Wall’s elaborate death traps, including disappearing floors and spike hazards. The route eventually leads to a pit containing a fully grown T-Rex and possibly a second one.

There is no gentle tutorial here. The level announces that the rules have changed and expects players to sharpen their movement, combat and survival skills immediately.

8. Venice and Bartoli’s Hideout — Tomb Raider 2 (1997)

Main challenge: A speedboat, crowded canals and a criminal hideout.

Venice gives Lara a speedboat and a canal packed with gondolas. Ramming through them is both reckless and enormously satisfying, and the resulting chase leads into Bartoli’s expansive hideout. The mansion includes sunken basements, a library, a ballroom and chandeliers that Lara can use to swing across gaps.

The level’s finale is suitably excessive. Lara may finish by destroying the hideout, an explosive conclusion that matches the earlier boat ride through the canals.

7. Area 51 — Tomb Raider 3 (1998)

Main challenge: Armed guards, laser tripwires and an alien conspiracy.

After temples, jungles and shipwrecks, Tomb Raider 3 sends Lara into a fictionalised Area 51. The level moves from stealthily avoiding security systems to exploring an alien autopsy room, then places Lara inside a UFO that appears far larger within than its exterior suggests.

Crates referencing the Majestic 12 conspiracy theory add a real-world wink to the setting. The level remains divisive because of its abrupt shift in tone, but its strange combination of military infiltration, extraterrestrial imagery and even unexplained orcas makes it impossible to forget.

6. Temple of Karnak — Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (1999)

Main challenge: Learning to swing, then learning to walk on water.

Temple of Karnak introduces Lara’s ability to grab and swing from ropes, a mechanic that would become central to later games. The stage is arranged as a loop through the Temple, the Great Hypostyle Hall and the Sacred Lake.

Lara must revisit all three areas after locating canopic jars scattered between them, while poisonous black scorpions cross the sand. Solving the puzzle unlocks the ability to walk on water for the rest of the game, making the repeated route worthwhile despite the risk of overlooking a crucial item.

5. Tokyo — Tomb Raider: Legend (2006)

Main challenge: Turning a modern skyline into a platforming course.

Tomb Raider: Legend relaunched the series after the troubled reception of The Angel of Darkness, and its Tokyo chapter demonstrates the new direction. Lara climbs shopfronts and skyscrapers rather than relying solely on ancient stonework.

The level later shifts into a motorcycle sequence across Tokyo’s rooftops. Lara launches from one building and crashes through another’s window, a memorable entrance that remains one of the series’ most striking set pieces.

4. Croft Manor — Tomb Raider: Underworld (2008)

Main challenge: Surviving a devastating invasion of Lara’s home.

The final entry in the Legend, Anniversary and Underworld trilogy sends Lara beneath Croft Manor to search for a hidden chapel and her father’s secret study. The discovery becomes secondary when a doppelganger invades, kills Lara’s companion, steals an important artefact and sets the mansion ablaze.

Unlike many Tomb Raider stages, Croft Manor is driven mainly by personal consequences rather than a new tool or a puzzle in a distant tomb. The familiar home becomes the level’s central danger.

3. Mountain Temple and Shipwreck Beach — Tomb Raider (2013)

Main challenge: Escaping captivity without weapons.

The 2013 reboot introduces a more vulnerable Lara, and this sequence puts that vulnerability front and centre. Before acquiring a bow or dual pistols, she must escape after being suspended upside down by captors. Her resources are limited to desperation, momentum and a conveniently placed fire.

After setting herself alight and falling to freedom, Lara faces collapsing scaffolding, a wolf attack and a frantic journey through a cave filled with corpses. It is a brutal introduction to the reboot’s survival-focused version of the character.

2. Geothermal Valley and Soviet Installation — Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015)

Main challenge: Exploring a valley full of tombs, wildlife and one very targetable chicken.

The Geothermal Valley connects to an abandoned Soviet research base through a single damaged wooden bridge. Rise of the Tomb Raider asks Lara to cross between the two areas three times while investigating challenge tombs such as the House of the Afflicted and the Pit of Judgment.

The valley is home to the Remnant, a hidden community living among huts and guard towers. An herbalist rewards Lara with gold coins for clearing tombs, while the surrounding wildlife provides extra distractions. One achievement even asks players to shoot a chicken from the sky with a flaming arrow.

1. Hidden City of Paititi — Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)

Main challenge: Finding your way through the series’ largest hub, complete with pettable llamas.

Paititi imagines a world where Maya and Inca civilisations developed side by side. The city is built in layered tiers along a jungle mountainside, creating a much broader environment than the tight corridors of many earlier Tomb Raider levels.

NPCs speak their own native language by default, a barter economy operates beneath the main story and optional routes lead to hostile cultists in the lower tiers. Flash floods can also turn the city’s canals into dangerous environmental hazards. That combination of scale, culture, exploration and risk makes Paititi the strongest level in the series.

Why these levels still matter

These ten stages show how Tomb Raider has evolved without abandoning its core rhythm of movement, discovery, danger and problem-solving. The original games favour harsh traps and deliberate exploration, while later entries broaden the environments and make Lara’s personal story more prominent.

Legacy of Atlantis is expected to continue that tradition when it releases next February. The series’ next memorable chapter could involve a rope swing, a chandelier, a collapsing ruin or even another T-Rex.

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