Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered publisher Aspyr has said the removal of Lara Croft pinup posters in Tomb Raider 3 Remastered was an accident to be rectified in the next patch.
A post on Aspyr's support page thanked fans for bringing the issue to the attention of the development team after it was spotted following the release of Patch 2 earlier in April 2024.
"In the recently released Patch 2 we made several texture and graphical updates to the HD version," Aspyr wrote in the post. "As part of these updates, the posters in Sleeping With The Fishes (The Lost Artifact) were inadvertently removed in the HD version of the game. This has been resolved and these textures will be restored in Patch 3."
The removal caused confusion as the original graphics mode still displayed the posters, meaning they were only missing in the HD port. There was also no mention of their removal in the patch notes. But now Aspyr insists it was a mistake, and not the deliberate act of censorship some fans had raised concerns over.
It's unclear when the posters will make it back into Tomb Raider 3 Remastered as Patch 3 doesn't have a release date. Patch 1 arrived March 12, around one month after its February 13 launch, while Patch 2 arrived April 11. A continuation of this pattern would see Patch 3 arrive around the second week of May.
Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered arrived as an upgraded version of the original trilogy: Tomb Raider and The Unfinished Business expansion, Tomb Rader 2 and The Gold Mask expansion, and Tomb Raider 3 and The Lost Artifact Expansion.
Tomb Raider custodian Crystal Dynamics included a sensitivity warning in the collection for what it called "deeply harmful" racial and ethnic prejudices, but explained it kept them in "in the hopes that we may acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it."
Its release was followed by the official reveal of protagonist Lara Croft's redesign, which will presumably debut in Tomb Raider Next. This incoming mainline game is currently being developed in Unreal Engine 5, with Amazon Games supporting Crystal Dynamics.
It will be the first new entry since 2018's Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which wrapped up a trilogy of games during the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One generation. That series reset Lara Croft's origins in a grittier setting, but it's unclear how Tomb Raider Next will fit into the equation.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
