Tomb Raider’s iOS port brings the gritty, immersive quality of the 2013 reboot to the small screen.
Tomb Raider's iOS port offers a glimpse into Croft's beginnings on the small screen
Photo Credit: Feral Interactive
When the Tomb Raider reboot landed back in 2013, it did something risky. It took an icon who had spent decades as an untouchable, dual-pistol-wielding force of nature, and broke her. Gone were Lara Croft's guns akimbo and her wink-at-the-camera cockiness in favour of a makeshift bow and a desperate, mud-caked struggle to stay alive on the island of Yamatai. This was an origin story that grounded the rookie raider and made you earn her legendary status one gruelling encounter at a time. And it wasn't just a fresh coat of paint, rather a total mechanical overhaul that dragged the franchise into the modern era to compete with Naughty Dog's Uncharted.
Nearly thirteen years and a whole lot of mobile hardware evolution later, Feral Interactive has brought that exact experience to the iPhone. As we wait for Lara's next big-budget adventure on PC and consoles, this mobile port of the “Survivor” origin story is an introspection on whether that gritty, immersive quality of the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot still holds up when played on the small screen.
Tomb Raider on iOS is available via the App Store, priced at Rs. 1,349. Feral Interactive has ported the game for both iPhone and iPad, and it supports a handy list of devices running iOS 18/ iPadOS 18 or later firmware. As per the publisher, it can run on iPhone and iPad models powered by an A12 Bionic chip or later.
The game itself is around 9.6GB in size and requires 11GB of space for installation, but the company recommends having at least double that for an optimal gameplay experience and to avoid initial installation issues. I played the game on an iPhone 17 running iOS 26.3.
It is not easy to convert an entire third-person AAA action-adventure game like Tomb Raider into a touch-screen-supported title. However, Feral Interactive has done it yet again, and this time around, they have knocked it out of the park just like their highly acclaimed recent release of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light for iOS (review).
The game defaults to a virtual dual stick control scheme, with the left side of the screen used to control movement and the right to control the camera. Combat controls are mapped to on-screen triggers that let players aim, shoot, and switch weapons quickly. Lara's bow, which becomes one of the most important tools early in the game, can be drawn using the aim button while adjusting the camera to line up shots. There's also support for gyro, which I found to be surprisingly decent here; tilting the phone to fine-tune a bow shot felt way more natural than swiping my thumb across the glass.
Virtual joysticks are the default control option in Tomb Raider (iOS)
Photo Credit: Feral Interactive/ Screenshot – Shaurya Tomer
Other actions, like melee, survival instinct mode, or reloading, can be achieved by pressing specific buttons designed for these actions. The player is given the option of customising the interface, including the option of changing the size as well as the degree of transparency of the on-screen triggers.
The traversal mechanics, such as climbing, jumping from ledges, and even ziplining, are smooth and well-implemented thanks to the contextual interaction system. If you're on a smaller screen, having multiple buttons crowded into that real estate can lead to some accidental deaths.
Photo Credit: Feral Interactive
If you prefer a traditional approach, the game has full controller support. I paired it with the new EvoFox Deck 2, and the experience immediately shifted into something much closer to a handheld console. Movement and camera work felt significantly more precise once I had physical analogue sticks under my thumbs. What's also great is that once you pair a controller, the virtual joysticks automatically vanish, making it a near-seamless plug-and-play experience.
With a controller connected, Feral's Tomb Raider plays remarkably well and feels less like a mobile game and more like a handheld console experience.
Crystal Dynamics' re-imagining of the Tomb Raider series is an origin story for Lara Croft; not the tough adventurer that one would have come to expect from earlier titles, but a rookie still trying to make her way in the field. As an archaeologist trying to find the mythical island of Yamatai, which has been lost in the Dragon's Triangle (an area of the Pacific Ocean just off present-day Japan), Lara begins her adventure aboard a research vessel called the "Endurance" with her mentor and captain Conrad Roth.
Photo Credit: Feral Interactive
Things, however, go awry. A violent storm hits the island and destroys the ship, scattering crew members across the island. Lara wakes up alone and injured with no idea of what she is about to face. The island is a harsh place, dotted with ruins and drenched with the dread of being constantly watched.
A lot of the story's emotional weight is on Camilla Luddington's shoulders as Lara Croft, and she delivers a vulnerable performance, making you feel the pain she goes through on this island. While some members of her supporting cast can be a little one-dimensional, Lara's guilt over putting them in a perilous situation is a good emotional centre to hold on to.
It doesn't take long before Lara meets the Solarii, a fanatic cult led by a complete lunatic named Mathias, who believes Lara's friend Samantha is the key to unleashing the ancient "Sun Queen" named Himiko. The premise is dark and occult. And it makes the game feel weirdly personal. The game's pacing mirrors Lara's psychological development, although, much like Uncharted, you're soon hit with ludonarrative dissonance. While her first kill is a big, dramatic crescendo, she quickly moves on from the experience to becoming a headshot-dealing killing machine. A minor gripe, but a valid one in her character development.
Photo Credit: Feral Interactive
What works particularly well is how the story tracks Lara's transformation. Early encounters feel tense and uncertain, with Lara constantly scrambling to stay alive. Over time, though, she becomes more capable and determined. By the end, the frightened survivor we meet at the beginning begins to resemble the Tomb Raider players recognise today.
Feral Interactive, notably, has bundled the base game with all 12 original DLC packs, meaning you get the full suite of weapon upgrades and skills right from the jump, along with a variety of skins that let you change Lara's look as she evolves. This makes Tomb Raider (iOS) essentially the "Definitive Edition" in all but name.
Tomb Raider is the classic mix of third-person shooting, climbing, and head-scratching puzzles, all wrapped in a cinematic bow. You'll spend most of the time attempting to survive Yamatai's diverse terrain, from rotting military bunkers to cliffside shrines. Thankfully, traversal is mostly contextual, which means Lara kind of "sticks" to ledges and surfaces automatically, instead of requiring precision grabs. While purists might miss the precision of manual grabs, I didn't miss fighting the controls just to make a basic jump. It makes the verticality feel way more fluid than I expected for a mobile port.
Photo Credit: Feral Interactive
Exploration is really where Tomb Raider breathes, and even though the main path is a little linear, the game includes hidden optional tombs, which were easily my highlight of the game. They're not huge, but they require you to think about physics, like messing around with wind, ropes, and counterweights to grab some loot. It's a nice change of pace from all the intense combat segments.
Oh, and if you're ever stuck, just use Croft's Survival Instinct, as it will highlight anything interactive. This was a huge help for me in many instances, especially when, visually, the screen got busy with various elements.
You play as a hunter with a bow, which is great for silent headshots, but eventually, the game just gives you a shotgun and lets you go to town. It's usually in these messy outposts where you can either be a ghost or just kick the front door down. I found myself constantly scavenging for “salvage” at campfires to boost my equipment, which actually gives you an incentive to explore every corner of the map.
Photo Credit: Feral Interactive
And once the credits roll, there's more stuff for completionists to hunt down. The island is teeming with documents, relics, and trinkets that help flesh out the world, and searching for these items without the threat of a shotgun to your back is surprisingly enjoyable. What's also nice about this port is that it's solely for the single-player experience, removing all of the extraneous and frankly unnecessary multiplayer component from the 2013 original.
In terms of graphics, Tomb Raider on iOS holds up really well visually, despite the core game being nearly 13 years old, largely because this port appears to use assets from the later “Definitive Edition.” Yamatai still looks atmospheric, especially when rain starts lashing against jagged cliffs in the game.
Croft's character model looks stunning on the small screen, even up close
Photo Credit: Feral Interactive/ Screenshot - Shaurya Tomer
On my iPhone 17, the lighting during the nighttime storms looked modern, not like some dusty port. The level of detail in the character model for Lara is astonishing; the number of polygons used in her face and equipment appears to be substantially higher than in the original 2013 console game. You can even see individual beads of sweat and dirt building up on her skin as the game goes on, and the hair physics, while a luxury on the PC platform in the original game, work beautifully here.
On the performance side, Feral gives you three presets to play with: Performance, Graphics, and Battery Saver. Unless you're obsessed with counting pixels, the Performance mode should be the way to go. Graphics mode looks gorgeous with the high-res textures, sure, but the frame rate hit makes the combat a bit challenging. The Performance mode, on the other hand, is buttery smooth, with only a slight decrease in some of the eerie environmental detail. I didn't see any major stutters, even when things started blowing up during big scripted sequences. Feral clearly put the work into the iOS port.
It's also worth noting that, although the iPhone 17 stays cool throughout, you should keep an eye on your battery percentage if you're planning on spending an extended period of time in the Dragon's Triangle.
Feral Interactive's port of Tomb Raider to iOS is a masterclass in how to revive a console classic for the modern mobile era. It brings the visceral, high-stakes original story of Lara Croft to a pocket powerhouse that does not compromise on graphics or depth in the slightest. On modern mobile silicon, the game strips off its decade-old skin to reveal a "Definitive" version, complete with silky smooth performance and intuitive controls that are perfect for both new and old fans alike.
With Tomb Raider's excellent new iOS port, Feral Interactive has once again proved that the gap between mobile and console gaming can be bridged with the right hands at the helm.
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