Inside PC gaming's wildly creative Tomb Raider mapping scene: 'Being able to create my own adventures for other people to play is such an addicting concept'

Inside PC gaming’s wildly creative Tomb Raider mapping scene: ‘Being able to create my own adventures for other people to play is such an addicting concept’ | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show Software Movies & TV Codes Coupons Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these Grand Theft Auto A GTA modder has got the 1997 original working perfectly on modern PCs and Steam Deck, and it’s a joy to behold: ‘I wanted pick up-and-play GTA on Windows with the best possible compatibility without classic installation’ Puzzle Relooted is a fine heist game—but it’s a better history lesson Gaming Industry 219 hours of XCOM 2 and 20 minutes of Fallout: Size Five Games’ director Dan Marshall takes us through the games on his PC Games PC Gamer’s Game of the Year Awards 2025 Action Cairn review: A gripping ‘strand-game’ about the limits of the body Roguelike ‘It’s weird in the industry right now’: Cult of the Lamb’s devs still have faith that the indie scene will continue dishing out ‘smash hits’ Adventure I’ve never felt smarter than playing this nostalgic horror puzzler that has me changing file types on a ’90s computer to solve mysteries Adventure Pathologic 3 review: One of the most compelling mystery adventures since Disco Elysium The Elder Scrolls Bethesda’s former Elder Scrolls loremaster on why he left, Starfield’s ‘communication breakdowns’, and how he wanted The Elder Scrolls 6 ‘to be The Empire Strikes Back’ Games The best indie games on PC Action Hell is Us review: a gorgeous adventure that gets in its own way a little too often RPG ‘A good idea, infinite drive, and lots of Diet Pepsi’: How YouTube essayist Majuular’s life changed course telling the story of Ultima across 2 years and more than 20 hours of documentaries RPG We’re hitting peak saturation for first person dungeon crawlers, but Queen’s Domain stands apart from the crowd Gaming Industry 30 hidden gems from 2025 to grab before the Steam Winter Sale ends FPS Escape from Tarkov review: Singularly unforgiving, dizzyingly complex, and like no other FPS out there PopularArc RaidersBest PC gearFalloutHelldivers 2PC Gamer Quizzes! Games Action Tomb Raider Inside PC gaming’s wildly creative Tomb Raider mapping scene: ‘Being able to create my own adventures for other people to play is such an addicting concept’ Features By Rick Lane published 14 February 2026 Tomb Raider has a fan-level scene as storied as Quake or Thief. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Core Design/Axel Hatté) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer Get the PC Gamer Newsletter Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. 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Pop back every weekend to find out what Jeremy, Josh and Rick have become obsessed with this time, whether it’s the canon height of Thief’s Garrett or that time someone in the Vatican pirated Football Manager.In 2013, when Lara Croft’s latest, grittiest manifestation captured the attention of players worldwide, Axel Hatté began building custom levels for a Tomb Raider game more than a decade old. Hatté had been excited by the prospect of map levels for Core Design’s original adventures ever since discovering the level editor bundled with 2000’s Tomb Raider: Chronicles, but it took 13 years for him to actually make the jump.It was around this time Hatté discovered the Tomb Raider mapping community, a group of die-hard Tomb Raider fans building custom levels for the Core Design-era games. It was a discovery that would, eventually, lead Hatté into the games industry itself. “I cannot imagine I would have built anything concrete without this community,” he says. (Image credit: Core Design/Axel Hatté)The Tomb Raider games of the ’90s might seem like odd choices for a mapping community to form around, given their modern reputation as unwieldy, challenging experiences. But it’s little different from similar modding scenes that evolved around games like Quake, Thief, Half-Life and so-forth. Related articles ‘A good idea, infinite drive, and lots of Diet Pepsi’: How YouTube essayist Majuular’s life changed course telling the story of Ultima across 2 years and more than 20 hours of documentaries This Thief fan mission has you play a blind character trying to steal back their sight, and honestly that’s probably the least weird thing about it ‘I conside