Changes from other games in the series

• Skill system: The idea was that Lara could level up certain skills by performing certain actions. For example pulling a box would increase here strength. However these skills were needed to progress through the game - there would be a gap that would be too far to jump until her jump skill was increased. The skills were only upgraded by performing very specific actions and so the whole thing was really just a fancy key system - you had to find the running "key" so you could get through the tunnel in time.
• More realistic: Lara was redesigned to look more like a real person rather than a cartoon
• Additional character: Kurtis Trent was introduced in the game and was playable for a few levels.

Reception

• Missing textures: on surfaces and characters - one character actually had no face, just a hole in his head
• Weapons seemed have been left out, such as Lara's famous dual pistols. The game starts her with one with the idea of finding another later, however any other pistol found just gave extra ammo. In the PC version a cheat could be entered to take the user to a secret "level" which was a black room with every item in the game, including the dual pistols.
• A new feature was to be a RPG like character interaction element with dialog trees. However this seemed to have be abandoned during development as you only get to talk to a couple of characters and the choice of dialog you make has no effect in the game. Each conversation could also be restarted by talking to the character again, meaning you could keep retrying getting a different conclusion each time.
• The PC control scheme was changed from the traditional layout and featured mouse control. This however was very complicated to use.