Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light represents a departure from the traditional Tomb Raider series, created by studio Crystal Dynamics as a smaller, digitally distributed title with a top-down, so-called isometric perspective. Instead of a solo adventure, the game places emphasis on two-player cooperative play, in which Lara is joined by the ancient Mayan warrior Totec, trapped alongside her in the same underground tomb.

The gameplay combines shooting, acrobatic platform jumping, and solving spatial puzzles, many of which require the two characters to cooperate — for example, using Totec's shield as a platform on which Lara places bombs, or jointly building paths using a rope stretched between the two heroes. The game also offers a solo mode, in which the player controls only Lara with adjusted versions of the puzzles, but the main draw is precisely the cooperation, complemented by treasure collecting, upgrading equipment using found relics, and a point score for speed and precision in getting through the individual levels. The visual style combines ancient temples and Mayan mythology with modern graphical presentation, typical of the smaller downloadable titles of the time, and the musical score fleshes out the adventurous, exotic atmosphere.

The game was received very positively by critics, with particular praise for the imaginatively elaborate cooperative puzzles, the smooth gameplay, and the fact that it was a refreshing departure from the established formula of the main series. Guardian of Light remains, to this day, a valued example of how to successfully bring a well-known brand into a smaller, cheaper format without losing quality, and it paved the way for a later similarly styled sequel featuring Lara Croft in the lead role, this time for four players at once. The reception also included praise for the musical score and the overall atmosphere, thanks to which the game, despite its simplified top-down view, managed to evoke a sense of real adventure in forgotten Mayan ruins, something many players compared to the feel of the series' best classic installments of Tomb Raider.