CATACOMBS OF ANUBI WALKTHROUGH

Level by: The Mark

Walkthrough by: Nina Croft

Legend: points of the compass, N, S, W, E, SW, SE, NE, NW, and other abbreviations introduced along the way through the walkie. Blue indicates the key items, they need to be collected in order to finish the game. Green indicates health supplies and ammo, everything that helps you finish the game easier. Red indicates the enemies, purple are traps, immortal enemies and deadly areas. Orange indicates interactive items (shootables, keyholes, levers)

Secrets to find: 6

NOTE: Lara does not have Binoculars in this level, so use your flares cleverly. Conserve the ammo and health for the final stage where you’ll really need it.

ENTRANCE: Slide down into a ruin and find Small Medipack (SMP) and Shotgun Shells. Kill two bats along the way and find a crawl space (CS) in the alcove W. Follow it and enter the second room. I highly recommend picking up the shotgun first, before you leave this area, as you’ll need it and won’t have any other opportunity to retrieve it.

SHOTGUN: So, drop through the opening in the wall S and follow the staircase, killing a couple of bats along the way. You’ll emerge in a lava room and get a view of remains of an adventurer who visited this place before Lara but died in this room. Most important, you’ll see a shotgun near this poor guy. You have to go clockwise around the room, by making a running jump (RJ) onto the ledge on the left. From there jump to grab the edge of the broken column and shimmy a bit to the right. Pull up and carefully aim the RJ onto the flat area of the rocks above lava (keep close to the rock wall). Jump over the steep uphill to reach the ledge with the dead adventurer. Walk carefully to the remains and pick up the SHOTGUN and shells. You can safely RJ from there onto the ledge at the entrance. Go up the stairs and climb up back to the second room.

OPENING THE FIRST DOOR: There’s no need to break the urns by shooting, they are all empty here. Instead, notice a closed door ahead from the entrance and find a high CS to the left from the entrance. Follow the passage to a deep pit. RJ over across the middle, onto the triangular ledge ahead. Proceed to the next room, which you could see earlier through the gap in the first room. Notice a “sleeping” skeleton armed with a sword and holding a shield. Expect it later being very alive. No need to break the urns here, so find the sandy rock between two nicely decorated supporting pillars and climb up. From there, climb a bit higher onto the broken pillar above. RJ from the broken pillar onto the ledge ahead. There’s a passage to the left with suspicious holes, indicating retracted blades. They are harmless on your way in, so enter and use the wall lever (WL). This will open the door you saw in the second room. The spikes are now activated, so time them on your way back.

FIRST ANKH: Before you leave the area, pick up the secret. Do not drop immediately down from the passage with blades. Instead, go to the right (opposite the broken pillar where you came up). Find a hidden crack on the pillar on this side and shimmy around the pillar into the alcove behind it. Make a carefully lined right-curved RJ onto the wall ledge on the right. From there, RJ to land onto the ledge with the secret and retrieve the first Secret ANKH #1. You can safety drop from there, losing a bit of Lara’s health, or you can return the way you get here, and save the health supplies.

The skeletons have also awoken, so outrun them and return to the second room where you opened the door. They won’t follow Lara across the deep pit.

TRAPPED HALLWAY WITH SECRET: In the passage behind the door, kill three hounds and follow it to the pit with swinging blades and a spike ledge. Walk to the edge of the deep pit and look to the left, into the alcove with the first blade. There is a CS there, so carefully jump there (between the blade and the wall), crawl in and follow it to Secret ANKH #2. Return the way you came and save before you attempt the jump across the trapped ledge. Watch the cycle of the blades and spikes. Take a hop back from the edge and wait for the first spikes to retract. Start running when the first spikes are popping out and jump onto the ledge when they retract. Keep Up/Forward pressed and RJ onto the other side. Hopefully, swinging blades will not injure Lara a lot.

BIG GATE: You’ll emerge on a high ledge above the pool and the big closed gate. There are two ledges on the left and right, but the gates are closed there. There is a secret straight ahead at the top of the arch above the gate, but you can get it later much quicker. For now, there is nothing for you to do here, but to jump into the pool below. Before you surface for air and climb up, use the underwater (UW) lever and use it to open one of two smaller side gates. As soon as you climb out on the stairs, two crocodiles will attack, so get rid of them. Notice two receptacles below two obelisks and one gate on the left which is still closed. You can first visit that area and then open the left-hand gate, or you can do it the other way around.

GEM OF FIRE - RIGHT-HAND GATE - FLOOR PUZZLE: Follow the passage to another area, killing two bats along the way. Notice the conspicuous floor and a closed gate ahead. You can see an item on the pedestal through the closed gate. There are also two side areas here, and it is also not important which one you use first and which one second. You can use the rope switch in the passage on the right first, and go for a bit more difficult part second.

In the left-hand passage, follow the big twisted ramp down. In the next room, RJ onto the sloped pillar ahead, slide down and grab the edge. Pull up, jump and twist to grab the entrance ledge. Pull up and now kill three hounds lurking in the pit below (this jumping triggered their appearance). Once they’re dead, drop in the pit, break the urns in the corner to obtain UZIS. Go to the other side of the room and find a sandy rock where you can jump up and grab the ledge above. There is a floor lever (FL) on this ledge, so use it to activate the marked floor tiles in the room with the artifact. In the meantime, the room you’re in is now flooded with lava and a burner is activated on a ledge leading back to the entrance.

So, save whenever you have a chance, as you’ll need a bit of luck as well. Start when the burner is burning for three or four seconds. Stand jump on the first sloped pillar, so that you can land on it facing downhills. Slide to the edge, jump onto the second pillar facing downhills. Slide to the very edge, jump and hopefully, the flame will be out ahead. Grab the ledge with the burner and shimmy to the right. Pull up onto the safe ledge or in the very right-hand corner of the burner ledge. From this corner, RJ when the flames go off and jump onto the third sloped column towards the exit. Here, jump from the very edge of the slope and grab the entrance ledge. Pull up and return to the floor puzzle.

If the floor tiles are not yet activated by now, use the rope switch in the other passage. Save before you try to go across this floor. If you make a bad step, not only that the gate will remain closed, but the marked tiles will start burning and be useless. If you make a mistake, you have to reload this savegame. Start from the main entrance to this room, facing the closed gate. You have to jump onto each glowing floor tile (five of them) without touching other tiles, in order to ignite five burners around the artifact and open the gate keeping you from accessing it. Also, make sure not to step on any brown edge of the glowing floor tile. This will also ignite the burning ledge and the gate will not open. All jumps are standing jumps and it is not difficult if you’re careful. When you land on the fifth tile, the gate will open. From there, jump onto the higher floor, go through the gate and pick up the GEM OF FIRE.

QUICK SAND: Break the urns in this room and retrieve 2 x UZI CLIPS. You can go back to the main area by going through the newly opened passage behind the pedestal. Go up the ladder and follow the passage leading to the room with quick sand. Before you attempt to go across, break two sets of urns in near corners of the room and obtain an SMP and FLARES. Save before you step into the quick sand. For me, it was the easiest to start near the left-hand wall when facing the quick sand pool. RJ from there into the pool and keep going along towards the first WL. The mummies will awake and try to get you, and you don’t have any means of disposing of them. So just try to outrun them and feed Lara a medipack or two to keep her alive. Proceed farther to the other side and climb onto the solid ledge. Run across to the right, RJ into the quick sand on the other side, keeping near the other wall, and use the second WL, to open the exit. Return along the wall which is now on Lara’s right and proceed through the open passage. Save somewhere before you enter the next room.

SAND RISING: As soon as you enter the next dark room, the door behind Lara will close and the sand will start rising below Lara. On the ceiling above, there are some blades, so you have to leave this room before the sand raises anywhere near the blades. However, the exit is blocked, and you need not only to be very fast, but also, you have to kill an enemy before the sand rises. If you just outrun the enemy and enter the safe alcove below the spikes, the exit will remain blocked and you won’t be able to go back and kill the enemy. So, as soon as you enter, take the Shotgun and quickly kill one big cat mummy. Look for the alcove in the wall as the sand level rises. Run into it and the door will open (if the cat mummy is dead). Leave the area through the passage which leads to a deep pit.

BOTTOMLESS PIT: In order to get across this pit, climb onto the block on the left when you enter, and then onto a higher block. From here, you can reach the ceiling and start monkey-swinging across the pit. However, on your way to the other side, three burners will threaten to kill Lara, so time them carefully and use Look button to observe their cycles while you hanging between them. Once you reach the other side of the pit, you can drop down and the gate will open for you. You’ll emerge on another high ledge back in the room with the gate and pool.

GEM OF AIR – LEFT-HAND GATE – In order to open this gate, you have to climb on the block with the left-hand obelisk (when facing the closed gate). From there, RJ to grab the broken pillar near the wall and pull up onto it. Walk to the left and jump to grab the ledge above the closed gate. There you’ll find a WL that opens the gate below. Safety drop down and go through the gate. Follow the passage and save before you attempt to go through the double rotating blade trap. For me, the easiest way to go through safely was to start on the left-hand side, near the remains of another dead adventurer. When the left-hand blade starts going away from you, sprint towards it. As soon as the right-hand blade passes by, steer to the right and sprint away from the area of danger.

ROPES OVER SPIKES: You’ll emerge in a room with a spike pit. RJ to grab the other side of the pit, climb up and explore the room beyond. In the near right corner you’ll find SHELLS in a shootable urn. Go through the doorway on the other side of the room, RJ across two shallow pits until you reach an alcove with a WL. Use it to raise a block back in the previous room. Return there and find a raised block on your right. Climb on it, and jump onto the stone ledge with a cat statue (Lara can fall down between the raised block and stone platform, so jump across this gap). You’ll find an SMP in the urn in front of the cat statue. Jump onto the next platform, climb to the other side of the block and you’ll see two dangling ropes above the spikes pit. Save, line Lara squarely towards the first rope, RJ to grab it, slide down to the end of the rope, swing, jump off and grab the second rope. Slide down to the bottom, swing and jump onto the ledge with an opening ahead.

Kill one hound in the room beyond, and climb onto the broken column from its right-hand side. Stand jump diagonally to grab the higher ledge (jump from the highest corner) and follow the passage to a room above the cat statue. Go left, jump across the hole in the floor and use the FL to retract the spikes below. Nearby you’ll also find some SHELLS. Drop through the hole in the ground, and finally, drop into the spike pit. Enter the passage and pick up the GEM OF AIR from the pedestal. The door on Lara’s left will open. Notice that one door on Lara’s right is still closed. Follow the passage on the left, to meet a skeleton. Use your Shotgun to shoot the skeleton down into the spike pit ahead, since you cannot get rid of it in any other way. Carefully time the rotating blades in front of the spike pit and RJ across the pit to the other side. If you want to get a secret here, save first.

THIRD ANKH: Walk to the edge of the pit and carefully stand jump into it to land in the corner without spikes. Crawl into the CS and pick up a large medipack (LMP). Use the WL to open the gate back in that room where you found the key item. Return to the spike pit and save. You have to run through the spikes directly ahead and to climb out of the pit. Lara will lose a half of her heath or so, so make sure she has enough energy available. Once up there, turn around and RJ back across the pit, carefully timing the rotating blade on the other side. Return to the room with pedestal, enter through the raised gate ahead and kill three small scorpions. Pick up Secret ANKH #3 and return to the spike pit. Once again, time the rotating blade carefully and RJ across the spike pit.

More traps are awaiting for you ahead. You have to time three swinging blades in the corridor beyond the spike pit. Once through, enter the room with a high central supporting pillar. Two big and fast cat mummies will attack, so use Shotgun to dispose of them easily. You’ll find SHELLS in the urn near the entrance, and an SMP in the urn on the other side of the room. Find a ladder on the left-hand side of the room (from the entrance) on the central pillar and climb up to the ledge above. Go around to pick up UZI CLIPS and on the other side of the pillar, you’ll see an opening in the floor. RJ to grab it and go up the stairs on the left. The gate at the top of the stairs will kindly open for you.

FOURTH ANKH: Before you drop down to use two keys you have found, go for a secret first. Once on a high left-hand edge above the gate, climb on the broken pillar on the left. Walk to the corner of this pillar which is nearest to the arch above the gate. Save and RJ to land on the flat ledge on top of this arch. Shoot the urn here and take the Secret ANKH #4. Swan dive into the pool below.

BOSS FIGHT: Use two gems in two receptacles to open the gate ahead. Go through a corridor with pillars and enter the room with your prize: the sacred amulet you’ve been looking for. However, before you pick it up, explore the room and shoot some urns to find an LMP and Uzi CLIPS. Also, save before you pick up the AMULET OF HORUS from the pedestal.

As soon as you pick up your prize, some fire wraiths will appear and try to kill Lara (you cannot get rid of them, you have to avoid and outrun them as best as you can). Also, a monster will also appear and start shooting its energy bolts. Take your best weapon and shoot at it while flipping to the left or right (best way to avoid energy bolts and outrun the wraiths). Once the enemy is dead, the floor will break and reveal the exit for you. However, the fire wraiths are still here, so save if you have a good chance for it.

ESCAPE: So, you have to drop into the hole in the floor and slide down to the pool. However, it is much harder than it seems. You have to be faster than wraiths, and yet, careful enough in order to avoid the traps along the way. So, once the flyby is finished, run off over the edge of the hole and land onto a flat spot on the rocks below. Jump backwards with twist in mid-air to turn Lara so that she slides facing downhills. As she slides, jump and steer her to the right. If you want to pick up the secret here, she has to be near the right-hand wall before she reaches the first trench with lava. Once there, jump and steer her to the right to make her land in the alcove with the secret (to the right of the first lava trench). Take Secret ANKH #5, roll and jump out of the alcove to land on the slope on the other side of the lava trench. Slide a bit then jump across the second lava trench, and finally, land into a pool where the wraiths will finally die.

There are other ways to go through this passage, but the one described above was the easiest for me (if you want to pick up the secret). There are other possibilities and solutions, but it all depends on those fire wraiths. You can also slide down backwards and grab the edge of the first lava trench. Then you can shimmy to the left and pull into the alcove with the secret. However, it never worked for me, as the wraiths killed Lara during shimmying. Also, you can drop through the hole facing uphills and landing on the flat block. From there you can go left, behind the pillars and slide on that side of the room. Lara will then slide just near the right-hand wall which will make the jump into the secret alcove much easier. And also, you can skip the secret altogether, just slide down facing downhills, jump over two lava trenches and land inside the pool with water.

EARTHQUAKE: Follow the UW passage and pull out of the water into the room with broken pillars. Try to ignore the earthquake. Climb on the step with the obelisk in the far right corner (NW) and jump up to grab the ledge above. Go to the left and RJ to grab the next ledge (might be tricky) and save before you start running to the other side of the ledge. Some rocks will fall from the ceiling at the end of the long ledge, so time them carefully. It is enough if you can only run towards the edge and jump across the gap, the falling rocks should not injure Lara at all. Turn left and stand jump to grab the higher ledge. Some spikes will activate and you’ll have to time them carefully. The first set of spikes is easy, just run across when they retract and save on the safe square in the middle of spikes. Turn left. You have to time two sets of spikes here with one RJ, which is probably the most difficult trap in the entire game.

Carefully time the run across the first set of spikes and jump to clear the second set of spikes (watch the spikes carefully and start running when the first set of spikes is down and the second is up). Proceed to a deep pit. RJ diagonally from left to right, to clear it and crawl under the overhanging rocks on the left. Once Lara stands up, save. You have to run over breaking tiles above another bottomless pit. For me it was the easiest to stand near the right-hand wall, run across two breaking tiles, jumping onto the single breaking tile ahead, running and jumping from there onto the path ahead. Go left and follow the twisted passage to a ladder. For now, ignore the ladder and keep going farther. Take a right turn around the corner and find the secret ANKH #6 in the passage on the right. Take it and return to the ladder. Go up to emerge on a ledge high above the room with spikes. RJ to land on the ledge ahead and turn right. RJ to grab the ledge ahead, pull up and enter the passage on your right. Follow it, climb over a rock and go towards the light to finish the level.

FMV: We see tired Lara going out of the catacombs, throwing her backpack on the ground and taking out her prize – The Amulet of Horus.

In Hamburg, on 2 February 2015