Tomb Raider: Anniversary is the eighth video game in the Tomb Raider series, the second game in Crystal Dynamics' "Legend Trilogy". It uses themes from the original Tomb Raider using an improved version of the Legend game engine, and it reimagines some of the original environments from Tomb Raider. It is a prequel to Tomb Raider: Legend.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a single-player action-adventure game where the player controls the protagonist, Lara Croft, from a third-person perspective, through fourteen levels set across four locations around the world. Lara can jump, climb and shimmy along ledges and vertical poles or ladders, crawl through small spaces, and swing on ropes and horizontal poles. Other abilities include interacting with objects and switches, using a grappling hook to latch onto special rings for both puzzle solving and environmental traversal, and swim and dive underwater for a limited time. Different button combinations can create more moves such as a roll and swan dive.

Puzzles block progress through the levels until Lara solves them by activating switches or finding and using keys hidden within the area. These involve avoiding traps and timed environmental elements. In some sections, the player must pass quick time events by reacting to control prompts that appear on screen. While exploring, Lara can find large and small Medipacks that can heal damage suffered during gameplay, items which allow progress through a level or the larger game, and hidden artefacts and relics which unlock rewards such as costumes once collected. Once completed, a time trial is unlocked for each level, with further bonus features unlocking once the time trail is completed successfully.

During combat, Lara automatically locks on to enemies and fires with her equipped gun, with the player able to switch to another target within range and move freely to avoid enemy attacks. Animal enemies can grab and knock Lara down, leaving her vulnerable to damage until she breaks free or rights herself from a fall. Tougher enemies become enraged and charge at Lara after being shot a number of times. When they close in, time slows and Lara can dodge the incoming attack, allowing her time to counterattack. A special attack triggered during this time is a head shot when two targeting reticles overlap; a head shot kills a standard enemy and deals high damage to boss characters. Lara has access to four different weapons in combat; her default twin pistols with infinite ammunition, and three secondary weapons—a shotgun, dual .50 caliber handguns and duel miniature submachine guns—with different attack power and limited ammunition which is picked up during levels. Should Lara die during gameplay, she restarts from the previous checkpoint.