The numbers are the mainline titles as recognized by the developers. Remakes aren't mainline titles nor are they spin offs, they are just that remakes.

Mainline titles are sequels or prequels within the franchise, regardless of whether or not something is a reboot. CD officially recognizes Legend and Underworld as mainline titles, otherwise Anniversary would have been TR8, which it is not.

It has nothing to do with timelines, it's by what the developers officially recognize it as.

Capcom and Square may have different ideas for their games, but TR by CD and EM do not recognize it as a mainline title. Otherwise it's internal code would have been TR8.

By this logic Unfinished Business, Golden Mask, and Lost Artifact are mainline titles, but we know they aren't.

Since we're on that topic... Crystal also officially recognises LAU Lara as a canon continuation of Classic Lara so... :wve:

Not anymore, they've since changed their stance on that.

When?

They stood by it up until the 20th anniversary. What could have changed in the past four years?

Your logic is flawed. Those are expansions. Just because a game doesn’t have a number in it, it doesn’t mean it’s not a main title.

A remake will always be a main title, since they never officially stated that Anniversary is not. Just that it’s not TR8 (because it’s a prequel).

I feel like too much emphasis is being put on what the developers decided to call the games while making them. I can understand why Anniversary could be considered not mainline, without that diminishing the game's story in the context of the trilogy and so on, but at the same time, didn't they start making Underworld right after Legend? They could have already labelled Underworld "Tomb Raider 8" during development but then Eidos told them to make Anniversary do they stopped bothering with the numbering, which wasn't properly in use ever since 1999 anyway.

Yes it does actually mean it.

No it won't, a remake is a remake of a main title, but it's not a main title in the line of games within the franchise. Prequels are main titles, Beyond 2 is a prequel and it's the second game I that franchise.

Anniversary is not a main title, it's budget wasn't given AAA development cost because it was a niche project.

Yes indeed, CD was told to make Anniversary during conceptual planning of Underworld. That's even more reason as to why it isn't a main line title. Anniversary didn't have the same budget as Legend and Underworld, it wasn't planned as an entry in the trilogy, and the details from Anniversary were forced in Underworld by Eidos.

However CD does not consider it a main title and that holds weight as 2013 and Rise continue the numbering system because they are considered the main titles.

It still is a main title unless CD states otherwise. And it’s not moving away from the main section of this forum.

CD already don't consider it a main title. It would have been TR8 otherwise.

It's so obvious that TRA IS a main game of the series, a part of Legend trilogy. Lack of the number in the working title doesn't mean that TRA isn't a main game. Of course it is.

And I've explained in this forum before why TRA doesn't have a number. Because Crystal Dynamics started to work on Underworld when Legend was finishing, so the working title of TR8 was already used. Then they were asked to make a remake of TR1. They didn't call it TR8 because this working title was already given to other project.

YES! This is exactly what happened around 2006 :) And this is the main reason why TRA doesn't have a number but in the same time it's a part of main series.

This is not true. You can ask CD if you want and they will tell you that TRA is a main game. Look at the OFFICIAL book "20 years of Tomb Raider". TRA is of course in the chapter of MAIN GAMES.