December 22, 2025

Why Legacy Builders Burn Out (and How to Fix It)

Tomb Raiders and Tech Startups: Same Battlefield

“We put the most pressure on ourselves.” That line came from Dallas Dickinson, Studio Head at Crystal Dynamics, during a TechRadar Q&A about the upcoming remake of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. But if you’re a founder, CPO or engineering lead in a high-growth tech company, I bet you’ve said some version of that to yourself at 2am mid-sprint.

Here’s the kicker though: this wasn’t pressure from investors, or publishers, or fans. It was internal. The suffocating weight of living up to a legacy—be it Lara Croft’s or Version 1.0 of your platform when it actually worked flawlessly (once, for seventeen minutes).

I see it all the time. Ambitious leaders pushing harder, moving faster, trying to do more with too little. The same people who built something brilliant suddenly feel paralysed by their own benchmark.

So let’s talk about it. How to rebuild without burning out. How to raise the bar without raising your blood pressure. And most importantly, how pressure can become fuel—not friction.

The Weight of Expectations

Making a remake of Tomb Raider isn’t just about better graphics—it’s about honouring millions of memories and evolving them. Same with scaling a tech company: you're building on what worked—and trying not to break what people loved.

But perfectionism is the fake friend whispering in your ear: "If it’s not revolutionary, you’ve failed." That mindset? It’ll chew you up faster than a rogue GPU in a build pipeline.

Here’s what I tell hiring managers and founders when they’re over-spinning the pressure wheel:

• Pressure’s natural, paralysis isn’t. You’re supposed to care. But not to the point of obsession.
• More isn’t better. A bloated team can kill agility. Smart hiring beats fast hiring every time.
• Legacy isn’t a weight—it's a compass. Use past wins to steer, not stall.

Make Peace with Your Past

Game developers rebuilding a classic like Tomb Raider have to dissect why the original was magical. Not copy it pixel by pixel—but understand what made it great, and reimagine it.

Same goes for product leaders. Scaling a legacy system? Updating a monolith that’s older than your newest hire? Don’t just refactor code—refactor purpose.

Ask yourself:

• What do users ACTUALLY love about this product?
• What can we safely strip away?
• What constraints made the original better—not worse?

Remakes fail when they're too literal. So do teams. Trust your team’s creativity to evolve—not just recreate.

Hire Like You’re Casting Lara Croft

Let’s flip the camera for a second. You’re under pressure. Timelines are tight. You need that cloud engineer yesterday. So you rush the hire. You prioritise ‘fast fingers’ over ‘sharp minds’. And suddenly your team’s playing skill Jenga.

I see founders do this too often. High pressure leads to hires made out of desperation, not discipline. But the best builders under pressure—like Crystal Dynamics—don’t just find someone who can wield dual pistols. They find someone who understands why Lara Croft exists in the first place.

Here’s the hiring checklist for legacy-upgrading teams:

• Can this person work with ambiguity?
• Do they think systemically, not just reactively?
• Are they eager to challenge your assumptions—in smart ways?

Basically: don’t just hire skilled people. Hire contextually brilliant ones.

Make Pressure Productive

Too often in tech (and gaming), pressure spins into crunch. Crunch becomes burnout. Burnout becomes attrition—and poof, there goes that expert you needed six months from now.

But when pressure is channelled—like a game dev team with something to prove—it can drive focus, reduce bloated priorities, and foster momentum. Legacy doesn’t have to be a trap. It can actually be a launchpad.

3 ways to reframe pressure:

• Pressure shows you care. It’s purpose, turned up to eleven. Just don’t confuse it with panic.
• Use pressure to clarify. Limitations sharpen creativity. Stop trying to solve everything—solve what matters next.
• Talk about it. Normalise saying “this feels heavy.” Because the silent superhero role? It’s overrated and unsustainable.

Built to Outlast the Legacy

Here’s the irony. The Tomb Raider team feels pressure to honour the past, because it was that good. Same with you, if your product’s made a mark already. But legacies aren’t tombstones. They’re waypoints. Signals that greatness already lived here—and could live on.

So, if you’re feeling the weight of expectation, guess what? You're in elite company. Game devs, product leaders, founders—all haunted by their own version of Lara’s shadow. That just means your work matters.

Now make it matter to the right people. Build smart. Hire smarter. And don’t let pressure push you into panic-mode production.

As for remakes—let's remember they only land when they respect the old and reimagine the new. Same goes for leadership. Same goes for scaling teams. Don’t relive the past. Reinvent it.

Need a Lara Croft-level problem-solver for your growing team? I might just know a few. Let’s talk hiring that doesn’t buckle under pressure.

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