Many players who owned the original Tomb Raider on the PlayStation discovered an unusual feature by accident.

If you place the game disc into a normal CD player, most of the tracks on the disc will actually play like a music album.

However, track one will not play properly, while the remaining tracks will play without any problems.

The reason for this lies in how early PlayStation game discs were designed.

Why Track One Will Not Play

Track one on the Tomb Raider disc contains the game’s data.

This track includes the program files, level information, graphics, and other assets needed for the PlayStation to run the game.

Because this information is stored as computer data rather than audio, a normal CD player cannot interpret it correctly.

If a CD player attempts to read this track, it will usually produce loud static noise. For this reason, many CD players automatically skip the first track when a PlayStation game disc is inserted.

Why the Other Tracks Play Normally

Tracks two through fifty-six on the disc are completely different.

These tracks contain the game’s music soundtrack, recorded in the standard audio CD format.

This allowed the PlayStation to stream the music directly from the disc during gameplay, rather than storing the soundtrack in the console’s memory.

Because the music is stored in the same format used by regular audio CDs, it can also be played in any normal CD player.

The atmospheric music heard on these tracks was composed by Nathan McCree, whose score became one of the most recognisable soundtracks of early PlayStation games.

A Quirk of Early PlayStation Games

This unusual behaviour was not unique to Tomb Raider. Many early PlayStation titles used the same technique, placing the game data in the first track and storing the music as standard audio tracks afterward.

As a result, curious players sometimes discovered that their game discs could double as unofficial soundtrack CDs.

For fans exploring old game media, it remains a fascinating example of how physical game discs were designed during the early years of the PlayStation.