She responded to taps, and performed different actions when players held certain buttons and pressed directional inputs. Lara Croft in 2006's Tomb Raider: Legend (image courtesy of Crystal Dynamics).Īt the same time, Tomb Raider's control scheme afforded precision. "That defined a ceiling on Lara's agility compared to other modern platform games," Hughes admitted. Relative to Super Mario 64's rendition of Nintendo's mustachioed mascot, who could sneak, walk, and sprint simply by tilting the analog stick to varying degrees, controlling Lara felt ponderous and clunky. There were pros and cons to that method of traversal. Pressing up moved her forward, pressing down caused her to backpedal, and tapping left or right rotated her in place. For instance, Lara had moved according to a tank-style control scheme. "Some of the things that we saw an opportunity improve were, for one, the movement system itself," Hughes explained. Rather than abandon any pillar, Crystal reassessed the specifics of how they supported the franchise. Lara had millions of fans, and each of them had a certain mental snapshot of her character and adventures. It didn't take Crystal long to realize that those four pillars were immutable. "Combat, traversal, puzzle solving, exploration-these were all core gameplay pillars within the franchise, and were expressed as core attributes of Lara." Early concept art for Tomb Raider: Legend (image courtesy of Crystal Dynamics). "We recognized that platforming, or traversal as we more often call it, was an essential part of the franchise," Hughes said. Targeting two to three years for Legend's development, the team dissected Tomb Raider to identify which aspects had been critical to its success. They reached one consensus right away: Core and Eidos had released six Tomb Raider games over the last seven years Lara needed a vacation if critics and players were to be expected to greet another installment warmly.
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Hughes and the rest of Crystal's team leveraged their fandom for Tomb Raider, as well as their ongoing study of videogame trends, to brainstorm a creative direction for their first crack at the franchise, Tomb Raider Legend. It came down to leveraging some of the things we had learned about character-based, action-adventure games with projects like Soul Reaver, and trying to apply them to what we loved about Tomb Raider games." We started talking internally about what we would do with a Tomb Raider game. "It was fairly vague, but certainly exciting, being fans of the franchise ourselves. "We were doing a few internal projects at the time, and we'd gotten the word that we might have the opportunity to work on a Tomb Raider title," recalled creative director Noah Hughes. “One thing we always strove for in reinterpreting Tomb Raider's gameplay pillars was retaining what we call a 'Lara lens.'” -Noah Hughes Following a legal struggle, Crystal Dynamics won the rights to create more games in the series, and the vampire Kain supplanted Gex as its biggest star-until 2003, when Eidos informed the Crystal staff that they would be chartering Lara Croft's tomb-raiding expeditions going forward. The studio published Canadian developer Silicon Knights' Legacy of Kain, a gothic-fantasy RPG, in the United States. Gex the Gecko never hobnobbed with the likes of Lara Croft and Mario, but he became recognizable in his own right. The San Francisco-based studio was founded by three veterans from Sega, the company that had signed Core as the first British developer to write games for the Genesis Crystal achieved its own first when The 3DO Company signed Crystal as the first licensee of its 3DO home console and Eidos published its games, too.Īlso like Core, Crystal had a mascot.
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You can read the full long read-a book-sized feature-by clicking here.Ĭrystal Dynamics shared a lot in common with Core Design. Below, you'll find a complete chapter from Ascendant: The Fall of Tomb Raider and the Rise of Lara Croft. Tomb Raider and Shacknews both turned 25 this year, so I thought it appropriate to revisit the story that cemented long reads as a staple feature on this website so many gamers and developers call home. Two years later, I added new chapters that explored the making of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. I wrote it in 2016 when Tomb Raider celebrated its 20th anniversary. Author's Note: Ascendant was my first Shacknews long read.
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