The mark of a great game, is when it creates a moment that resonates with fans, instances in time that last for years. Moments such as Aeris dying, the first time that you walked out of a bunker and gazed on the world of Fallout 3, or when you performed your first fatality in Mortal Kombat. Tomb Raider reboots itself next year, and according to its developers, the game will have plenty of those memorable moments.
“It’s very important to us that throughout the game there’s these iconic moments that you’ll remember for the rest of the franchise,” Tomb Raider global brand manager Karl Stewart told GamingLives.
It’s very important to us that you finish and you go ‘I’m going to remember that for the next game and the next game and the next game’. It’s like the moment that Batman got his mask, or James Bond got his first martini; there’s things that you want to come to the fray and say ‘I remember those moments, they’re iconic.
Those moments above, are also examples of iconic origin moments, something that Stewart says will form the backbone of the new Tomb Raider and help shape Lara into the ancient room of deceased royalty plunderer that she eventually transitions into.
We don’t want Lara to become a cold-blooded killer and just go around firing bows at everybody, but you also want to realise that she’s nearly been killed, and she’s been forced to have to kill somebody in a totally uncomfortable situation.
Two of her friends have been kidnapped, you find out pretty quickly that it may have been Lara’s fault that they’re there in the first place, so you maybe realise that your motivation is to save your friends. Then you have the island and the mystery and you want to get off and these guys who are trying to kill you, and you feel like, I’m not going to stop and talk to them, they’re out to kill me, so everything has to be motivated.
You can’t just kind of go in and say ‘okay, she’s a cold-blooded killer’ so those situations, whether it be her first kill or others, heighten the sense of continuing to know why she’s doing what she’s doing, and at no point do you feel like she’s just a cold-blooded killer.
Tomb Raider was originally due out sometime this year, before it was delayed by Crystal Dynamics for an early 2013 release, in order to help polish some of those iconic moments.
Last Updated: August 29, 2012
