Five Ways Rise Of The Tomb Raider Is Improving Upon The Reboot
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We're very excited to roll out a month of exclusive content for Rise of the Tomb Raider from Crystal Dynamics to go along with our extensive March cover story. The 2013 reboot really impressed us and we were curious about how the development team is looking to improve on that experience. While visiting the studio, we spoke to the creative director for the Tomb Raider franchise Noah Hughes about the feedback they received on the reboot and the key areas they're hoping to improve for the next entry.
Next adventure is about Lara actively throwing herself into danger
Lara's "first real tomb-raiding expedition"
The reboot was necessary. Before that graphics were getting better but gameplay and "sexy heroine" rooted in 1996.
Reboot shipped more than 7 million copies to date.
Reboot best Tomb Raider to date, now "they just have to do it again"
Many of Lara's scars psychological
Shrink scene will probably not appear in game
Next expedition way of "dealing with the trauma" as well as "finding peace"
Crystal sure that Xbox 360 won't limit studio's development since that is being handled by Nixxes
Nixxes already put together a ROTR tech demo on X360 and Crystal were blown away
Lara is researching immortality myths after what she saw on Yamatai, which leads her searching for invisible city of Kitezh.
Studio addressing complaints about lack of globetrotting by including at least two locations, one of which is Siberia
In demo "we got a brief glimpse of dusty sandscapes, dense forests and underwater caverns"
Jonah Maiava is Lara's new sidekick
Description of a set piece where Lara evades an avalanche in the Siberian mountains by scrambling across creaky walkways, passing by an old airliner wreck and using discarded cable to zip line over a large chasm, and loses Jonah
Also a pretty piece of concept art with large wooden huts across a chasm linked by a cable gondola
Crystal Dynamics aims to fill ROTTR with more set pieces like in TR2013
Forests filled with wolves and bears
Environment is Lara's main antagonist.
Crystal want to capture Lara's humanity by showing she is continually challenged as a character.
ROTTR greatly expands on TR2013's crafting system.
Can now collect a variety of resources: "plants, minerals, metals, clothes, hides and other rare relics"
For example, Lara can make makeshift grappling line from climbing axe, or use a piece of cloth and herbs to bind wounds.
Can also poison ammo, construct traps, make Molotov cocktails and grenades
Now there are more of each type of weapon to upgrade
New ambient weather system which affects gameplay. For example, wolf hide can only be acquired at night which is when wolves come out, and enemies will have a hard time seeing you in fog or rain
Lara will come across ancient Mongolian obelisks which she needs to decode in order to find treasure or lead her to "new narrative elements"
Russian base in GI trailer thumbnail is "abandoned Cold War installation" hub
ROTTR hubs are 2-3x bigger than TR2013's hubs
As Lara approaches installation she sees 'Trinity' helicopter fly overhead. In the installation she finds Trinity soldiers looking for a map.
Lara can scale trees, hide in small bushes, swim underwater.
"We wanted to push on the pre-combat phase"
Lara will rarely be able to sneak past anybody, but will have ability to map terrain before engaging head on
Can use things like a crackling radio to distract enemies, and gas can to cause explosions
"We try to keep the pressure on", avoiding enemies reverting to a "dumb oblivious state"
Short description of combat sequence, including Lara "binding wounds" and poisoning arrow tip. Lara also uses discarded refuse as weapons. Reminds GI of The Last of Us "improv-driven combat"
Story is a race between Lara and "invisible society with enough bankroll to fund a private army" for the secrets of Kitezh.
Brief description of Lara entering through a small opening into a cavern
Crystal want to put greater emphasis on "underground puzzle chambers"
"We'll have more tombs"
"Some tombs are much larger than in TR2013"
Also returning to concept of "nested puzzles", which was a "common tactic in classic Tomb Raider games"
Crystal also going to integrate more traversal challenges and combat sequences into the middle of puzzles.
Focus on giving tombs an ancient feel
Comparing themselves to Uncharted 2 and Assassin's Creed II, where "in the first outing they had a really inspiring gameplay proposition, but didn't fully realize that experience until the sequel"
Lara is "no longer a survivor. She's a tomb raider."
Raiders Of The Lost City – Lara’s Search For Immortality
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Lara Croft’s previous journeys have taken her on quests for magical daggers said to command ancient armies and spelunking through Norse underworlds in order to gather archaic armor rumored to belong to the gods. Tomb Raiders’ exploits always send Lara on wild adventures, but these adventures are always based on some nugget of real life lore. Even after the 2013 reboot, Crystal Dynamics still builds its fiction off a real historical legend. For Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara will start a search for the secrets of immortality by tracking down an ancient city that sunk into a frozen Russian lake centuries ago.
Early on in the development process, Crystal Dynamics casts a wide net looking for different myths that haven’t been overused in other pieces of fiction. However, the studio has to look at more than just the myth itself; they have to think critically about whatever item Lara will be chasing after. The studio looks at the location and culture surrounding each myth. For example, using a myth set inside Russia will require the team to set the game in Russia, and this affects other aspects of the game’s design, pushing the team to build technology to replicate mountains and snow. If the team chooses a myth set inside the jungles of South America, it will require a completely different set of technical challenges.
“We wanted to put Lara into a whole new location, someplace that still fulfilled the goals of survival, but had a whole new look than Yamatai,” says game director Brian Horton. “When we did the research, we found a myth that would take us to the mountains of Siberia, and that just seemed like a really cool hostile place, which became a great foundation for our story and gave us a landscape that was new, and required a whole new set of technologies.”
A: Camilla conducted an interview with Game Informer as part of their month of online coverage. Her feature goes live on the 27th!
Q: Why is Lara wearing some of her equipment Yamatai in the ROTTR screenshots, such as the holster and radio?
A: You’re likely referring to the screenshot of Lara in the desert tomb. Some of Lara’s equipment pictured there is placeholder.
Q: Where is Sam?
A: Sam is featured fairly prominently in the Tomb Raider comics, and as such her story is still unfolding. Meaning, we’re not going to answer that question just yet!
Q: What did you mean by you’re working on the Xbox One version of ROTTR “without even thinking of the Xbox 360 version”?
A: When Nixxes presented the team at Crystal with a demo proving the high standard they could achieve with Rise of the Tomb Raider on the Xbox 360, the decision to move forward was an easy one. The game is in capable hands, and we’re working with a longtime partner that knows our staff and technology. This means we can focus solely on developing the Xbox One version of Rise of the Tomb Raider, in order to push the hardware without worrying about how it will translate to Xbox 360.
Q: Are the images from Rise of the Tomb Raider published by GameInformer in-game screenshots?
A: Yes, all the assets we gave Game Informer were either concept art or screen shots. No CG images.
Q: When will we see gameplay from Rise of the Tomb Raider?
A: The Game Informer cover is our first big splash for Rise of the Tomb Raider, and more content will be shown throughout the month. As for gameplay, we’ll be sure to let you know when you can expect that.
Exploring The New Setting Of Rise Of The Tomb Raider
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Stepping up from his role as art director for the last entry, Brian Horton is now the game director on Rise of the Tomb Raider and is paying a lot of attention to the look of Lara Croft's new environment. Rise of the Tomb Raider takes players to Russia as Lara seeks a long-lost city and answers about the existence of the immortal soul. The new setting means new animals to hunt, new challenges to overcome, and new tech that the team had to create to make the world believable.
Watch the video interview below to learn more about the new world/worlds you'll explore and why wolves are always so hungry for tomb raiders.
Tomb Raider's Writer Discusses The Evolution Of Lara Croft
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The daughter of legendary fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, Rhianna Pratchett has already built an impressive career giving voice to strong female characters in both games and comics. Pratchett has previous worked on titles like the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, Heavenly Sword, and Mirror's Edge. Now that she’s reuniting with Lara as a writer on Rise of the Tomb Raider, we took some time to chat with the prolific author about what happened to all of Lara’s wealth, why getting lost and frustrated should be part of a video gaming experience, and whether or not Lara is a little crazy.
Interview
What excites you about this game’s premise and the quest for immortality?
Whether it’s the Holy Grail, the Tree of Life, or eating five-a-day, living beyond our years is one of humanity’s eternal questions. Exploring what that really means, both the pros and cons, is certainly interesting to me as a writer. However, what particularly excited me about this project was helping guide Lara on the next stage of her journey. She’s done things that she didn’t think she was capable of – both good and bad – and that’s shaken her preconceptions about the person she thought she was. She’s also seen things she doesn’t quite believe and is looking for answers about what those mean for both her and for the wider world. She’s a woman with a lot on her plate.
Does the development process change the narrative much after your initial script?
Yes, all the time. Writing is rewriting and nowhere is that more the case than in games. You’re constantly tweaking and reshaping. We spent a long time working out the state of Lara’s mind at the start of the game and how the other characters play into that during the story. We also wanted to decrease the number of characters this time as we definitely felt that the cast was too large last time and we suffered through lack of space to fully realize them. I think it’s safe to say that the second step of Lara’s journey was much more challenging than the first.
Who’s funding Lara’s adventures? Is she still pretty wealthy?
The Yamatai exhibition was funded by Sam’s uncle, rather than Lara’s wealth. This latest expedition is largely funded through Lara’s savings (she has had several jobs, both mentioned in the game and the comics.) By and large she self-funds and considering the expeditions are not really particularly weapon- and gadget-based that makes a difference. However, Lara’s relationship with her family’s wealth is something she’s wrestled with ever since Yamatai. She still comes from a wealthy family, but her attitude towards that wealth is what’s changed.
Maybe I missed some journal entry in the first game, but what's the status on Lara Croft's mother?
That’s not something we’re discussing at the moment.
In the last Tomb Raider, Lara's narration was constantly reminding players what just happened and what she was after. Do you feel like games lack some of the storytelling subtlety of other mediums since they want to ensure players know where to go?
Lara does tend to talk to herself a fair bit, but that’s partly just a quirk of who she is. I think it’s rather an only child trait! However, certain elements of game narrative are somewhat unrealistic and, well, game-y. Like barks, for instance – the small lines of dialogue, which enemies often spout during fights. I mean, who in their right mind telegraphs their actions and intentions during a fight? However, I think we’ve become so used to it as gamers that we don’t really think about it too much. Likewise, I’ve noticed an industry-wide trend over the last five years or so where games seem very keen that players shouldn’t get lost or frustrated at any point. I’m of the school of thought that being lost and getting frustrated is all part of the fun.
The first trailer indicated that Lara's not in the healthiest place mentally, how dominant will her battle with PTSD be throughout the storyline?
It’s part and parcel of her journey, but not the central theme. I think she’s just trying to unravel the Gordian knot that her life has become. She’s trying to reconcile what she saw and what she did, with who she thought she was and who she might become. Lara’s someone who thought her path ahead was clear and instead she has been violently thrown off it. As a consequence she’s looking to her past for answers and guidance, and also seeing that in a completely new light as well.
Strong female leads are a rarity in the video game world. Do you think people are nervous to put females in a leading role? Crystal Dynamics almost had to fight to make Lara less of a sexed up caricature of femininity.
I personally don’t have an issue with female characters being sexy. However, in the past the industry has suffered from sexy merely being used as a solo personality trait. Likewise, the definition of what constitutes sexy has been very narrow and frequently meant overly sexualized, which was off-putting for some. We definitely need more diversity in this area and to create more characters who’re sexy because they’re smart, funny, thoughtful, loyal, textured and flawed people, on top of whatever they may look like. I still think Lara’s sexy. She’s beautiful, fierce, empathetic, determined and smart – which arguably she was before. But now she’s just not sexualized. I think that decision has definitely helped us reach new audiences.