New Gameplay Ideas in Tomb Raider Required an M Rating

The rebooted Tomb Raider video game is designed to tackle more mature themes than the previous games in the series because they are the ones that best match the new gameplay created by the development team.

Speaking to IncGamers, Karl Stewart, the global brand manager working at Crystal Dynamics, admits that, “We knew we wanted to change a few of the core pillars of the game around. Instead of full-on puzzles, we wanted to introduce this idea of Lara being smart and resourceful. Instead of simple ledge jumping we wanted it to be more about dynamically traversing the environment.”

He adds, “As a result of that we thought that, if we can do all this stuff around the gameplay, should we not also bring a stronger narrative than we’ve had before? Something deeper. You hear a lot of people talk about it from many different games, but we really want to immerse players more than they have been before.”

The concept of survival that is at the core of the new Tomb Raider cannot be developed while aiming for a Teen rating from classification boards.

Stewart talks about the scene where Lara Croft is forced to kill a man for the first time and explains that there was no way of pushing the emotional content without reaching a Mature rating.

But the developer also believes that the use of violence and other mature content needs to be justified by the narrative of the game.

The new Tomb Raider title sees Lara Croft surviving on a mysterious island after a shipwreck.

The character is young and inexperienced and, as the game progresses, she will have to kill for the first time and go through a complex series of challenges before emerging as the deep and capable character that gamers already know.

Tomb Raider is set to be launched on the PC, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 during the early months of 2013.