14 DAY TRIAL // The upcoming Tomb Raider game, which reboots the long-running adventure series, will see Lara Croft, the protagonist, engage in a coming of age story from her actual job as an archaeologist, to that of a heroic Tomb Raider, going through all sorts of difficult and arduous challenges.
Fans of the Tomb Raider series were pretty surprised to hear that the long-running franchise was once again set to be restarted, this time with a retelling of Lara Croft's origins, depicting how she actually became the heroic raider of tombs we saw in previous titles.
Talking with the European PlayStation blog, Noah Hughes, the creative director of Tomb Raider development studio Crystal Dynamics, revealed that the reboot wouldn't try to connect to previous games, but would feature some of the same themes, like exploration and puzzle solving.
"It’s a reboot and not directly related to the timeline of Lara as such, but it will touch on familiar elements of her character. You’ll see her grow into the hero figure that fans know and love. It starts a whole different timeline. There’s not necessarily an assumption it will connect directly to past events. We are projecting our own Lara, taking this origins story, recreating and her launching her off into a new adventure."
As many fans already figured out, especially from the cinematic and gameplay videos we saw revealed around and during the E3 2011 conference, the younger Lara Croft is a far cry from the confident explorer we saw in earlier games.
"Rather than change her for change’s sake, we just decided to make her as real as we could. Everything then kind of came out of that – the character design, the story we were telling, the whole look of the game. We really tried to ground that in a human experience. That was the starting point. You can see that once you start down the road of bringing her to life, it can influence so much of the rest of the game."
The new Tomb Raider will see Lara try to accomplish certain challenges, many of which are going to leave a lasting mark on the young explorer.
"Pain and hardship are what help forge Lara into this hero – I mean, she’s a fledgling archaeologist who becomes the Tomb Raider. There has to be some trial and tribulation! Ultimately the boundary was: what delivers that sense of survival at all costs, without being gratuitous?"
The new Tomb Raider is set to appear next year, from Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix.