Square-Enix has come out of the gates with the official confirmation of Tomb Raider in development at Crystal Dynamics. Tomb Raider sees its full reveal in next month’s Game Informer magazine and promises that you will “forget everything” we know of the franchise.
NeoGAF has come swinging with the first details from Game Informer about Tomb Raider and from the initial impressions, it isn’t going to be a standard reboot by any means necessary but instead a complete makeover for the franchise. The story of Tomb Raider is set as the prequel, with a 21 year old Lara Croft stranded on an island after a devastating shipwreck.
Survival is integral in the reboot, focusing on collecting food and water to survive and upgrading skills and abilities at various base camps found throughout the game. Further gameplay tweaks noted Tomb Raider’s switch from a lock-on targeting system to free aim. In what generally feels like a direction towards survival horror, the description of Lara deaths – “One is described as a deranged man stabbing Lara in the chest and then closing her eyes after she’s dead. Another includes a boulder falling on her leg to trap her before another falls and crushes her head.” – generally feels inspired by the brutal decapitations found in Electronic Arts’ Dead Space.
“I think that the major difference between this game and the old is the concept of smoke and mirrors,” begins Darrell Gallagher, the studio head at Crystal Dynamics. “There was an illusion of freedom because of streaming and loading that would pop you out in a different location, but this is absolutely real. You can literally go any direction that you see and carve your own way to the finish line instead of being guide.” “It was important in the game to not only deliver the character arc of Lara Croft emotionally, but to deliver it in gameplay as well so the player gets to grow into a hardened survivor,” Gallagher added. It sounds like we are seeing the evolution of Lara Croft over the course of the game and with the prequel moniker, it will be possible to explore an uncharted side of her that was not possible previously.
The game’s official website confirms a multi platform release for PS3, 360, and PC.
