Tomb Raider has held a significant place in my life for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories of gaming involve Lara Croft, It Is the reason I fell In love with Video Games and Is why I am still an avid gamer today. I'm glued to my Television for days whenever a new entry In the franchise Is released, soaking up every bit of the experience. In between releases you can find me on the unofficial "Tomb Raider Forums" conversing with thousands of other dedicated Tomb Raider fans, scouring the Internet to find any small morsel of Information or speculation about the next game to tide us over.
Lara Croft has, In a way, been my friend for over two decades, and still Is.
So how has Lara managed to stay the distance and remain just as relevant now as she was 23 years ago when first arriving on the scene?
The story begins In 1993 when preliminary work on Tomb Raider began.
Based In Derby, England, developer Core Design had a handful of successful video games under their belt. The acclaimed combat flight simulator "Thunderhawk" had released just a year prior, but nothing could prepare them for what was to come.[2]
Toby Gard, the man credited with creating Lara Croft, had an ambitious vision of a fully 3D, third-person, cinematic, action adventure game. At the time this had never been attempted, 3D was relatively new at the time, the majority of 3D games were first-person and nowhere near as large in scope as Tomb Raider was planned to be. Still the small team at Core pushed ahead with development, all buying into Gard's vision.
Lara Croft went through several iterations during early development, rumor has it that Ms Croft was In fact originally supposed to be Mr Croft, this of course didn't work out due to the characters uncanny resemblance to Indiana Jones. The next concept was for the player to be able to choose between two lead characters, one male and one female. The developers however realized that this would take double the work. The decision was made to scrap the male character and move forward with a female protagonist. At the time there were very few female leads in gaming, so this was seen as a pretty big gamble.
"Lara Cruz Is a modern day adventurer and procurer of rare artifacts, which she relieves from Johnny foreigner with the gay abandon of a five year old stealing Mars bars from the local corner shop."
-Excerpt from story overview made during early development.
The next incarnation of the character was "Laura Cruz", a South American mercenary with a stone cold demeanor. Americans however were having a bit of trouble pronouncing the name, so "Laura" became "Lara". (Little did the developers realize that all this time later Americans would be guilty of consistently mispronouncing the name
as "Laura", a huge pet peeve of the Tomb Raider fan base, Ah hindsight.)
The decision was later made to change the character to a British heroine, so "cruz" was dropped, "Croft" was discovered by scouring the local telephone directory. Gard was intent on avoiding the typical stereotype that plagued female characters, which he described as "Bimbos". Despite her caricaturistic bombshell appearance, Lara was to be an educated, mysterious loner type, an ice queen who preferred the company of decrepit tombs and dangerous traps over people.
An appearance at E3 began to generate buzz for Tomb Raider, with a showcasing of the games Impressive graphics and titillating action gameplay .
When Tomb Raider finally released In 1996 It quickly became a smash hit,
publisher Eidos Interactive had expected to ship around 100,000 copies of Tomb Raider, however these numbers were exceeded rapidly, with the game going on to sell over 7 million units. Tomb Raider was met with universal acclaim and Is today credited for revolutionizing the 3D action adventure genre.
Eidos and Core Design were soon bombarded with phone calls, everybody wanted a piece of Lara It seemed. Countless brand deals and non gaming related magazine covers usally reserved for A-list actors and singers, Lara had become a worldwide celebrity overnight, the likes of which hadn't been seen before in the industry. Everyday people who'd never touched a video game in their life knew who Ms Croft was, publisher Eidos quickly realized the potential and started ramping up the marketing.
This was to be the beginning of the end for her creator Toby Gard, Lara began to be marketed as a sex object, a seductive woman appeasing to the male fantasy, which was the opposite of what gard had intended. After tension built and complaints about Lara's sexualization to Eidos fell on deaf ears, he officially quit.
"It wasn't about her boobs getting bigger. She was always designed to look good, people's psychology is that they like attractive characters of both sexes. What I objected to was the marketing which represented Lara in a way that was nothing like the character."
-Toby Gard on why he left Core Design, 2006
Despite Tomb Raiders creator departing, the team pushed ahead with a sequel.
In late October 1997, just one year after the original, Tomb Raider II was released. Expanding on everything In the first game, It was another commercial success, becoming an immediate best seller and receiving immense praise.
Lara's star was rising fast, which meant immense pressure on Core from their publisher to develop more games.
One year later in 1998 came Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft, then In 1999 came Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation. By this time the team were exhausted, frustrated with the yearly release schedule, they began to hate Lara, So they decided to kill her off, hoping it would free them.
"I saw several people walking out of that building looking very grey from not having slept for 72 hours and feeling rather ill."
- Sound composer Nathan McCree on the pressure Core was faced with
In the final scene of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Lara Is herself ironically entombed under a collapsed pyramid. Eidos was going to be furious, the Tomb Raider franchise brought them millions in revenue from game sales and merchandising. Core were forced to not only make a fifth game for the Playstation 1, but to simultaneously create a sixth game to debut on the upcoming Playstation 2.
Core decided to split into two teams, with the Tomb Raider veterans working on the PS1 sequel , and the newer staff beginning the PS2 title
In 2000 Lara Croft was resurrected In Tomb Raider Chronicles, the plot Involves Lara's friends recounting some of her previous “lost adventures“ after her funeral. The game received a lukewarm water reception, with many regarding it as a rehash of the previous titles and pointing at the series becoming stale.
Developer Andy Sandham later labeled Chronicles "A load of old sh*t" adding, "We were effectively only doing It for a paycheck."
While the team were struggling internally to keep up with demand, Lara Croft was on top of the world. The commercials and Magazine covers kept coming and by this time she had become a mascot for the PS1 alongside Crash Bandicoot, then Hollywood came calling. 2001 saw the release of the first Tomb Raider film starring recent Oscar winner and A-list actress Angelina Jolie as the titular character. The movie was a Box Office hit, making over $270 million against a budget of $115 million, Lara was subsequently Introduced to millions of new fans outside of gaming. A sequel soon began development and was scheduled to release alongside the sixth game, which would turn out to be a monumental disaster.
"When we looked at it, we were like, that can't possibly work. We need to immediately go in and cut 90 percent of that content out otherwise, you're f****d."
- Andy Sandham
Development for Lara's PS2 debut "Angel Of Darkness" was anything but smooth sailing, after development for Chronicles was completed the veteran developers returned to find the terrible state Lara's next-gen debut was In. Sandham recalled In a later Interview, "Because they'd got a PS2 dev kit the concept was effectively 'Lara visits every major city in the world that's built in GTA style'." All work up till that point other than the narrative had to be completely scrapped and restarted, putting the game a year behind schedule. Team morale was at an all time low with pressure reigning down on them from Eidos who were demanding a release date, but work was nowhere near completion. Ex employees have since stated that lack of leadership was a contributing factor for the disastrous development, with nobody having a clear Idea of what they were meant to be doing. The game was far too ambitious, too large In scale, with borrowed elements from the most popular games at the time and a second protagonist "Kurtis Trent" who was planned to star In a spin off series. Angel of Darkness was Intended to be a launch title for the highly anticipated PS2, but Eidos wanted bigger and better to ensure success, the team however wasn't able to deliver.
After many delays and missed deadlines, In mid 2003 Angel of Darkness was forced to release In a terribly unfinished state, the team had cut huge sections out In an effort to get It out the door but It was too late to fix It. Critics were not kind, ripping the game to shreds for It's many bugs and glitches, an atrocious camera and huge plot holes. At a time when patches didn't exist, there was no saving Angel of Darkness. Sales were Initially high due to extensive marketing and name recognition but the damage had been done, when the film sequel "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" released a couple of moths later to poor reception, Core Design faced the blame from Paramount Pictures. Facing Increasing scrutiny from the public and fans alike, Eidos made the decision to move development of future Tomb Raider titles to American based "Legacy of Kain" developer, Crystal Dynamics. Despite the loss of Tomb Raider being a huge blow to the team at Core, there was a sense of relief that after 7 years of grind, they would finally get a break and a chance of creating something new. This however would be the death of Core Design
Six years after his departure, Lara Croft creator Toby Gard was hired to consult for Crystal Dynamics on their first Tomb Raider game "Legend". The gameplay was overhauled for a modern audience and Lara herself recieved a redesign. The game received Immense praise for It's story and graphics as well as the controls which were more fluid than earlier games, making Lara easier to control. Seen as a return to form for the franchise, Legend was the fastest selling game of 2006, winning awards In the process.
Core Design at this time however were struggling against facing closure, relegated to creating games for the PSP. As the 10th anniversary of Tomb Raider was nearing, the team had an Idea to recreate the first game with modern technology and, hopefully, regaining the coveted IP to save their failing studio. A demo was pitched to Eidos who, to their suprise, gave It the go ahead.
Crystal Dynamics had other Ideas.
After finding out about Core's plan and facing the prospect of losing the Tomb Raider franchise, they created a rival demo and presented It to Eidos. Believing It was more efficient to have development contained to one studio, Core's version was scrapped. Crystal Dynamics released Tomb Raider Anniversary a year late to critical praise, this was to be the end of Core Design. In 2006 they were sold to Rebellion Developments, becoming "Rebellion Derby" and after developing two critical and financial bombs, "Shellshock 2: Blood Trails" and "Rogue Warriors" the studio was officially shut down In 2010, a tragic end to the team responsible for one of the most Iconic gaming franchises of all time.
Crystal Dynamics luck however ran out with their unsuccessful third entry "Tomb Raider Underworld" facing similar time constraints that faced Core with Angel of Darkness. With Lara's fame dwindling and Interest In the series becoming stale, the decision was made to reboot.
With an astronomical budget of $100 million the Tomb Raider reboot was a huge risk, If it wasn't successful Crystal Dynamics would have to answer to Square Enix, who had recently acquired publisher Eidos Interactive. In early concepts the game was a survival-horror depicting Lara stranded on an Island Inhabited by freakish monsters, Square thought this would be too much of a departure for the franchise and In surveys conducted, fans agreed. The game became a prequel to the series, telling the story of a younger Lara's first adventure after the expedition ship she Is traveling on capsizes In the middle of the "Dragons Triangle", leaving Lara and her colleagues stranded on a deserted Island named Yamatai. The game caused some controversy after a developer stated In an Interview that Lara's first kill is a man who tries to sexually assault her, these comments were later clarified as a misunderstanding. In 2013 the reboot, simply titled "Tomb Raider" was released to critical acclaim and sold over 1 million copies In the first 48 hours of It's release. As of 2011 the game has sold more than 11 million copies, making It the best selling Tomb Raider game of all time.
Lara Croft was officially back, Introduced to a new generation of gamers who loved her just as much as fans did In 1996. A portion of the original Tomb Raider fanbase however were not happy with this new version of Lara Croft, feeling that she lacked personality and was too much of a departure from classic Lara, they also criticized the games Ironic lack of tombs and cinematic gameplay that resembled fellow Indiana Jones rip-off Uncharted.
The game was followed up with a sequel "Rise of the Tomb Raider" In 2015 which was, again, a critical and financial success with sales surpassing 7 million. And again In 2018 a third title "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" received mostly favorable reviews and impressive sales.
In 2018 the film version also received a reboot, with Oscar winner Alicia Vikander portraying Lara Croft. Loosely based on the 2013 game, the film was successful.
So here we are, 23 years later, after many ups and downs no other female protagonist has managed to surpass Lara's celebrity or recognizable status. she was Introduced at a time when female leads were far from the norm and people, It seems, latched onto that. With another film scheduled for release In 2021, and likely another game coinciding with the franchises 25th anniversary In the same year, It doesn't Look like Lara Is going anywhere, anytime soon.
REFERENCES-
Gallup UK Mega CD sales chart, March 1994, published in Mega issue 18.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/it-felt-like-robbery-tomb-raider-and-the-fall-of-core-design/
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