tl;dr AOD was critically panned and wasn't as commercially successful as Eidos hoped, so the franchise was given to Crystal. There was some drama behind the scenes, I recommend the book "L'Histoire de Tomb Raider" (it's in French only, sadly) that dives into the franchise history extensively. Or just read this article, it summarizes it.
Before the franchise was taken from them, Core were designing AoD sequel
There were different concepts but the basic premise is Lara and Kurtis go after Karel who wants to revive the Nephilim race. It ends on a cliffhanger with either Kurtis killing Karel in rage and Lara being wounded (Murti Schoefield's version) or Karel possesses Kurtis (Richard Morton's version)
while also working on Kurtis Trent standalone game and remaking the first game (playable build was leaked earlier this year. Not to be confused with TR Anniversary by Crystal Dynamics, although they re-used some ideas from Core's version).
Crystal weren't originally planning to reboot Lara and they were using an updated AoD model for early test builds.
The basic story appears to be similar with Lara going after King Arthur's legacy, but when Toby Gard was brought on board he demanded Lara to be fully redesigned 'cause he hated AoD's model. Then they decided to change her backstory too to make her more accessible to new audiences. Fun fact, Gard was also involved in developing 2013's incarnation, which makes him Lara's ultimate "daddy".
Anyway, I'd say Core Design era at least ended on high note with a symbolic shot of Lara going into darkness, mirroring the beginning of the first game. She's still raining tombs somewhere...
Underworld had a sadder ending with Lara losing her friend and her home, but she finally made peace with her mother's death, accepting that learning the truth comes with a price. This way UW Lara becomes closer to classic Lara as she cuts ties with personal matters and dedicates her life exploring the world, realizing she's better off on her own.
Reboot Lara learns to check her white privilege as she realizes she and her dad are bad people and should leave those poor POC cultists who practice human sacrifice alone, so she goes back home to drink tea...
Seriously, Shadow is such a mean-spirited game, it literally has scenes of Lara contemplating SUICIDE, like wtf??
I wanna play as a hot chick shooting at stuff and stealing shit, not to be lectured about white guilt existential crisis and how "colonialism is bad". TR2013 was gritty and violent but it at least had a clear idea that Lara is not a normal person and she should follow her destiny to pursue a life of adventure. Shadow throws everything out of the window and makes Lara constantly feel like shit because she doesn't care about her stupid friends and family like it's fucking Uncharted! How exactly Lara is supposed to become the tomb raider she destined to be if she, quote, "hates tombs"? What's next, she'll be stealing relics from museums to return them to POCs who don't give a fuck about them?
At this point I don't even care which version of Lara we're getting, just no more melodrama, please, I can't stomach anymore of her whining.
"Crystal dynamics are researching how to make the canon distinct. They want to give a name and separate things" What's that supposed to mean? This is the most ridiculously vague leak I've ever seen.
Reboot Lara learns to check her white privilege as she realizes she and her dad are bad people and should leave those poor POC cultists who practice human sacrifice alone, so she goes back home to drink tea...
Seriously, Shadow is such a mean-spirited game, it literally has scenes of Lara contemplating SUICIDE, like wtf??
I wanna play as a hot chick shooting at stuff and stealing shit, not to be lectured about white guilt existential crisis and how "colonialism is bad". TR2013 was gritty and violent but it at least had a clear idea that Lara is not a normal person and she should follow her destiny to pursue a life of adventure. Shadow throws everything out of the window and makes Lara constantly feel like shit because she doesn't care about her stupid friends and family like it's fucking Uncharted! How exactly Lara is supposed to become the tomb raider she destined to be if she, quote, "hates tombs"? What's next, she'll be stealing relics from museums to return them to POCs who don't give a fuck about them?
At this point I don't even care which version of Lara we're getting, just no more melodrama, please, I can't stomach anymore of her whining.
They seem determined to make Lara as "moralistic" and "relatable" as possible, which means they have to add stupid melodrama. It also clashes pretty heavily with the original Lara's "don't give a shit" attitude . It's been said before, but classic Lara is kind of morally gray. She's not an asshole, she avoids hurting innocent people, and she saves the world when it needs saving , but at the end of the day she's motivated by treasure, exploration and the thrill of adventure rather than altruism or a sense of justice. Hell, she doesn't even put the artifacts she finds in museums, she just collects them in her mansion. I doubt they would ever make Lara like that nowadays, especially if the white guilt stuff you mentioned is anything to go by.
This might sound paranoid, but I wonder if this timeline unification thing they're planning is an excuse to wash away Classic Lara (and all the problematic elements she comes with) and insert a new, more acceptable Lara into the classic canon.
"Crystal dynamics are researching how to make the canon distinct. They want to give a name and separate things" What's that supposed to mean? This is the most ridiculously vague leak I've ever seen.
They seem determined to make Lara as "moralistic" and "relatable" as possible, which means they have to add stupid melodrama. It also clashes pretty heavily with the original Lara's "don't give a shit" attitude . It's been said before, but classic Lara is kind of morally gray. She's not an asshole, she avoids hurting innocent people, and she saves the world when it needs saving , but at the end of the day she's motivated by treasure, exploration and the thrill of adventure rather than altruism or a sense of justice. Hell, she doesn't even put the artifacts she finds in museums, she just collects them in her mansion. I doubt they would ever make Lara like that nowadays, especially if the white guilt stuff you mentioned is anything to go by.
This might sound paranoid, but I wonder if this timeline unification thing they're planning is an excuse to wash away Classic Lara (and all the problematic elements she comes with) and insert a new, more acceptable Lara into the classic canon.
Even more recently you had Nathan Drake trying to find treasure solely for the money and not for museums, although the 4th game maybe side stepped this issue by having him looking for a white pirate's treasure and not any artifacts related to "POC" history.
Although weirdly the fourth game still had a "stunning and brave" old female archeologist whose home had a collection of artifacts, a lot's changed since even 2016 and it's entirely possible they weren't thinking of that sort of thing being "problematic" like they would today.
They're literally too afraid to use the standard "adventurer who wants to see shit because they're an adventurer".
Why go into that big nasty tomb? Because it's there that's all the reason you need.
It would kind of be funny if they did Tomb Raider like that, where Lara drags along her friends into constant danger because there's cool shit around the corner that she can't wait to see.
They're literally too afraid to use the standard "adventurer who wants to see shit because they're an adventurer".
Why go into that big nasty tomb? Because it's there that's all the reason you need.
It would kind of be funny if they did Tomb Raider like that, where Lara drags along her friends into constant danger because there's cool shit around the corner that she can't wait to see.
There's so much political baggage now to the fact that a lot of these old tombs and ruins are part of "POC" history, especially given the fact that the reason they're ruins is often because white people bitch slapped these "POC" cultures.
There's also political baggage just around the very idea or sight of a white person traversing around "POC" countries, once upon a time white people finding foreign cultures interesting is what we were supposed to do, but now we're expected to take a completely hands off approach, people protest if a 5 star chef cooks Mexican food if he's white these days.
There's so much political baggage now to the fact that a lot of these old tombs and ruins are part of "POC" history, especially given the fact that the reason they're ruins is often because white people bitch slapped these "POC" cultures.
There's also political baggage just around the very idea or sight of a white person traversing around "POC" countries, once upon a time white people finding foreign cultures interesting is what we were supposed to do, but now we're expected to take a completely hands off approach, people protest if a 5 star chef cooks Mexican food if he's white these days.
There's so much political baggage now to the fact that a lot of these old tombs and ruins are part of "POC" history, especially given the fact that the reason they're ruins is often because white people bitch slapped these "POC" cultures.
There's also political baggage just around the very idea or sight of a white person traversing around "POC" countries, once upon a time white people finding foreign cultures interesting is what we were supposed to do, but now we're expected to take a completely hands off approach, people protest if a 5 star chef cooks Mexican food if he's white these days.
"oUr CuLtUrE iS nOt YoUr pLaYgRoUnD tO eXpLoiT!!" says Korean about white person exploring Japanese ruins.
The part I find funniest about bitching about white people "culturally appropriating" is POC lumping themselves into a mega group where they culturally appropriate each other. Oh right, only white people cant do stuff cause something, something original sin privilege.
Yeah, it used to be NOT being racist was showing interest in and loving other cultures. Now THAT is whats racist. Just like how it used to be racist to say "All asians are one group." and "All the blacks are one group." but now the "anti racists" do that.
They're literally too afraid to use the standard "adventurer who wants to see shit because they're an adventurer".
Why go into that big nasty tomb? Because it's there that's all the reason you need.
It would kind of be funny if they did Tomb Raider like that, where Lara drags along her friends into constant danger because there's cool shit around the corner that she can't wait to see.
Shadow kinda started this way with Jonah having to pull Lara away from the tomb because she became so obsessed and was about to get crashed. Nevermind that Jonah is a fat fuck who actually got Lara into more trouble because he keeps following her around when it's pretty clear he can't keep up with her and she always have to rescue him. Not that Lara can't have any friends: Zip and Alister were only monitoring Lara's adventures and provided backup when she needed but never actually go anywhere with her because they'd only slow her down. Compare this to Johan's constant over protectiveness that is never called out as a character flaw.
Yeah, it used to be NOT being racist was showing interest in and loving other cultures. Now THAT is whats racist. Just like how it used to be racist to say "All asians are one group." and "All the blacks are one group." but now the "anti racists" do that.
There's been a complete reversal on all this stuff, what used to be the non racist thing is exactly what's considered racist now, things have gotten so bad now that some Woke people get butthurt over interracial relationships, because that's real progressive.
"oUr CuLtUrE iS nOt YoUr pLaYgRoUnD tO eXpLoiT!!" says Korean about white person exploring Japanese ruins.
The part I find funniest about bitching about white people "culturally appropriating" is POC lumping themselves into a mega group where they culturally appropriate each other. Oh right, only white people cant do stuff cause something, something original sin privilege.
Yeah, it used to be NOT being racist was showing interest in and loving other cultures. Now THAT is whats racist. Just like how it used to be racist to say "All asians are one group." and "All the blacks are one group." but now the "anti racists" do that.
That korean said it in english. He used a language that was not his own to harm a native speaker.
Cultural appropriation relies on western stereotypes for it's rule set to work. It portrays the world as a stagnant thing, like this is how the world always was and any deviation from it was wrong and evil. There was always some form of intermingling be it through war, trade, or just the common exchange of ideas.
pirated Shadow again and my knife disappeared after the cutscene where Lara sharpens it, so I'm unable to progress... I guess it's a sign
edit: At least according to this thread, this can happen in the definitive edition as well, so it's not a problem with the crack... Yeah, fuck off Eidos, I'm not buying this shit. No good mods for it anyway
They seem determined to make Lara as "moralistic" and "relatable" as possible, which means they have to add stupid melodrama. It also clashes pretty heavily with the original Lara's "don't give a shit" attitude . It's been said before, but classic Lara is kind of morally gray. She's not an asshole, she avoids hurting innocent people, and she saves the world when it needs saving , but at the end of the day she's motivated by treasure, exploration and the thrill of adventure rather than altruism or a sense of justice. Hell, she doesn't even put the artifacts she finds in museums, she just collects them in her mansion. I doubt they would ever make Lara like that nowadays, especially if the white guilt stuff you mentioned is anything to go by.
That's the thing, Classic Lara wasn't just morally gray. She was basically acting like James Bond with a license to kill by the end of the classic series, to the point where people complained about it. She was willing to kill people who got in her way in the first game (and animals, but those attacked her first), in the second game she killed more animals, but all the people she killed were mafioso, in the third game she outright robbed a tribe, attacking them and their leader, to steal an artifact, broke into a U.S. government facility to steal an artifact, attacked security guards simply working a museum to steal something for somebody else, and when she was trying to escape Antarctica, she outright murdered a helicopter pilot to steal his ride. Though she has ostensibly good reasons for her thefts, she was acting immoral here in the best reading of the situation, at worst, she comes across as a sociopath. The Angel of Darkness outright requires Lara to kill guards in a museum level to proceed. In the tie in novel The Bronze Man, Lara, speaking in first person, actually reminisces about all the men she's killed and actually recalls one time when she killed a man while kissing. Also, she attempted to kill the title character of that book for no other reason than because he was looking as porn. She's completely selfish and amoral at best, even when saving the world, but is nice to those who aren't in her way or trying to kill her.
Here's the thing though: second reboot Lara is even worse. She killed far more people in her first game than Classic Lara did (somebody did the numbers once and the number of people Classic Lara killed in her first game could be counted on one, maybe two hands, but I can't remember the numbers). NuLara kills hundreds. And her body count only goes up from there. In the third game, she outright causes a major disaster and gets numerous innocent people killed, possibly hundred or thousands, and she does NOT GIVE A SHIT!!! She doesn't even offer to stop and help. NuLara is probably the most immoral and unrelatable Lara has been, even taking Classic Lara's moral failures into account. She kills without caring, beyond like a single cutscene in the first game, doesn't seem to let any of the suffering that constantly surrounds her effect her, and yet we're supposed to find her more relatable? There is a reason the term ludonarrative dissonance is commonly used in regards to the second reboot trilogy, and they've done nothing to rectify that.
That's the thing, Classic Lara wasn't just morally gray. She was basically acting like James Bond with a license to kill by the end of the classic series, to the point were people complained about it. She was willing to kill people who got in her way in the first game (and animals, but those attacked her first), in the second game she killed more animals, but all the people she killed were mafioso, in the third game she outright robbed a tribe, attacking them and their leader, to steal an artifact, broke into a U.S. government facility to steal an artifact, attacked security guards simply working a museum to steal something for somebody else, and when she was trying to escape Antarctica, she outright murdered a helicopter pilot to steal his ride. Though she has ostensibly good reasons for her thefts, she was acting immoral here in the best reading of the situation, at worst, she comes across as a sociopath. The Angel of Darkness outright requires Lara to kill guards in a museum level to proceed. In the tie in novel The Bronze Man, Lara, speaking in first person, actually reminisces about all the men she's killed and actually recalls one time when she killed a man while kissing. Also, she attempted to kill the title character of that book for no other reason than because he was looking as porn. She's completely selfish and amoral at best, even when saving the world, but is nice to those who aren't in her way or trying to kill her.
Here's the thing though: second reboot Lara is even worse. She killed far more people in her first game than Classic Lara did (somebody did the numbers once and the number of people Classic Lara killed in her first game could be counted on one, maybe two hands, but I can't remember the numbers). NuLara kills hundreds. And her body count only goes up from there. In the third game, she outright causes a major disaster and gets numerous innocent people killed, possibly hundred or thousands, and she does NOT GIVE A SHIT!!! She doesn't even offer to stop and help. NuLara is probably the most immoral and unrelatable Lara has been, even taking Classic Lara's moral failures into account. She kills without caring, beyond like a single cutscene in the first game, doesn't seem to let any of the suffering that constantly surrounds her effect her, and yet we're supposed to find her more relatable? There is a reason the term ludonarrative dissonance is commonly used in regards to the second reboot trilogy, and they've done nothing to rectify that.
To be fair, Classic Lara was merciless only to people who attack her first and her level of carnage was player determined in some cases:
- in TR2 you may choose not to kill any of the Tibetan monks and they will help you fight the mafiosi.
- In TR3 some animals won't attack you, unless you shoot them first. You can also rescue soldiers from dinosaurs instead of killing them and they will help you fight raptors. The artifacts Lara is after are pieces of a radioactive meteorite that were proven to be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. The tribesmen were bunch of cannibals who ate innocent people and their leader became immortal as a result of being exposed to the meteorite and he was turning people into mutants. Sophia Leigh was experimenting on people for decades and people in the sewers were her victims. Stuff Lara stole from the museum was needed to keep them alive, so Lara was helping them. Lara wasn't exactly an altruist there, but unlike the villains she was never interested in ruling the world or abusing the artifact's power for her own gain.
- You don't have to kill the guards in Angel of Darkness, you can use taser to knock them unconscious if you feel guilty. Murti Schofield actually wanted
to explore more of Lara's morality in the sequel...by making her sympathize with a fucking nazi who built actual concentration camps for humans so he could breed a superior species, so I'm glad this never happened. Classic Lara may have killed people out of necessity but she wasn't a freaking sociopath and she wouldn't have cared about some ancient species going extinct, she killed fucking dinosaurs! Lara lived in the present, never allowing past or future define her and she never felt guilty about being human.
- Those novels with AOD Lara on the cover have nothing to do with Core Design and I believe the authors didn't even played the games, so they aren't canon as far as classic Lara is concerned.
- I agree on Legend here. Classic Lara never had fun killing so many people, but Legend had a more light hearted tone and I believe they wanted to make Lara "cool" like in AJ movies. Anniversary makes a weird attempt to chastise her by showing how guilty she felt for killing Larson but considering het attitude on Legend it's a bit inconsistent. In Underworld she was given a tranquilizer gun because the animal rights activists complained about her killing endangered species.
- Reboot is a mess I don't want to think about anymore because the narrative does know what kind of point it's trying to make about killing. It's not that Lara doesn't care. She was supposedly suffering from PTSD and she has breakdowns about it in Shadow. She hallucinates her doppelganger taunting her to kill herself because Lara only makes things worse and in the end Lara is willing to sacrifice herself to save world, but that doesn't really go anywhere. I think this is a fundamental problem with the reboot: It doesn't do a good job explaining why the world needs Lara Croft.
Tomb Raider 2013 is the only Crystal Dynamics I've played, I guess it's quite good considering it was the bastard child of Uncharted, which itself was the bastard child of the original TR. But mainly for the gameplay, because damn the writing is weird.
1) The ludonarrative dissonance mentioned before. You can't write her as a frightened city girl while she slaughters hundreds of people without blinking, it's ridiculous.
2) There are no twists. Like whatsoever, of any kind. Everything happens as delineated in the first minutes of the game.
Maybe the island isn't really cursed?
Maybe the storm magic is actually an ancient device to use some strange natural phenomenon?
Maybe the asian girl is not related to the queen?
Maybe the asshole archeologist redeems himself in the end?
Maybe the old men on the verge of retirement aren't gonna die?
The answer is always no.
3) The deaths of the crew. Usually I find 'racial counting' silly, but this is... statistically suspicious.
There were 5 men (4 white, 1 maori) and 3 women (white, black, yellow).
ONLY the white men died. ALL of them.
I don't know if it was a deliberate choice or subconscious... and I don't know what would be worse.
4) What happened to the idea of rebooting only the origin to then arrive to the same old Lara?
I kinda believe it was their intentions for the 2013 game (double guns, became badass by the end, survivor is born etc), but from what I've seen from the sequels they changed course completely.
Yet I remember they still sold them as "See how she transforms in the old Lara you loved!" Yeah, never happened.
Murti Schofield actually wanted
to explore more of Lara's morality in the sequel...by making her sympathize with a fucking nazi who built actual concentration camps for humans so he could breed a superior species, so I'm glad this never happened.
That is either...the most bone headedly stupid thing they could have done with her character...or the most awesomely based thing they could have done with her character. I don't know which one it would have been, but if that had happened, God, I can imagine the salt that would engender today.
Here's the ultimate question in regards to this series imo.
Would they ever have had the balls to actually show Lara's boobs?
There was a brief window of time there, after the brouhaha over Hot Coffee had died down but before the feminist hijacking, where sexual content and nudity was becoming more acceptable in games, peaking with God of War 3 in 2010, I feel like had they fast tracked a sequel to Underworld to come out in 2010, in order to jazz up more attention for the game, they might really have gone for it.
Tomb Raider 2013 is the only Crystal Dynamics I've played, I guess it's quite good considering it was the bastard child of Uncharted, which itself was the bastard child of the original TR. But mainly for the gameplay, because damn the writing is weird.
1) The ludonarrative dissonance mentioned before. You can't write her as a frightened city girl while she slaughters hundreds of people without blinking, it's ridiculous.
2) There are no twists. Like whatsoever, of any kind. Everything happens as delineated in the first minutes of the game.
Maybe the island isn't really cursed?
Maybe the storm magic is actually an ancient device to use some strange natural phenomenon?
Maybe the asian girl is not related to the queen?
Maybe the asshole archeologist redeems himself in the end?
Maybe the old men on the verge of retirement aren't gonna die?
The answer is always no.
3) The deaths of the crew. Usually I find 'racial counting' silly, but this is... statistically suspicious.
There were 5 men (4 white, 1 maori) and 3 women (white, black, yellow).
ONLY the white men died. ALL of them.
I don't know if it was a deliberate choice or subconscious... and I don't know what would be worse.
4) What happened to the idea of rebooting only the origin to then arrive to the same old Lara?
I kinda believe it was their intentions for the 2013 game (double guns, became badass by the end, survivor is born etc), but from what I've seen from the sequels they changed course completely.
Yet I remember they still sold them as "See how she transforms in the old Lara you loved!" Yeah, never happened.
Tomb Raider 2013 was absolutely sold on the idea that this was the "origin story" for classic Lara.
Tomb Raider 2013 is such an odd game in hindsight because it falls right square in the middle of that transitionary period between classic gaming and Woke feminist friendly gaming, it features a toned down Lara and overall a tone that feels feminist friendly, but then you have moments like where Lara is threatened with rape (which caused much butthurt) and is sometimes killed in brutal ways if you fail the QTEs (which also caused butthurt) as well as the idea that this more feminist friendly was supposed to eventually become the decidedly un-feminist friendly classic Lara, which of course was dropped.
It reminds me of The Last of Us 1, also 2013 and also falling within that same bracket compared to the way more Woke Last of Us 2 as well as Bioshock Infinite and Elizabeth, another 2013 game, I would have been fine if things had stayed at 2013 levels, sure female characters were no longer sex objects, but they were still written to be actual, interesting characters, I would have been with that being the new standard, but of course SJWs couldn't have stopped there and things had to keep progressing until female characters became flat out ugly and unlikable ala Abby.
4) What happened to the idea of rebooting only the origin to then arrive to the same old Lara?
I kinda believe it was their intentions for the 2013 game (double guns, became badass by the end, survivor is born etc), but from what I've seen from the sequels they changed course completely.
Yet I remember they still sold them as "See how she transforms in the old Lara you loved!" Yeah, never happened.
fwiw rise moved kinda in that direction where it felt more like a tomb raider game compared to the first one. more levity, clearer and simpler motives, lara's character felt more consistent, actual tombs etc. still no legends but certainly an improvement to the point I had fun
they even had a survival mode where the hunger games bow made sense, but then fucked it up by increasing the realism and still have her run around with a tank-top in snow. grab a jacket from one of the mooks you just killed? a fucking blanket or anything? nah, complain about the cold and freeze to death. even classic lara changed her wardrobe depending on the job. and if you played on normal it just looked stupid. worse, there are actual different outfits in the game - as dlc. fuck off squeenix.
haven't played shadows yet but from what I heard they squandered all progress they made with rise and even on it's own apparently it's not that good either.
