Core Design Loses Grip On Lara

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an Eidos press release discussing major changes to the Tomb Raider franchise. Following the recent resignation of the managing director of Tomb Raider developers Core Design, seemingly due to the disappointing reception for Tomb Raider:Angel Of Darkness, Eidos has announced that "...in recognition of the Company's need continually to enhance the value and maximize the commercial opportunity of one of its key franchises, for which all intellectual property rights belong to Eidos, the Board has concluded that it will transfer development of the franchise to its Crystal Dynamics studio in the U.S." Crystal Dynamics are probably best known for the recent titles in the Legacy Of Kain series, so it'll be interesting to see what they make of the latterly lackluster Tomb Raider franchise.

Comments

Good choice

[cgenman]

Crystal Dynamics has a lot of history with both Franchises (Gex, Kain, Pandemonium, etc) and with darkness (Akuji: The Heartless, Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain, Disney's Magical Racing Tour...).

Unlike Eidos proper, they tend to make deep games that rely upon a combination of exploiting good engines and telling a story that at some fundamental level shocks the player. If Laura Craft is going to move away from "Walk to the edge. Hop back. Take two running steps and jump." style gameplay, it needs to be moved away from the group that has been working on it for years.

They need to give Laura a harder edge and a totally revamped control scheme. So long as she remains in a world overpopulated by keys and locked doors, the series will stagnate. If on the other hand she has to assassinate a mob boss who has seen her face and survive the escape attempt, the series could take on a whole new level.

Of course this being Crystal Dynamics, who have never put out a truly episodic game in their lives, the gameplay will probably be heavily based in exploration rather than in missions. But still, such open worlds could cut to the heart of what Laura Croft is about.

Now we need to find a good producer to pull the movies out of the doldrums. Cameron, anyone?

Honestly

[luekj]

I trust that Crystal Dynamics could make a very original and probably good game based on the TR franchise, and core has pretty much just been milking the cow for the previous 3 or 4 sequals anyways. Though many devotees would disagree because some really did seem to like more of the same.

Anyways, CD may make a tight TR game, but it's hard to predit whether the spirit of the original will be lost or discarded in favor of var(currenttrendinvideogameindustry) or float(increasing age of video game players).

Maybe they'll just take some pictures of Jolie and start tying in directly with the movie characters. Heheh, I'm sure that will improve teh quality of the next TR movie immensely.

Though it seems that all this 'movie sucks because game' sucks crap is why this change has occured.

Stupid industry(/ies)