Tomb Raider Company Founders Regroup In Circle

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for its article discussing the formation of a new game developer called Circle Studio, set up by Jeremy Heath Smith and his brother Adrian Smith, the founders of Tomb Raider developers Core Design. The piece explains that "the problems surrounding last year's critically derided Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness led to [Jeremy] Heath-Smith's resignation from the Eidos board, and the franchise being dramatically handed over to US developer Crystal Dynamics", and so the UK-based duo "have hired 35 former Core Design employees to work on two prototype titles." The article goes on to explore Core's history, pointing out that, while "[the company's] achievements during an amazing four year period between 1996 and 2000 were breathtaking, with five annual Tomb Raider incarnations all global multi-million sellers", problems with the franchise started early, when "the game's original creator Toby Gard left Core Design after the release of the first (and some would say the best) Tomb Raider to set up Confounding Factor."