Although I’ve played all the Tomb Raider games, I don’t consider myself a fan. For instance, up until recently, I didn’t know that Lara Croft is duchess of Abbington (11th generation) or that she finished the Gordonstoun Boarding School and the Swiss Finishing School. But these minor details don’t truly characterize Lara Croft. It’s her adventurous spirit, the hunt for ancient artifacts, and, let’s be honest, her extremely sexy look, combined with the now legendary dual pistols holstered to her hips. All these, as well as the excellent combination between action and exploration / puzzle solving made the first Tomb Raider an instant sales hit, a brand in itself, even though it borrowed elements from the old Prince of Persia series or Indiana Jones. Therefore, it’s no surprise that in ten years we’ve had seven Tomb Raider titles.

     Like any lengthy series, the developers are faced with a universal difficult decision to make: should the next game have minor gameplay improvements and updated graphics or should it be given an overhaul to keep things fresh? In other words, is it more wisely to keep your fan base or try to attract new gamers to the series, with the risk of losing a part of the old fans? The truth is somewhere in the middle and the oscillations towards both solutions made the Tomb Raider games vary greatly regarding quality. The first Tomb Raider was focused on puzzles and exploration, so Core Design, the producers, promised more action. As a result, in the next games of the series we had more fights, weapons and enemies. So much more, that towards the 4th and 5th game the designers tried to restore the balance: more puzzle solving and exploration, less action. Also, as time went by, Lara got to use new moves, which didn’t affect the gameplay in general, being introduced more for aesthetic reasons instead of increasing the quality of the puzzles. Moreover, the levels were more urban than before, a contradicting aspect if we consider the name of the series. Since the number of enemies went up, Lara was sometimes forced to kill opponents which weren’t necessarily the bad guys - they were just doing their job as policemen or guards - fact which irritated a lot of the players.

     All these changes, some without substance, others against the spirit of the series, made the fan number to steadily go down. The lack of fresh and interesting ideas from the developers didn’t help much either. The pinnacle of this crisis was represented by the 6th title of the series, Angel of Darkness, which was a catastrophe. Partially due to the huge number of bugs and the overall impression of a “rushed to shelves” game, but mostly due to the disastrous control system, which was very chaotic and imprecise, having an awkward camera and lack of a grid system for movement to boot. On another note, Angel of Darkness was considered by Paramount the main reason why The Cradle of Life, the second Tomb Raider movie featuring Angelina Jolie, was a box-office flop.

     It’s no wonder then that despite the fact that they produced all the Tomb Raider games until then, Core Design got the thumbs down from Eidos in September 2003. As a result, some of the former members, including two of the Core Design founders, Jeremy Heath-Smith and Adrian Smith, started Circle Studio a month later, releasing in October 2005 Without Warning, a 3rd-person shooter for PS2 and Xbox, published by Capcom.

     Back to Tomb Raider, the development of the 7th title of the series was entrusted to Crystal Dynamics, the masterminds behind the acclaimed Legacy of Kain series, thus having a more substantial experience regarding action adventures. Moreover, in 2004 Toby Gard, the “father” of Lara, was brought back into the fold, having left Core Design before the release of Tomb Raider 2, due to differences of opinion with Eidos regarding the future of the series. Gard went on to found Confounding Factor and released Galleon for the Xbox. Also, it was rumored that Warren Spector himself would participate in the design process, since he left Ion Storm in 2004, after the failure of Deus Ex: Invisible War, which was another title that put Eidos in a financial corner.