Apocrypha: Tomb Raider. How Core Design diluted its greatest creation

November 22, 2019 Office

In the heading "Direct text" The authors express exclusively their own opinion, which may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial office (or may coincide). They are free to do it as they like and in any format convenient for themselves. Everything is possible here.

In the first part of the material, I explained why the original Tomb Raider deservedly became a hit, and her heroine – the idol of the whole generation of gamers. Alas, but everything that the sequels did was wasted a loan of trust earned Core Design in 1996.

Personnel question

Speaking of any parts of Tomb Raider after the first, it is impossible not to condemn Eidos. When the TR1 was created, the publisher almost did not interfere in the developers' affairs, but the phenomenal success of the game led to the fact that Eidos rushed to “milk” the series. Formally, the publisher did not go into the creative process and provided Core Design almost complete freedom, but two points actually put a fat cross in this freedom.

The first item – marketing. Toby Gard created Lara strong, dangerous and impregnable, but PR department wanted to see her sexy. Toby Garde protested – and received a turn from the gate: developers separately, marketing separately, do not stick your nose in your business.

Toby Gard : I was not happy when they began to portray it with a minimum of clothes or without it at all. It is very strange to see how your character begins to make such things. It is hard to believe in it. You think: “She wouldn't do that!"

Fortunately, among the commercials with Lara there were also good

Liked as marketers treated with his brainchild, Garda slammed the door. Paul Douglas left with him. So Tomb Raider simultaneously lost both its main ideologist and the person responsible for the technical implementation.

The second point, which constrained the creative freedom of the studio, was the need to release in a new part every year. This was the ability to introduce real innovations into the series: when six months of rest and prototyping replace six months of guaranteed penny, no longer up to ambitions. The developers burned out one after another, even huge royalties could not force them to stay in the team. Designers of the original game, Hezer Gibson and Neil Boyd finished Tomb Raider 2 and an addition to her – and left.

The six of the authors TR1. From left to right: programmers Gavin Rummer and Jason Gosling, artist and creative leader Toby Gard, designers Hezer Gibson and Neil Boyd, leading programmer Paul Douglas. There will be no one left to the third part from this six.

Without a guard, the script of the second and third parts turned out to be empty, deprived of highlights and strong antagonists. Without Douglas, the series instantly stalled in technical terms – only minor improvements were added to each new part. Without Gibson and Boyd, the third part turned into a shameful, non -grave misunderstanding. One gets the impression that developers who replaced TR authors did not understand what the essence of the game is, what is its key features. Of course, it is impossible to explain all the ups and falls of the series with a personnel issue, however, in the case of Tomb Raider, it seems to me, he puts a lot on the shelves.

Tomb Raider 2: Stagnation

The first thing you should know about Tomb Raider 2: For the second level of Lara alone, more people kills than in the Charles Casino entire first part.

Alas, such a fate is, in principle, typical of games, where there is at least a bit of action. Resident Evil, The same age TR, the second part also leaned towards the militant. The audience then measured games in numbers. How many levels? How many hours? How many discs? How many types of enemies and weapons in the arsenal? It was impossible to allow the sequel to lag behind the original – the audience will decide that the series is not developing – so the developers follow the path of increasing the number of guns, opponents and shooting.

The emphasis on tombs disappeared – in the second part Lara spends not much time in them. In fairness, Gibson and Boyd tried to maintain the spirit of the original, sending the heroine to atmospheric exotic locations: Venice, the Great Chinese Wall, the bottom of the ocean with a sunken ship, the monastery in Tibet … At the same time, each surprised: on the sunken ship Lara walked through the inverted rooms, so that then to get out to the deck collapsed in half, and the finale was completely unfolding in the phantasmagoric world of flying jade islands.

From the gameplay innovations, vehicles were stored – the gondola and snowmobile. And if the gondola allowed to ride on narrow channels with a breeze, then the snowmobile was actually uncontrollable and strove to kill the heroine with much more zeal than numerous enemies. At the same time, transport has turned into a characteristic feature of a series, which the developers of the next parts did not dare to remove.

Moving from tombs to modern inhabited locations did not affect the game design, creating a strong ludonarratic dissonance: strange puzzles and unnatural platforms in the cities look ridiculous

The script also disappointed: Lara has only two purely functional dialogue (and both in the first third of the game), where she asks general questions about the plot. And this is in the project with the subtitle "Starring Lara Croft"! About emotional hooks capable of hooking the player, they just forgot: the main antagonist is bored, villains are crazy cultists, and Lara does not even explain why she is a new artifact. TR2 could be called a set of good levels for TR1, if not for the betrayal of the key features of the original … But she did not pull the full game about the Great Lara Croft in any way.

That the series stagnated was already noticeable at this moment, and the key developers of the game perfectly understood this. They proposed to release a continuation after a couple of years on PS2, on a new engine, but the eidos was unshakable-no, the new part needs to be thrust again in eight months, otherwise in no way. In response, the creators of TR2 synchronously submitted applications for dismissal and, as a result, seemed to have reached a compromise: their team remains in the studio, but will work on something else, while the new developers are engaged in the next part of Lara's adventures.

So born Tomb Raider 3, The most nightmare game in the series.

Tomb Raider 3: Decline

Tomb Raider 3 is a disaster. This is torture. The new team could not improve anything, but ruined almost everything. Levels have become huge, protracted and prohibitively complex due to the constant threat of instant death. Underwater currents that cannot be noticed, carried the heroine the devil knows where and did not allow to surge; slippery surfaces constantly dumped the lara into the abyss or into the water, which killed no worse than a disastrous emptiness; The ubiquitous swamps were strove to drag out into a quagmire, and the final boss combined the worst that could be invented in such a game.

The more fresh TR3 mechanics opened to the user, the more unbearable the process became. The clamped “triangulation” especially helped this: the programmer Martin Gibbins excited the engine and achieved the opportunity to break the squares from which they built levels in the first parts, into triangles. The developers were delighted and trumpeted at all corners that this discovery will help make the levels more realistic, add twice as many details … But in fact, the designers simply divided the usual cubes into two halves, of which only one remained flat and stable. Due to the fact that the design of the levels moved away from the straight angles, it became incomparably more difficult to count jumping-and instead of the promised realism, players were waiting for twice as many deaths.

Undoubtedly, there are in Tomb Raider 3 and glimpses of something good. The islands of the southern part of the Pacific with their azure shores and dangerous jungle are the perfect setting for the series; The descent along the mountain river on Kayak also perfectly corresponds to the spirit of Tomb Raider. They can when they want!

It's a pity that they usually don't want. The jungle quickly give way to the modern London with gopniks in the subway and zone-51, where Lara is in prison in incredible stupidity … and just kills honest Americans. Not cannibals, not cultists, but ordinary soldiers. Moreover, in the final, the heroine smiles sweetly to some kind of pilot before he firing in the face.

The third part threw and trampled everything for which the players fell in love with the first. The series has lost its essence itself. But EIDOS continued to demand annual sequels: the company President Ian Livingston still believed that it was in the order of things, and if the games come out so-so, the developers were to blame-the publishing house would not skimp on budgets! His argument sounded like this:

Ian Livingston : Well FIFA comes out every year.

Tomb Raider 4: inglorious death

By the beginning of the development of the fourth part, the series came to the deplorable state, and everyone understood this. The press met Tomb Raider 3 coolly: while the 3D games were rapidly progressing, it was unforgivable to stand still in matters of graphics and gameplay, and when they give only eight months to develop, there is no need to talk about a technological leap. This did not stop anyone – the deadlines remained the same. Well, at least the team gave time and money to travel to the places that Lara had to visit in the game: the head of Core Design realized that it was time to return Lara to the tombs and sent the developers to photograph Egypt.

Vicki Arnold, a scriptwriter of the first three parts, left the team, and since she was in a hurry to replace it, Andy Sandem had to work on the plot (in TR2 he was responsible for the CG rollers, and in TR3-for level design). He chose a new, more gloomy approach to history: before Lara saved the world, but now it turned out to be the culprit of the Apocalypse. Sande also took advantage of the fact that the leadership did not go into the creative affairs of the developers, and in the end … killed Lara Croft. He hoped that this would put an end in an endless series of annual sequels – but, alas, he was mistaken.

The fourth part lost the figure in the name, instead of it, having received the subtitle “The Last Revelation”. The plot was dedicated to how Lara, grabbing another artifact in the next tomb, opened the Way to our world to the evil of God to our world. Unfortunately, as opened, so in the denouement and closed, so the revelation canceled.

This time the enemy of Lara was her former mentor – archaeologist Werner von Kra, who in the middle of the game subordinates to himself an insidious set. However, even before that, the relationship of Lara and von Crowing looks strange. In the training segment, heroes seem to be friends, but young Lara is forced to throw a mentor in trouble and escape. At the next meeting, it does not show the slightest signs of regret – on the contrary, it mocks the old man's chroma and the first shoots at him.

The game unfolded in modern Egypt, but on the empty streets of cities that forgot to populate, only crazy puzzles were waiting for Lara. Locals appear only in the finale itself – in Cairo filled with monsters – and immediately begin to annoy, because the script pays indecently a lot of attention to their empty chatter. But the end of all the end: having locked the set at the base of the crumbling pyramid, Lara, for some reason lame (but they did not show any wound in the Katsets), weaves for the exit where the Werner meets Werner. He reaches her hand to help get out, but Lara does not accept her and flies into the abyss, and Werner runs away in a panic: exactly how the heroine herself at the beginning of the game.

And … that's all? So, according to the developers, the story of the legendary Lara Croft was supposed to end? If they decided to kill the heroine, they could even make a heartbreaking drama with a pathos self -sacrifice in the name of salvation of the world – let Lara Croft die for our sins, but certainly not ingloriously collapsed into the abyss number 2521! Here the minimum control of the publishers played bad service: not a single producer in his mind would allow Lara to kill Lara so mediocre and stupid.

The Last Revelation gameplay was also not too happy. Yes, the game did not abuse triangles, like a predecessor, and did not annoy instant deaths – but she added constantly resurrecting skeletons, annoying midges and ghosts. The latter tirelessly pursued the heroine and sucked her health, and only a special statue could be rid of them – then entertainment.

The levels themselves ceased to be laconic closed spaces: Lara could calmly leave anyone and return later. The third part tired with huge arenas, but in the fourth one location could include at least six full stages. Previously, finding the key, you could be sure that the door to it is somewhere nearby, and leaving the level, he knew for sure: all important objects are collected, this adventure chapter was closed. Now – no. In TR4, it was possible to spend an hour on studying a giant location full of immortal enemies and annoying ghosts … Only in order to endure from there not all key objects and discover this only a couple of stages after.

The chosen theme, in turn, quickly got bored. Yes, finally Lara Croft justified her nickname and again made his way to the tombs, but Egypt tired of Egypt in the first part. In addition, after good initial locations (like a train and Alexandria), the game threw the heroine into Cairo, where she, cutting on a motorcycle along the streets, took dozens of bandits from a machine gun. Lara herself from part to part became more and more unpleasant, and did not cause anything but antipathy to TR4.

Tomb Raider Chronicles: Beautiful epitaph

When EIDOS demanded another annual sequel from the Core, the developers decided not to resurrect a buried heroine, but for the first time in the series to release a direct continuation of the previous story. However, quite conditional: Lara is considered dead (although the restless von Kro is trying to dig her from under the pyramid), and the familiar Miss Croft gather together and poison stories about her adventures. Of these fuses and developed Tomb Raider Chronicles: anthology that talked about different periods of the heroine life.

The first episode was the prequel TR1, dedicated to the previous meeting of Lara with colleagues-pseudoarchaologists. They are losers and bustles, each scene with them is comical – and this opponents of Lara were very missing from the very first part. As part of an adventure game about ancient artifacts, it is difficult to create a serious drama, so why not follow the path of comedy?

For the second episode, a completely different tone was chosen: it told how the crew of the Russian submarine found a terrible artifact and paid for it. In addition to a strange and creepy coincidence with a real life – shortly before the release of the game, the Kursk submarine crashed – this segment was remembered by how Lara showed sympathy for the Russian admiral, proposing her help, offering her help. Finally she showed herself a person who knows how to empathize … unless, of course, forget that on the way to the admiral she interrupted dozens of crew members.

The third episode is dedicated to a very young Lara, which explores an adopted island near the shores of Ireland. After the tropical setting that managed to fill in the point, the European Middle Ages seemed to be a sip of fresh air, besides, the Larah girl still does not wear weapons, so there is no action with shootings. If these levels had not yet suffered from TR3 syndrome with its crooked triangles and ribs, it would be very good.

And the fourth segment turned Lara into Itan Hunt, sending her to rob von Croy. At the same time, the setting and subjects completely deprived the game of the spirit of the series – and it was this, the weakest, the episode fell on the cover!

Oddly enough, no one needs Chronicles (compared to other TR issues, its sales turned out to be catastrophic) turned out to be the best franchise game since TR2. A variety of locations and situations, many dialogues with Lara, where the heroine was revealed from the best side, compact levels almost without piles. Of course, the game seemed an anachronism: it came out after the release of PS2, and, despite all the assurances of the developers about the processed engine, was largely felt like TR1 from 1996. But the main problem was that people are just tired of the same gameplay formula to the exit of Chronicles.

Summing up under the first five games, similar to each other pain, let's call the guilty again. On the part of the EIDOS, it was criminal to demand the release of new games every year: such IP needs to be cherished and cherished, and the release of stamped misunderstandings puts a cross on the value of the brand and the attitude of future buyers to it. Eidos should have thought less about the quantity and more – about the quality. But the lion's share of guilt lies on the Core itself: if the money was not an obstacle, the studio should listen to the authors of Tomb Raider 2, allocate them in a separate team for working on Tomb Raider for the next generation of consoles. Known for his cynicism Activision successfully achieved annual release Call of Duty, Having trusted the series first two, and then three studios. With Tomb Raider had to be done the same.

Instead, Core ruined everything. In the studio itself, the TR team was envious because of the huge royalties, but the developers burned out due to continuous crane. They needed more time for prototyping, the introduction of new mechanics, the creation of a new engine … And they also really needed a leader. A creative director who would inspire colleagues with his vision, dragged everyone along. After Toby Gard in Core there were no such people left, and all the parts after the first were made by inertia. When the new generation of consoles forced the developers to change and keep up with the times, it turned out that none of them understood how to do it.

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. Funity in hell

The history of the creation of the sixth part, The Angel of Darkness, woven from unimaginable incompetence. With crazy ambitions, the project did not have a manager, and the designers did not understand what makes the games good and what was drawn to a crime against normal gameplay. Literally everyone is guilty, because there are no bright places in the game: everything is bad here, starting from the first screensaver.

Angel of Darkness would like to turn off from the very first minutes, and the further, the worse. At the beginning of Lara is alive (it is not clear how), and as a result of the ridiculous installation, she is accused of killing the old acquaintance of Werner, so the heroine has to run and hide from the police. The peak of idiocy falls on the stage when Lara stands in front of the window, afraid to jump out (and this is a girl who jumped over the abysses without fear!), and in the end, she is faced with police dogs that deprive her of a corporate backpack. Is it possible to humiliate Lara Croft even stronger?

As much as possible!

In Angel of Darkness, the image of Lara is finally poured into a cesspool, taking the new hero to the forefront. So the second protagonist appears on the stage, Curtis Trent, who easily overshadows Lara with his paranormal abilities: in one of the scenes he literally locks the heroine in the cage and becomes a playable character. Even if you close your eyes on a miserable story about evil cultists-illuminates, this approach already looks like an attempt to kill Tomb Raider, and we have not yet reached what Angel of Darkness hate absolutely everything. For gameplay.

The new control system made a clumsy something from Lara, unable to repeat even those tricks that she did in the previous parts. The camera is inverted and now and then tries to turn around at an uncomfortable angle. The game of 2003 was less friendly than the original seven years ago.

The pumping system only aggravated the situation. Instead of immediately giving Lara her basic skills, the developers made the heroine incompetent at the start – and gave a swab on all fronts. Firstly, the idea is terrible according to the idea (why would Lara degrade?), secondly, degradation touched mainly not skills, but some script moments like the opportunity to break the lock on the door. Thirdly, the pumping in AOD is also crept: Lara approaches the door, says: “I'm not strong enough,” moves a couple of drawers nearby-and immediately becomes quite strong. It is as absurd as wretched in terms of game design.

Angel of Darkness consists entirely of such nonsense. There is money in the game, but there is no normal way to spend it. There is a hub city with NPC, but there is nothing to do in it. There is a need to laid down, but there are no suitable mechanic. There is a need to jump, but invisible walls are inward everywhere. The levels are linear, tightened, non -obvious – and at the same time are located anywhere, but not in tombs.

By the way, if you remember, TR1 began with the fact that Lara is a star of a world scale? So, in TR6 no one will know her: the heroine was finally lowered to the bottom, even depriving her reputation

During the time that Core Design worked on Angel of Darkness, two films about Lara Croft with Angelina Jolie starring. Oddly enough, the films are much better than the games caught the essence of Lara as a superheroini, which is all in the way. She plays with death for pleasure; She competes with colleagues, surpassing them with their minds and dexterity; She wanders through exotic locations, solves the secrets of ancient civilizations, jumps on the platforms and solves puzzles, shooting from time to time in mercenaries. She is a superstar, and in the second part, even the government literally begs her to take up a difficult job.

This is what Lara Croft should be!

True, everything except Lara, in the films, turned out at least controversial. In the first picture, Lara Line, capable of outwitting and defeating everyone, including the competitor and the main antagonist, and in general, the tape came out rather than bad. But the second part imposed her partner-lover that Lara Croft is not too suitable. The sequel generally turned out to be much less integral and sane, with very stretched plot strokes, erasure of action and wretched ending.

Well, at least thanks to Angelina Jolie, at some point refused to play the heroine again, the film franchise was quickly interrupted and did not become what the movie turned into Resident Evil. And, importantly, after these two films the image of Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider series was almost not affected, and this is very rare for games film adaptations.

The first part took a great start, but stalled in the middle, and the subsequent ones, instead of developing the advantages of the original and eliminating the shortcomings, went towards the action. Of the four TR1 sequels, two excellent games could be stuck, taking the Chronicle structure as a basis and throwing all the poor levels (and at the same time by embeding the best stages from Gold -versions of the first three games that did not come out on consoles). Ironically: EIDOS demanded annual sequels, but the publishing house could well raise a simple release of additions to PS1.

In scenario, Chronicles also became the only worthy heir to the first part: it was not for nothing that Larah Croft was devoted to her heritage, showing her incredible adventures from the outside, highlighting the different faces of the heroine herself – from childish in vain to playing and compassion. Alas, in the next part they forgot about this, and the classic Lara Croft sunk into oblivion in her worst hypostasis. And about how the new developers resurrected the heroine, so that later it would be inglorious again, I will tell in the next part of this cycle of materials that will see the light in a week.

Apocrypha: Tomb Raider

• Why the first game about Lara Croft was the best
• How Core Design diluted its greatest creation
• Renaissance and sunset of classical Lara Croft
• Reload that ruined everything