“Typically you want recent views” – How exterior improvement helped Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis

A hands-off demonstration of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis at Gamescom final week confirmed that the sport is much from a easy remaster of the 1996 unique; it is a full transforming of Lara Croft’s first journey.

Crystal Dynamics has handed over the development reins to Polish studio Flying Wild Hog, which has added a lot to the Tomb Raider system. Notably, the first-aid kits are gone, changed by Lara crafting health-giving tinctures and stat-boosting meals from collectable substances. Lara now additionally has a ability tree: the demo confirmed the usage of ability factors to spice up the vary of Lara’s iconic twin pistols.

At a round-table Q&A after the demo, Raul Siqueira, recreation director at Crystal Dynamics, and Flying Wild Hog artwork director Arek Tomaszewski make clear how the exterior improvement partnership labored, the studios’ relationship with Amazon, and why we can’t be seeing the return of tank controls in Legacy of Atlantis when it launches on February 12.

Workforce effort

Legacy of Atlantis is being developed by each California-based Crystal Dynamics and Poland’s Flying Wild Hog, though Siqueira says everybody engaged on the sport is one staff, referred to internally as ‘Workforce Atlantis’.

“We’re actually good at breaking down the invisible partitions that we will construct between studios throughout improvement,” he says. “It turned very clear after we first began speaking to one another that each studios noticed recreation improvement in the identical manner. We have been excellent about being trustworthy about what’s wanted and the way we wish to do it. It was simply a kind of issues that got here very naturally.

“Clearly, Crystal comes from a background of loads of Tomb Raider video games, and there is loads of historical past right here, however generally you want recent views. Typically you want somebody new to come back in and take a look at what you may have so you’ll be able to create one thing distinctive. I really feel like that collaboration has been top-of-the-line components of this challenge.”

In fact, Flying Wild Hog is not the one relationship that Crystal Dynamics is having to handle with Legacy of Atlantis. Tech and retail giant Amazon is publishing both this project and the upcoming Tomb Raider: Catalyst, as well as producing a TV series based on the IP starring Sophie Turner.

Siqueira says that his studio is working “fairly carefully” with Amazon on all fronts,

“We share a dedication to the franchise and to the character that goes previous the partitions of the studio and past,” he says. “We do have an inside franchise staff at Crystal Dynamics. They’re masterminds, accountable individuals who have labored on the franchise for 20-plus years. Then they’re engaged throughout the board in all tasks. There’s a terrific collaboration between everybody.”

He continues, laughing: “However I believe if I begin speaking extra about different tasks, some individuals would possibly sort out me from the stage.”

No tanks

On the outset, the staff replayed the 1996 unique in addition to the 2007 remake, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, which emphasised how the reminiscence can play methods. “All of us have that reminiscence of what that recreation seems to be like in our mind, after which we play it, and we’re like, ‘Ah, that is totally different’,” says Siqueira. “And in doing so, we have been capable of determine, OK, what are a few of the key moments, key areas, issues that we’ve got to protect, which have to remain precisely as they’re, then the place can we type of color exterior the traces?”

As famous above, Workforce Atlantis has added issues like crafting and weapon upgrades. However one distinctive facet of the unique recreation has been dropped: tank controls.

“The management scheme has been tailored to suit the trendy viewers,” Siqueira says. “In fact, the unique video games are at all times obtainable to you: We simply did Tomb Raider 1 Remastered. If you wish to return to tank controls, I applaud your enthusiasm. I attempted it many instances, and man, it is laborious.”

Tomaszewski provides: “That is a kind of issues about remembering a recreation. I keep in mind [thinking it was] superior, however after I performed it after 20 years, it is like: What’s going on? It is so laborious.”

When it was first revealed, Legacy of Atlantis made its debut alongside Tomb Raider: Catalyst, the place the latter is a sequel set years after the events of 2008’s Tomb Raider: Underworld. Requested how a lot synergy there may be between the 2 tasks, Siqueira says that there’s “undoubtedly collaboration” between the 2 video games, and that there aren’t a number of variations of the principle character.

“Clearly, we’re making the video games collectively,” he says. “Nevertheless, it is extremely necessary for us to tell apart that Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is totally its personal challenge and we’re ensuring that we’re staying devoted to the unique recreation. In relation to specifics of the place Lara is in her journey transferring ahead, we wish to be respectful to each the video games that got here earlier than and the video games that got here after. The Lara you see right here is identical Lara from the Survivor period [Tomb Raider 2013, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which tell Lara’s origin story], and will probably be the identical Lara in our tasks transferring ahead.”

Disclosure: Alex Forbes-Calvin has beforehand labored with Crystal Dynamics on the e-book Chronicles of the Tomb Raider.