Angel of Darkness had been a sort of soft reboot of the series, but, as I noted before, it was a complete failure and Eidos Interactive took control of the IP and sent it to Crystal Dynamics. This left fans rather worried about what would happen next. Crystal Dynamics took over, as noted before, and work on the next adventure began.
Obviously, with a new studio at the helm, the fans were nervously awaiting Lara’s next adventure. Crystal Dynamics initially thought of picking up the story where Angel of Darkness had left off. Of course, that didn’t happen; they decided it was a bad idea to stick to the setup from Angel of Darkness. With that in mind, they knew they would have to do something major to reassure them. To that end, they brought in the one man that knew Lara better than anyone. They brought in Toby Gard.
Now, Gard had, as we mentioned before, left the Tomb Raider franchise pretty early on due to creative differences over the marketing of the character. After TR 1, Lara became a sort of sex symbol and that wasn’t something that he liked at the time. Still, he agreed to come on board.
“When I arrived here, I knew everyone was expecting something more modern, more up-to-date for the next game… I think that people kind of realized that they needed to have a clearer idea of how to use the character, and that’s certainly something I can bring them… When I came in my goal was to shake things up a bit.” - Toby Gard
Shake things up indeed, well done Mr. Gard, well done! Lara underwent a number of significant changes.
Initially, Lara had her signature braid, but that was changed and she got a ponytail instead. She also got some new moves and toys. Crouching, for instance, is back, but you can also roll, kick objects and have a slow-mo instant headshot. Switching weapons is also easier, just a single button press. We also get some new equipment including:
As the game’s development progressed, the fanbase began to speculate about who the new Lara Croft would be. It wasn’t long before it was announced that Keeley Hawes would be taking the role.
Developing Tomb Raider: Legend, the team at Crystal Dynamics started out by getting away from the series’ grid system. The original games worked around a grid system, every square was the same size. For Legend, they built a new engine to create an open environment in which Lara can navigate. They were determined to do the series justice.
“Basically, we wanted to do everything we did right.” - Eric Lindstrom
Tomb Raider: Legend was met with positive reviews. Critics called it a return to form with the story, music, and controls being praised. Criticism was levelled, however, at the combat system for being shallow - which I can sort of understand.
With Legend’s success, the team at Crystal Dynamics had officially revitalized the series and reassured fans that they knew what they were doing. It seemed that the franchise was in good hands. Of course, there was the possibility that Legend had been a fluke - just straight up sheer dumb luck. With that in mind, Crystal was determined to prove that Legend’s success was no fluke.
Crystal Dynamics started development of Anniversary a short while after Legend’s completion. They went back to the engine that they’d used for Legend to rebuild the levels from Tomb Raider I. The idea was to recreate the original game without making it derivative of itself. To that end, they made a few changes to the level designs, and added some truly devious traps. Spike pits, crushing doors and crumbling tiles and ledges are all back and better than ever.
The levels were more realistically designed with caves looking more like caves. The City of Vilcabamba actually looks like an ancient tribal city or village with buildings, bridges, and pottery shards really selling the illusion. Likewise, the Lost Valley has a proper sky this time with mountains in the background and everything so you don’t have this weird black texture where the sky should be.
