Tomb Raider Reboot!

Rumors about a new Tomb Raider game have been confirmed! The new game being pumped out by Crystal Dynamics, the company behind the last few Raider games, is a complete re-working of the usual Raider formula. The game is simply being titled Tomb Raider and sees Lara Croft as you've never seen her before; alone and vulnerable. This game goes back before any of the other instalments in the series and is meant to not only act as a prequel showing how Lara became the esteemed relic collector, but also to restart the entire franchise with a new image.

Lara Croft as you have always known her is gone: disappeared are the skimpy clothes and overbearing mammaries. Some iconic features such as her ponytail and the shape of her lips are consistent but otherwise she is a younger Lara (reported to be 21) with realistic proportions straight out of university and looking for adventure. Art director on the project Brian Horton claims that they will not be playing up Lara's sexy looks for the sake of selling points or fan-service saying "Lara Croft as a sex object isn't our goal." which is basically the strategy the last eight games took. Horton says that Lara's allure will not come from the usual clothing (or lack there of) but instead from the play on Lara's inexperienced character and the showing of both toughness and vulnerability. I think Lara's new look makes things more believable. I've always wondered how she fought of wolves and sharks in nothing but a skimpy top and short-shorts and walked out with any scratches on her.

The biggest, and in my opinion best, change about the game series is that Crystal Dynamics is throwing out the old style of linear game play. The setting takes place on an island near japan. Lara who is just out of university and joins the crew of one Conrad Roth, an ex-marine turned salvage hunter. Their vessel is marooned on said island and Lara appears to be the only survivor. The game is all about Lara's survival and each confrontation is one of life or death. The picture on the game's official site shows Lara with several wrecked ships from different time periods in the background which leads me to wonder if this island has some sort of 'Bermuda Triangle' mystery that Lara will have to solve. David Gallagher is the studio head of Crystal Dynamics and from what he says about the game implies that it will be open world/sand box style of game play saying that "You can literally go any direction that you see..." Lara will have several bases on the island where the player will presumably save their game and also create new items and weapons or upgrade existing ones there. This all reminds me of Far Cry 2's safe houses where the player could save their game and restock on weapons out of their weapon crates. I'm hoping that this game will be something like Far Cry meets Monster Hunter or something along those lines. Either way we will be waiting with baited breath for new scraps of information about the game over the next year as it is rumoured for a November 2011 release.

Last Played: Call of Duty: Black Ops