As promised, Tomb Raider’s seen a massive info leak, and from what we’re viewing now, hope’s still alive, leading us to believe the once leading lady, Lara Croft, could take the reigns again.
The full quencher’s below the break.
Per Spanish magazine Hobby Consolas:
- If you walk into this game expecting Lara Croft from the previous Tomb Raider games, you’ll be disappointed. This Lara is human; she bleeds and suffers and will have to fight for her survival.
You’ll have to get used to seeing fear and pain in Lara’s face. Her expressions and even the camera movements have been generated using motion capture.
- The new game, titled just Tomb Raider, will be a complete reboot. The developers decided to re-imagine Lara Croft, who’ll have very little in common with the woman from earlier titles, who had an enviable body and could perform super-human acrobatics at will. The main story, development, and even the main character will re-start from scratch in this game.
- The story revolves around a young Lara Croft, who’s shown as a teenager just out of university. A rational and analytical young lady, she goes on a expedition in a ship called Endurance, which sinks next to an island close to the coast of Japan. She’s the sole survivor of the shipwreck.
Helping hands and UI will be kept to a minimum, even though the game will show things like what can be burnt, or which buttons to press in Quicktime events.
- The island’s central area will serve as the main headquarters. In the main camp, you’ll be able to “buy†abilities, make new tools or get back to missions you’ve already finished. The remaining area will be used to climb or search for new missions.
- Lara has a “Survival Instinctâ€. By pressing a button you can activate a special view which will put a different colour to “interesting†elements in the environment: the background and non relevant objects will be shown in shades of grey and the clues in yellow. That way you’ll be able to follow traces normally invisible to the eye. For example, wolf footprints could lead you to a med-kit. When you reach it, one of those animals might attack you.
- Puzzles will be more complex than in previous installments. They won’t be just about observing the environment, but about thinking about how water and fire interact, the importance of gravity, explosives, and so on.
- The camera will use innovative framings to add to sensations of anguish or claustrophobia. The game has a renewed graphics engine known as Crystal Engine.
Uncharted And More Have influenced The New Game
- Physics from Half Life 2 – The usage of gravity or water currents was already explored in this classic game. Here such concepts will be put to use with boxes and barrels.
Atmosphere of Uncharted – Nathan’s soliloquies will be “limited†by Lara, as well as the extreme situations for the main character.
- The “vision†of Assassin’s Creed – Ezio’s Eagle Sight isolates different objectives using colours. Lara will be able to do something similar using her Survival Instinct.
The origin story of Batman Begins – The first act in the film showed Bruce Wayne’s hard path to become Batman. That “hero’s journey†will guide Lara’s first steps.
- The suffering of 127 Hours – In that movie, the main character has to punish his body to survive. The most famous scene in the film inspired the guys at Crystal Dynamics to force Lara’s resistance to the limit.
- The mysteries of Lost – Strange wrecked ships? An remote island full of mysteries? Lost’s plot has been acknowledged by Crystal Dynamics.
Quencher Continues: Even More Info
- The adventure is divided into three big “episodesâ€, each one corresponding to a part of Lara’s transformation into an adventurer: survive, rescue and escape.
- The laws of gravity and centrifugal force allow Lara to go through her obstacles.
- The transition between cinematics and game is almost invisible.
- Lara’s grief is accentuated by effects like close-to-face cameras, on-screen blur.
- Lara changes throughout the game. She will evolve from a young, inexperienced woman to an adventurer. It will be apparent from her equipment (the article says that it might be possible to see her double pistols), for example.
- Lara can only use Survival Instinct when she’s standing still.
- There are many ways to solve puzzles, and sometimes you’ll have to try multiple times thanks to the use of physics.
- Buddha statues are visible throughout the game. Although it’s speculated these are save points, their exact role is unknown for now.
– Some elements of the world fall when Lara stands on them for too long.
The game will be released on PS3 and Xbox 360, however no date has been yet. Mostly likely it’ll see a release in 2012.
gameinformer say its releasing late this year.
really looking forward to this, loved the HD collection!
if you can call it HD, the graphics makeover was pretty crappy but there still really fun games albeit very ugly!
laras still got here irresistible charm of course.
id much rather crystal dynamics give us a new game in the pandemonium franchise, one of the best franchises ever released!
but thats never going to happen, so i guess this will do.
maybe there is a little hope out there, i mean oddworld is getting the first 3 games remade in HD, along with strangers wrath, and oddworld released around the same time as pandemonium, so i guess its not impossible.
Later this year? That’d be suicide considering all the massive games already coming in November….
not november because uncharted 3 releases then so if there going to release this year it needs to be october at the latest.
tomb raiders a really well known franchise though, it has a massive fanbase so it should be able to weather the storm and sell quite well.
IF its a good game, and rates well, far too many TR games have sucked this gen!
Agreed.