BITS ON TOMB RAIDER NEXT GENERATION
Copyright 2001 www.tombraiderchronicles.com / Channel 4

[ April 25th 2001 ]

Those luvvies from Bits over at Channel 4 have scored an exclusive interview with Core Designs' Excecutive Producer Adrian Smith who reveals more about Tomb Raider Next Generation:

Bits: What are the things that you are going to start exploring with the already very well known character of Lara ?

Adrian: OK, I think that for us that the first chapter in the first game is going to be like standing in a room, opening lots of doors and not actually knowing where those doors go to. It’s certainly not going to be any smaller than the Tomb Raider experiences that people may have bought in the past. People on average seem to take 70 to 80 hours to play those, so I think it will be that and then some. These are obviously very early design sketches. We’ve gone back onto paper to work out how the characters look, to adopt some a sort of a style and a look and a feel. And it’s going to be more mature.

Bits: Well certainly her appearance has changed...

Adrian: Her appearance has changed, yes.

Bits: She’s lost the swelling that seemed to appear before in the chest area.

Adrian: [Adrian smiles] There’s more refinement to the model.

Bits: Can you give away anything about the plot, because I’ve got it right here and I could probably give away loads...

Adrian: The plot is actually that Lara is put into a situation that is very, very alien to her. Her character’s not changed, but she’s thrown into a situation where in actual fact she becomes very much a wanted person. She has to go to places she normally wouldn’t go. She has to go deep underground. She has to mix with a different society, a different group of people.

Bits: Does this mean that the whole gameplay style is going to change?

Adrian: The Lara that I play will maybe look the same as the Lara you play, but however, my Lara may be different, not in so far as ‘Congratulations, you’ve gone up another level’, but suddenly Lara my be able to sprint for me a little bit further because I do choose to sprint everywhere, whereas you take your time a little bit and walk, so that means that maybe I can get through that door that you can’t get through. We want to take it to the next level, we want people to feel that they are really in these environments. So how they’ve been playing the game actually effects how Lara’s doing in the game and how you’re going to do in the future.

Bits: How long do you think that going through something like this [brandishes the huge script to Chapter One] times four is going to take to play?

Adrian: It’s the golden question. At the moment we’re putting element together. There’s a lot more story, there’s a lot more character interaction, there’s more to the characters you can play, there’s lots of different avenues and ways you can go, there’s lots more to find, lots more to explore. I want to actually be there, I want to feel like I’m involved, that I’m in that environment. I think that consumers will come back to playing games that you’re there and you feel that you’re there.