Tomb Raider Devs Cite Batman, Bond As “Change” Inspirations

In order for a franchise to remain popular over a long period of time, it's imperative that some changes come around every once in a while.

And for the iconic Tomb Raider franchise, developer Crystal Dynamics knew they needed to implement some new ideas and freshness if they wanted Lara Croft to survive.

Studio boss Darrell Gallagher believed Tomb Raider "was facing a crisis" and was basically no longer interesting or relevant for a modern audience. So his team had to return to the beginning, and used Batman and James Bond as inspirations for telling the story of Lara's early days.

"We knew we were facing a problem with a franchise that, at the point of starting development, had been around for 13 years. We knew that to stay relevant we had to change. We wanted to strip it down, give Lara a personality and watch her grow as a character and make her feel more human and believable. Not many game franchises have run as long as Tomb Raider and we were faced with a challenge that many more titles will eventually have to face.

We looked at Batman Begins and Casino Royale and we looked at other franchises in other mediums and said, well how have they remained relevant over the years? We looked at Batman and Bond and said: ‘Wow, they’ve really done a great job,’ And as other franchises have yet to go through this change, we used them as inspiration."

When we first saw Tomb Raider , the differences were clear. Lara did appear to be more of a human than a cartoon, and the atmosphere was darker, more intense, more dramatic. This is exactly the type of game that would fly with modern audiences so on first glance, it appears Crystal Dynamics has done their job well. The Tomb Raider reboot debuts on March 5, 2013.

If you missed it, here's that great Crossroads trailer from E3: