Behind the Tombs

Behind the Tombs #1 - Tomb Raider, Featuring Lara Croft

The whole saga of the Tomb Raider series started in 1993, when Sony revealed a new and promising console, the PlayStation. Core Design game studio, situated in Derby, England, wanted to create an original game of the era: action-packed with ancient Egyptian tombs and Aztec temples. Their goal was an interactive action movie, where the protagonist is searching for artifacts while being surrounded by traps and enemies. The idea was specified, but they still needed to figure out a hero.

Behind the Tombs #2 - Tomb Raider II, Starring Lara Croft

As it was revealed in our previous article, Tomb Raider was an overwhelming success and there were no doubts about the sequel.

As soon as Core Design finished Tomb Raider, they was already planning on the second episode. Toby Gard (creator of Lara Croft) has left the team, because he was disappointed about Lara's new fame as a sex symbol... However, game development didn't stop and the story started to focus on an ancient Chinese artifact, the Dagger of Xian.

Behind the Tombs #3 - Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft

Tomb Raider II became a high-level standard, even for its creator, Core Design. Tomb Raider III almost reached the limits of PlayStation since the team put in as much effort as they could. The following article will discuss the birth of the third episode and less known facts about the game.

Same as before, they kicked off with the first Tomb Raider's engine, but this time with the sequel's features.

Behind the Tombs #4 - Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation

Tomb Raider III brought a difficult task for the guys at Core: what could they improve on the series? They succeed and PlayStation's capacity ran on the maximum. With a complete redesign, they rewrote the game's engine changing it almost entirely.

The concept was about a story-based game, where gameplay is combined with FMVs and cutscenes and players can wander between levels back and forth – sometimes it is necessary to unveil the storyline.

Behind the Tombs #5 - Tomb Raider V: Chronicles

The team of Core Design had split to two parts after Tomb Raider IV. Some of them started working on the fifth episode while others were already on the project of the Tomb Raider: Next Generation.

Chronicles’ main objective was to entertain the players and keep them active while the crew of Core was working on the new Lara.

Behind the Tombs #6 - Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

In the end of 2000 Tomb Raider V: Chronicles had an extra trailer to unlock named 'Tomb Raider Next Generation' where we could have our first look on the 6th episode of Tomb Raider. This created an avalanche of info: Core announced they are working on Lara's new adventure, coming in 2002 to PS2 and PC...

Behind the Tombs #7 - Tomb Raider: Legend

In 2004 Eidos announced that they took the development rights from Core Design in favour of the American Crystal Dynamics (known for Gex, Blood Omen, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, etc.). That was an utter shock moment for the fans of the series and they wondered: "What is going to happen with Lara and her adventures?"

Behind the Tombs #8 - Tomb Raider: Underworld

In this section we are going to discuss the "secrets" of Tomb Raider: Underworld: how it was born, what was removed from the game and why, and other spicy facts about "classic" Lara's last big adventure. As we could suspect from the beginning, yes, it is in fact a sequel of Tomb Raider: Legend which was no surprise...