Hello fellow Raiders.

Tomb Raider Official Website has just posted a new interview with Core Design's Lead Game Designer, Richard Morton. Having worked in 2D and 3D games, with around 37 years in the game industry and more than 29 titles shipped, Morton has certainly help pave and shape the gaming industry with his enormous talent and contributions and especially Tomb Raider's legacy and identity.

Richard's journey with Tomb Raider began with the first title (Tomb Raider 1996), where he joined as a creative influence for levels, stories discussions, then moving on to Tomb Raider II, he had a more substantial role, serving as an artist and level designer, having the possibility to work on the famous Temple of Xian level, while also assisting  Heather Stevens (née Gibson). By that point, he became a recurrent collaborator on the franchise.

In this interview, Morton reflects on how the team embraced a darker, more mature setting and narrative, while also introducing new game elements like the stamina bar, stealth mechanics and dialogue options. Driven by industry changes, the team knew that they had to bring something new to the table and establish a new Lara (per say). 

He also discusses the initial challenges of transitioning from generations (PS1 to PS2) and working without a final hardware of the Playstation 2, revealing how the team had to adapt to the technical constrictions such as the lack of streaming technology and a new level editor. Thus cutting back on scale, maps and levels and adding loading screens between areas. Despite these constraints, Angel of Darkness introduced innovative gameplay mechanics, which would go on to inspire modern games.

In the interview, he highlights on how Murti Schofield, the game's lead narrative designer, and him worked closely together and got along pretty well. Their partnership ensured a seamless integration of story and level design, allowing for a cohesive narrative structure that effectively threaded the story through the game's levels.

Unfortunately, the biggest challenge was having to cut major sequences from the game, thus splitting the story into two parts (later three, with a planned trilogy). 

"I think our biggest headache came when we had to cut the game in half, meaning Germany and Cappadocia would have to be left behind for AOD2. This meant having to restructure the story a bit to give us the end of game finale we needed, but also allowing that cliffhanger story continuation ready for the next game. Another casualty of the game cutting was Kurtis, which I’m sure by now you already know of the many psychic powers he had or should have had… only visible in the cinematic cut scenes in the finished game, we simply didn’t have time to add his true abilities, they were designed and animated, but we didn’t have time to code them."

 
He later goes on to discuss what his favorite levels from the games he worked on are and to give some more insight to their development.

Certainly a fun read and very interesting too if you are a keen on always uncovering past secrects (much like Lara) from the games' development just like us.
Here is a link to the full interview over on Tomb Raider' s Official Website.

Don't forget that Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered releases in just two days!

That's all for now Raiders.

-Ed