[E3 Ambassador Blog] Lara Croft - A Modern Adventurer Author: Jan - Wikiraider, Germany
With materials and quotes from interviews with Senior Designer John Stafford and Franchise Director Noah Hughes.
Survival on the IslandWhen we last saw Lara...
[E3 Ambassador Blog] Lara Croft - A Modern Adventurer Author: Jan - Wikiraider, Germany
With materials and quotes from interviews with Senior Designer John Stafford and Franchise Director Noah Hughes.
Survival on the IslandWhen we last saw Lara...
[E3 Ambassador Blog] Lara Croft - A Modern Adventurer Author: Jan - Wikiraider, Germany
With materials and quotes from interviews with Senior Designer John Stafford and Franchise Director Noah Hughes.
Survival on the IslandWhen we last saw Lara...

[E3 Ambassador Blog] Lara Croft - A Modern Adventurer 

Author: Jan - Wikiraider, Germany 

With materials and quotes from interviews with Senior Designer John Stafford and Franchise Director Noah Hughes.

Survival on the Island

When we last saw Lara Croft, she just barely escaped the Island of Yamatai, where she was trapped after the shipwreck of the Endurance. Awful things happened to her there. She saw colleagues and friends die, and experienced the supernatural forces of a long-dead sun queen that nearly used her best friend Sam as host.

The experiences on the island have changed her. In the beginning she was just a young enthusiastic girl fresh from university, and still wet behind the ears. By the time she left the island, she did things she never imagined she would be able to do.

She survived.

Thirst for Knowledge

The skills her mentor Conrad Roth taught her – shooting, hunting, and wilderness training – made that survival possible. At the same time, Lara inherits her thirst for knowledge and her need to understand the unknown, from her father, Lord Croft. In many ways, Captain Roth and her father represent two aspects of Lara: The fearless adventurer and the brilliant academic. On her journey through life she uses each of these skills to improve the other. Her grasp of local culture as well as her language skills help her in discovering new secrets, and in putting all the puzzle pieces together. She does not simply observe but tries to comprehend what she experiences, putting her en par with her fellow adventurers and scholars.

Now she embarks upon another adventure. Rise of the Tomb Raider will be the continuation of her journey, another peek into the life of this extraordinary adventurer and Tomb Raider in the making. She is prepared. At least in the beginning Jonah will accompany her as a friend and a resource to rely on. But even more important than him will be a small recording device that holds the voice of her father, Lord Croft. It will guide Lara through this adventure, it will teach her how to interpret her archaeological finds and what it means to be a Tomb Raider. We will witness Lara becoming what she was always meant to be, as she herself stated in one of the early trailers.

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Amelia Earhart

The Supernatural

Unlike before, this time she will not go exploring only out of necessity, because she was stranded on an island; this time she goes out of her own volition, looking for ancient and elusive secrets she first experienced on Yamatai. The Lost City of Kitezh seems as good a place as any to start this new adventure, seeking answers to her own personal questions about life and death and immortality. While she certainly is not happy that her good name is being dragged through the mud, she will risk everything for something intangible; She now knows that what she is after is much bigger and perhaps worth tolerating a tarnished reputation. If there is any proof of the supernatural, she has to find it, out of her urgent need to know.

Before finding out that there are things in this world that cannot easily be explained – like she did on Yamatai – she always thought of her father as a bit of a dreamer and an idealist; but her recent findings helped her to reconcile with his views, reviving a relationship she thought she had lost. She now realizes that there are certain truths she once dismissed as fantasy that are actually real and waiting to be discovered. In the end Lara will go through this journey understanding more, but still leaving room for speculation – and likely another continuation.

Gear Up

Lara will be prepared: We have already seen some very interesting artwork and can conclude that she certainly takes this trip seriously and does not pack lightly. Not only does she take two climbing axes with her this time, but she brings along ropes and carabiners, a harness, glow-in-the-dark sticks, and a hunting knife as well. Too bad she loses most of her gear in that big avalanche early on in the adventure. It seems that Lara has particularly bad luck in that respect, despite best planning something always goes wrong, so that she has to get by in the wilderness with nothing but the most basic equipment. After losing most of her gear, she will at first have to improvise and survive on her skills alone. But as before Lara’s surroundings and the circumstances of her adventure provide weapons and upgrades. She will use whatever tools are at her disposal, taking them from her enemies if necessary or crafting from the things nature provides, e.g. by gathering herbs or by hunting down wild animals with her new makeshift bow.

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Captain John Weller 

Inspiration from Real Life Explorers

Everything Lara carries around with her is based on real world counterparts in order to provide authenticity. This way, even though Lara is a video game character and she can do things that a normal person would not be able to do after so little training, her actions are based on the real world. Here the developers can draw from personal experience: There are several archers on the team and to provide the writers and developers with a basis for their work, there are even some bows throughout the studio. Actual climbers consulted on both the gear she uses and her techniques, as well as her jargon in the dialogues with Jonah during the climbing sequences.

As we all know, Lara is not a normal person. She is a perfect representative of the modern adventurer: Independence and resourcefulness paired with a daring to seek out the myths that lie buried in the past. This new game draws from actual famous explorers and adventures from throughout the 19th and 20th century and up until modern days. Well-known names like Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the team who climbed Mount Everest, Jacques Cousteau, the famous French deep sea diver, and Amelia Earhart, the American aviation pioneer who disappeared over the Pacific (and whose “Tomb of the Lost Adventurer” we may or may not have found on Yamatai?), come to mind. All those who boldly went where none dared to venture before, chasing the unknown and setting new limits to what men can do. Lara left people like Dr. Whitman far behind – people who are only in it for the fame, money, and personal gain, but at the same time completely ignore the wonders they witness. She has no interest in media glory - like Zip once said, “she never did care much for TV.”

There is one explorer in particular that seems to have influenced the writers more than others: Percy Fawcett, a British explorer who went searching for a mythical lost city in the jungles of Brazil – never to be heard from again. Some speculated he was looking for the famous El Dorado, a place that not only promises unfathomable riches, but also success and happiness, and a myth which sometimes gets mixed up with the Fountain of Youth. This fearless young explorer went looking for a myth in search of something that is greater and transcends the mundane. He was researching a lost truth about humanity, just as Lara is with the Lost City of Kitezh. Sometimes called the “Russian Atlantis,” Kitezh is rumored to be home to equally strange and powerful supernatural phenomena. People thought Percy was a bit eccentric or even crazy, exactly the public opinion about Lara at the time she embarks on her new adventure. But seeking the unknown and mysterious is a driving force for Lara, just as it has been with all these famous explorers. And just like some modern adventurers do on their travels, Lara will be hunting for geocaches and other finds, again.

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Tenzing Norgay 

What to Expect

In the reboot the circumstances of the shipwreck and the subsequent encounter of the Solarii set a dark and serious tone for the game and this will continue on through the sequel. It is life or death every step of the way. One false move may inadvertently set off an avalanche or get her attacked by wildlife or the mysterious Trinity soldiers. Her view towards nature and life however remains respectful; she does not kill for sport, but to survive: For food, clothing, and sometimes medicine.

If you liked the reboot game for its profound dialogues and its dark survival setting, you will definitely love Rise of the Tomb Raider, because the story and the myths will continue. And if you liked the classic games for their puzzles and tombs, from what I have seen so far there is certainly more of that in this sequel than there was in the reboot. All this is paired with a strong leading character as well as an intense and captivating background story.

Personally I can’t wait until November and find out what adventures lie in wait for Lara.

[Transportation, lodging, and E3 badge provided by Crystal Dynamics and Xbox as a part of the E3 2015 Ambassador Program]

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