Tomb Raider Underworld

[Tom@LCO]

Eidos has secured the domain name Tomb Raider Underworld.

Story from Trademark

Tomb Raider Underworld

On November 21, 2007, video game developer Eidos Interactive filed to protect the trademark Tomb Raider Underworld in relation to, what else…a video game. Mork suspects that this might be the name of Tomb Raider 8, which is currently in development at Crystal Dynamics.

The storyline is rumored to be based around the Mayan Calendar. During five nameless and dangerous days at the end of the calendar called Wayeb’, portals between the mortal realm and the Underworld dissolve, allowing ill-intending deities to causing disaster and mayhem.

Sounds like an exciting premise and setup for the next Tomb Raider installment.

Lara Croft Online has the domain tombraider-underworld.com for a micro-site once officially confirmed by eidos.

[Hardkore]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6183534.html

Eidos Interactive's digital starlet Lara Croft is no stranger to caverns or criminals, and those familiar trappings may play a large part in her next adventure if a US trademark application is any indication. As reported by Trademork, earlier this month, Eidos filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a trademark on the phrase "Tomb Raider Underworld."

http://www.xboxic.com/news/4064

Eidos trademarks Tomb Raider Underworld

Posted in Business, Games, Xbox 360 by Zan Toplisek on December 2nd, 2007 at 3:21

With Tomb Raider: Anniversary out of the way, it’s time to move on to future projects. Eidos Interactive has already confirmed that a sequel to the redeeming iteration in the series, Tomb Raider: Legend, is in the pipeline, and if a recent trademark filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office is anything to go by, Lara Croft is believed to reprise her role as a voluptuous treasure hunter in a Tomb Raider game titled Underworld.

[BPanther]

:woho: :woho:

Great news!!!

BP

[Jolie752]

i just saw the new pics and they look amazing! The only thing I'm worried about is that I don't have a PS3. I should have asked for one for X-mas. any way it looks great. They took legend and improved upon it sooo much.

[TRXpert]

I'm so excited for this. "KillBill" on PlanetLara posted scans from the magazine "Play" with Lara on it's cover.

I'll upload the pictures.

They add to my excitement!

You can also read about it on Planetlara's Tomb Raider Underworld minisite but that's only information as it becomes available to them on PLi. So they might not have any more information then we do here.

I'm actually taking a little break from PLi but I stopped by to read this cus it was exciting and I thought I should share it with ya'll. In case any of you find it useful.

Which I think this was in another thread anyway... but oh well.

Edited December 21, 2007 by TRXpert

[Deryk]

This is so cool! She's able to shoot two enemies at once...And the weather affects her abilities, like her slipping while climbing on wet rocks. I'm especially really excited about the secondary movements, I think that's something to do with her reacting to her surroundings all by herself...Like brushing away foliage...And no doubt other things like shaking herself of while walking away from a pool of water, dusting off dirt. Little things like that.

Ah, wow...I'm so so elated there's all this realism...

[Hardkore]

I found a site that has some screenshots from the game. They truely look awesome!

http://www.games32.com/Screenshots/p817_se...7_imageid/24742

[Hardkore]

http://news.portalit.net/fullnews_new-lara...rworld_722.html

The game is set to take place after the events of Tomb Raider Legend and will have Lara worry about the problems caused by the ancient Mayan calendar.

The heroine will start her new adventure in Southern Mexico, the developers unveiled, and will continue the journey throughout the never-before explored Underworlds.

The developers won't talk much more about the story of the game, but instead chose to stress out that they "developed a hybrid lighting model that combines dynamic lights with carefully created light maps to make our world look stunning in ways that none of the available methods could achieve alone."

Still, it's still unclear whether we're talking about a completely new graphics engine or just a re-worked one.

Tomb Raider Underworld is currently scheduled to be released next year on just three platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC.

[Deryk]

I wonder how much longer we'll have to wait for the official website and trailers. We need something real soon. 'cos this wait for the game is unbearable...I need a fix of Underworld info!

[tombraiderguy aka demon]

Dont Worry Controlled Chaos you just need to wait with "PATIENCE AND PERSISTANCE!"

I love that quote LOL!

tomb raider rocks!

Edited January 1, 2008 by tombraiderguy's back

[Hardkore]

For the time being,probably just go back and replay Legend all over again. I know I will be!

[Mike]

Lara Croft against the world!

2007 might have been the year of Drake and Altair, but 2008 is Lara’s year. Level 21 is the first Nordic magazine to unveil Tomb Raider Underworld – and we’re very proud of it.

Lara Croft looks bloodthirsty. She squints, lower her eyebrows, she’s so fierce her own jaw starts to shake. She attacks, with two powerful steps and basically throws herself and does two flips in mid-air – this scene is without a doubt inspired by the unveiling of Lara from the 1996 debut game. Crystal dynamics are not like other game developers, they have to work hard keeping the franchise fresh and interesting while trying to keep this iconic game franchise close to its roots. While doing her flips, Lara pulls out her loaded dual guns and manages to fire them five times within two seconds. A dying animal lies right in front of her on the ground; it certainly didn’t get its prey this time.

Tomb Raider Underworld is not your regular game, and it does not have a predictable story, even if Lara has been through 7 adventures (+the 2007 remake “Anniversary”)

This interview did not take place in the game developers head quarters; we had to go all the way to Merida, Mexico (this is where the unveiling of TRU took place). Why the game is being called Underworld was unclear to us – Until we got to see the game…..it really does live up to its name!

New Lara model

The new Lara croft has kept her naturally beautiful physique from Legend, but her image is much darker. She’s got a hint of black eyeliner, a fierce look in her eyes, and reminds us of Lara from The angel of darkness (the game that practically ruined the franchise just about 4 years ago).

What we’re showcasing today is definitively a lot darker compared to Legend. When you’ll play the game, and get to understand how big of a turn the storyline will take, you’ll understand why Lara has got a darker look.

She’s going to go through something tragic , and we wanted that to show off in her image. – Rob Pavey (head programmer)

When we first got a glimpse of the new Lara, the camera was circulation around her showing off her new style and the way the water drops ran down her body. When he later lets her climb a stone monument you can see the mud from the ground on her skin, clothes and boots. Even if details like that are just part of the “next gen” development, it still contributes to the atmosphere and makes the adventure a lot more realistic.

Detail is one of the keywords when developing TRU- Eric Lindstrom.

The team wants to really get into ever single detail of the game rather than making a light-hearted adventure. During the development of the game we constantly asked ourselves: “What could Lara do?” (WCLD). The Tomb raider fans already have a certain idea of how Lara is, for example, she can swing on a pole like an Olympic gymnast, therefore she should be able to balance on the pole as well. And if she’s balancing on the pole, doing nothing with her hand, why can’t she take out her guns and fight while doing it? We thought about these things, and these are things the gamers expect from Lara but never really got a chance to do it in-game. And we’ve certainly improved the game on that point, we’ve removed all those rules and boundaries games have. Lara can just about do anything you want her to do!

Two minutes after the gameplay demo has started, Lara gets attacked by two huge panthers. Lara jumps, takes turns and does everything in her powers to kill the two cats without getting eaten. She looks like a deadly ballerina jumping and spinning around while shooting the two animals at the same time using dual aiming. The huge auto-aiming-circles floating around in midair kind of kill the atmosphere and realism about the fight, but her moves are still very impressive. Unlike many other game developers, Crystal are using “motion capturing”, this makes Lara’s moves amazingly fluid and watching her doing her moves is like watching a real life Lara doing it. Polygons are not enough; this is the future of gaming!

It’s not all about making things look more realistic and atmospheric, it’s about emotions and making the gamers really feel this game. – Eric Lindstrom

It’s YOU against the world!

The Tomb Raider games have always been about exploring, and “exploration” is probably the most important keyword for TRU. We want to make the gamers feel like they are the first ones who explore these untouched places. The pouring rain doesn’t just fill this level with atmosphere, but it affects the gameplay, Lara can as an example slip while climbing a ledge.

Lara moves slowly, coming out of the jungle when she sees the H U G E maya-temple. The rain is pouring while thunder and lightning lights up the sky atmospherically while showing off the inscription filled walls of the temple. There’s a huge area behind the temple, where the Mayans played some sort of violent and cruel ballgame. See how the water is pouring down the middle of the area? That’s because there’s a hole in the ground! – Eric Lindstrom

Lara steps on the fragile hole in the ground, but realizes she needs something very heavy to break it. There’s a huge stone above the area, and it’s practically impossible for Lara to get it down. A new addition to TRU is the improved grapple, it can attach to any kind of material. The team has worked hard on making the areas as interactive as possible, and with TRU players will be able to interact with the environments more than ever. Lara throws away her grapple, making the huge stone above her fall to the ground breaking the fragile area. Lara starts climbing down to the Underworld, she’s able to use any kind of decoration that stands out, for climbing (only a few of them visible).

Her movements while climbing the walls look life-like and remind us of the way Altair climbs in Assassins Creed. She finishes it off with a parkour-ish kind of jump off the wall.

The Underworld

After the advanced climbing, Lara finally finds the golden skull she’s been looking for. She climbs out again and runs through the temple ruins back into the jungle; we start to sense the demo is almost over. This is where Crystal Dynamics got to show what she’s really there for. Lara turns around facing an amazingly huge area with stone pillars and altars surrounding it. She climbs up one of the altars and starts moving around rings around the area, that from the high point Lara is at, looks like an ancient calendar. The Mayans invented a lot including the calendar, but their year had 360 days. Beside those days, there’s five days dedicated to the dead. During these five days the door to the kingdom of death opened up and people could walk in and out.

After some working on the calendar, Lara notices that the ground starts to shake beneath her. The large stone monument in the middle starts spinning around, and all the plants around it get destroyed. A staircase to the underworld is unveiled far beneath Lara (who’s climbed up on a huge altar). She looks down and realizes that a jump like that would kill her…….Lara starts to hear ticking, the opening it timed. She needs to act fast. Lara turns around and heads towards her futuristic looking motorcycle in the jungle. The monuments starts spinning again, and the opening is about to close. Lara gets on the bike and starts driving towards the opening, she gets through it in the last second holding the edge. Lara falls into the underworld and the ground closes.

Tomb Raider Legend was a huge hit recovering the franchise, and Toby Gard got a lot of credit for Lara’s new appearance. Is he still a part of the team?

- He’s still a part of the team, but he’s not as involved as he was in Legend and Anniversary. He’s the one directing the cutscenes of TRU, but he also worked on some parts of the storyline with us.

2007 has been an amazing year for the adventure genre. Assassins Creed and Uncharted were both amazing games that really impressed the players. What do you think of these new competitors?[/b

- Plagiarism is probably the finest form of flattering, isn’t it? Haha, nah, joking we’re just happy to see more games of this kind are getting popular again. But bear in mind that Uncharted is very different from Tomb Raider. They make action games with a kind of cartoony comic book-ish feel to it, while we’re making a game that’s far more detailed and realistic. Uncharted is so different from TR, that its even kind of hard for us to compare them. The only thing that it might have in common with TR is the jungle and temple environments – and that is just a shallow likeness to TR. Uncharted is practically Gears Of War taking place the jungle, while Tomb Raider is far from that. I’ve heard people comparing Assasins Creed to TR, and I’ve personally haven’t gotten the chance to play it yet but I’ve heard from others that the environments are not interactive as they promised.

Most modern games are getting a lot bigger and not as linear as before. They let the players chose their own path and make their own gaming experience. But the TR games are still rather linear. Have you thought about changing this or do you intend to leave things as they are?

- We’ve thought a lot about it, and its possibly something we’ll take advantage of for coming TR games. But there are some things that are essential for a TR game that just wouldn’t work out in such environments. We’d like to work on making one amazing TR experience, rather than making something that just isn’t living up to people expectations when playing it. But we’ve found a great balance of both linearity and free roaming for TRU, giving the player huge environments with lots of opportunity while still forcing them to experience every bit of it to the fullest.

-"Tomb Raider Underworld is going to make other game developers cry with envy"

The Tomb Raider franchise is still a very popular one. Legend sold about 2 million copies within the first month. But during the release people were questioning Lara, and wondering if she still has something give. What do you have to say about that?

- Lara Croft is an amazingly strong character, and the gaming world is lacking characters like her at the moment not to mention female ones. Lara has something the rest of them lack, she’s still unique and she’s still got a lot to give, Lara has changed through the years. We want to show off this re-birth of the TR franchise, and I can promise you that Tomb Raider Underworld is going to make other game developers cry with envy.

Source + Scans

[Deryk]

So It's been officially announced by Eidos. But they're moving the release date from June to the christmas seaon!

Good news is they're realeasing it it on all 6 platforms..including PS2. But I think I'll get it on PS3 mainly for the better graphics. So I'll have an entire year to save up for one.

[RaiderFanFan]

OMG!!! i connot believe they are not putting it out for PS2 cause that's all i have. I cannot get a PS3 cause they are too expencive!!!! thats totally rubbish !!!!

Who agrees with me on this one?!?

I looked it up they are not selling it for PS2 they are only doing the PC, PS3 and X-box 360

[Ms.Croft]

Heya, welcome to LCO!

If you're going to post twice, please edit your first post so that you don't double post as it clutters up the forum! Thanks!

To answer your question though, I kinda thing it's good that it's next-gen only as it shows that they are advancing, plus they can do a lot more on next-gen that they simply cannot do on PS2 for example. Plus the next gen systems can strengthen and advance the gameplay. That's why it is not possible for them to do it on PS2 as well, plus they have to objectively look at the audience, who are now mostly next-gen gamers.

Also, TR8 won't be out for at least the end of 2008 beginning of 2009 and by then Sony will have dropped the PS3 price again, so you never know, Santa Claus may bring one for you...or you can get it on XBox-360!

MsC

Edited January 11, 2008 by Ms.Croft

[Deryk]

OMG!!! i connot believe they are not putting it out for PS2 cause that's all i have. I cannot get a PS3 cause they are too expencive!!!! thats totally rubbish !!!!

Who agrees with me on this one?!?

I looked it up they are not selling it for PS2 they are only doing the PC, PS3 and X-box 360

Like I stated in my last post they WILL be releasing it on PS2!

As well as PC, PS3, XBOX 360, NDS and Wii...

It says so here Here

The only bummer being we'll have a whole year to wait

I agree with Ms.Croft pretty soon everyone will have next gen consoles. So it's probably worth Saving for one imo...

[Hardkore]

I think some of this has been mentioned before,but not all of it.

http://play.tm/story/15556

Apparently surfaces will add further complications to gameplay, realistic water rendering certain environs dangerously slippery and meaning that Lara will, at times, have to sure-up her grip. Not that Lara's likely to be clumsy in Underworld, in fact, we're told "elegant movement" is one of the dev team's goals.

Miss Croft will now be able to cartwheel across beams and wall-kick up ledges. Producer Rob Pavey tells OPM that "the big theme this year is that Lara will be able to do anything that you'd expect her to be able to do."

Lara will also be able to use environmental elements in combat, such as a staff picked from the ground, which you can even duel-wield with a gun. Objects like this will also have use in some of the games puzzles and obstacles. We're told to expect plenty of non-human enemies in Underworld, with better targeting, and Lara will also have a motorbike to get her around.

Part of the game looks to be set in Mexico, but Crystal Dynamics aren't saying much, Pavey affirming that we'll be visiting "several continents, in places no-one has seen for centuries."

[legend]

Pff how can we do this. Waith al hole year for tomb raider underworld.

It would be fair if they give us somthing to drool at

Like a trailer and 1 or 2 video's whit gameplay.

Man i am dieing to get this game.

[goldenlarafan911]

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!

I can't wait till Tomb raider underworld comes out!!!!

I'm erupting with exitment!!!!

[RaiderFanFan]

Heya, welcome to LCO!

If you're going to post twice, please edit your first post so that you don't double post as it clutters up the forum! Thanks!

To answer your question though, I kinda thing it's good that it's next-gen only as it shows that they are advancing, plus they can do a lot more on next-gen that they simply cannot do on PS2 for example. Plus the next gen systems can strengthen and advance the gameplay. That's why it is not possible for them to do it on PS2 as well, plus they have to objectively look at the audience, who are now mostly next-gen gamers.

Also, TR8 won't be out for at least the end of 2008 beginning of 2009 and by then Sony will have dropped the PS3 price again, so you never know, Santa Claus may bring one for you...or you can get it on XBox-360!

MsC

thanks for welcoming me

lol yeah you are probs right, but all my friends say that the PS3 sounds rubbish

but maybe stanty clause will be nice to me !! lol

i cannot use the controllers for Xbox-360 they are so confussing, I think i might stick to the playstation generations lol with the same control that i know and have gained to love ... :)

RaiderFanFan

[june]

Lara Croft Online has the domain tombraider-underworld.com for a micro-site once officially confirmed by eidos.

I was just there and there is no micro-site.

I thought Eidos has already leaked official information.

[Guest Fusion]

Here's some information I found that wasnt in the scans:

* Wild animals do not only attack Lara but also the bad guys and bad guys fight Lara and the animals.

* The weather effects are amazing. It looked like a Mexico level we were shown and it was raining and lightning and thunder crashed all around. Here and there the sun came through and all the things that should have a shadow had one. Untill the sun was blocked by clouds again. The rain that ran down the ground, walls, ledges, gargoyles, stairs and Lara looked very realistic.

* Laras animations are still very arcade style but are noticeably nicer and smoother than before.

* Similar to AOD Lara has close combat abilities again. Including a tobi geri.

* She can sporadically pick up objects and use them for close combat, to use them as items or both.

* The sprint is back. YES

* The bodies disappear NOT! At least not on the XBox360

* Lara has numerous facial expressions.

* Music works like in Anniversary.

* When Lara moves through bushes the bushes move.

* Lara does show slight muscles, which is a nice touch of realism.

* Animals jump over objects to follow/reach Lara.

* The puzzles we have seen did not look too shallow

* The paths you have to go are not as obvious as in the two previous games.

Edited February 20, 2008 by Fusion

[june]

And don't forget it will be multi platformed (following EA's lead with "The Sims 2").

[megan]

LARA LOOKS OLD IN LARA CROFT UNDERWORLD!!!!

[fael097]

yea like really old in some images, because of the hair, they should make it darker... and her a little bit younger, because looks like she's 50 or something lol