Swedish Level 21 Scans

[dr.willard]

Thanks to george_croft for providing the information.

Translation:

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!

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

[Guest Fusion]

This sounds great. Im glad she can climb on to the poles AJ did that the second film and i've been wondering about it for ages.

[Jolie752]

Thnx 4 all this info! I am salvating at the thought of this game.

[ImBatman]

looks amazing cnt wait n im so glad its kumin on ps2 aswell

[KatrinC]

Its brilliant!

Level in pictures looks unseen and mysterious. I like that! Sounds and looks very promising.

Thanx for the post, Dr.willard

[Roobz554]

omg! it feels like christmas again!

i can hardly contain my excitement!

it looks so good!!!