Legend turns 19
Tomb Raider: Legend is 19 today, and Creative Franchise Director Noah Hughes has shared a look back at how Crystal Dynamics handled their first go at Lara Croft.
Redesigning Lara
Hughes said Crystal Dynamics weren't after a reinvention, more a careful step forward.
"Working alongside her original creator, Toby Gard, and with character artist Kam Yu, we set out to evolve Lara visually without losing the qualities that made her model from the previous games so iconic," he said.
That kept her core identity intact while making use of what the hardware could do at the time, and Kam Yu's design sensibilities still shape how Lara looks now.
Movement and controls
Under Riley Cooper, the team leaned on the "three Cs" — character, controls and camera — for more fluid traversal that still sat with the series' focus on exploration. Legend's Tokyo rooftop sequence is where that lands, with Lara working her way around a neon-lit skyscraper on a run of acrobatic moves.
Puzzles
Taking a cue from Doug Church, Crystal Dynamics built physics into the puzzle interactions so players would experiment their way through them. Hughes points to the teeter-totter puzzle in Bolivia as a simple example — dynamic physical systems without dropping the series' focus on discovery and environmental interaction.
"Our aim was to create environments that invited curiosity and allowed Lara's intellect to shine in new ways," Hughes said.
Fresh and familiar
"Legend was Crystal's first step into Lara's world, and we approached it with admiration and humility in search of the right balance between fresh and familiar," Hughes said. "Many of the things we learned on Legend by working with Toby and the amazing fans of the series continue to inform our choices as we shape the next chapter in Lara's story," he said.
Tomb Raider: Legend is on the PlayStation Store.
TLDR;
Legend is 19, and Noah Hughes has looked back at how Crystal Dynamics approached taking over Tomb Raider: working with Toby Gard and Kam Yu on Lara's look, reworking her movement around the three Cs, and putting physics into the puzzles, all while trying to keep her recognisable.