Which is not necessarily a bad thing…
GamesIndustryBiz chatted to Crystal Dynamics’ global brand director, Karl Stewart at E3 and asked about the parallels that Tomb Raider is said to have with Uncharted. Many have remarked that Tomb Raider seems to be taking a few cues from Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series.
Stewart acknowledges that “there are a lot of parallels.”
“The key thing for us, obviously Tomb Raider has been around and has a formula that is very successful. It stood the test of time.
“I looked at what Naughty Dog has done and they’ve managed to keep the third-person, single-player action/adventure titles alive, even raised the bar. Rather successfully, really,” explains Stewart.
Stewart explained that re-imagining Tomb Raider, is not “necessarily about doing mo-cap because they [Naughty Dog] have,” as a lot of studios are doing mo-cap.
“It is more about the experience and the emotion you are trying to portray…” Stewart added.
“For us, building this division for Tomb Raider is delivering on a promise and expectation on rebuilding a character in a way we haven’t done before. I think, to us, we’ve taken inspiration from a lot more than just video games.
“We’ve looked at the TV side, the movies. We want to make sure that we create a structure that will stand the test of time and not just another trilogy like we did with Anniversary or Underworld.
“We want to say ‘here is another character you will play for a long time and never tire of because you were there from the beginning.’ So I think gaming has come on a lot; we’ve seen it on a lot of the games announced lately. It really is immersing you and bringing you personality and things you’ve never really had before.
Stewart explained that there are comparisons with Tomb Raider and many other games, as Crystal Dynamics’ goal is to “bring you something much closer, bring you experiences that you may not have had before.”
Stewart acknowledged that the Uncharted formula “works very well” as the bar was raised with performance capture, but Crystal Dynamics are trying to achieve a “step above that” by bringing new experiences to the screen.
