Tomb Raider dev wants moments that 'make you cry'

Tomb Raider's global brand manager hopes the series reboot will bond players with the new Lara Croft. Crystal Dynamic's Karl Stewart spoke to IncGamers about what his studio intends to accomplish with the franchise's change of direction.

"Certainly from our perspective, we want to take you on a journey of breaking [Lara] down and then building her back up again," Stewart said. "I think Tomb Raider is more akin to a TV series than it is a blockbuster movie, because we want the player to go through the character progression over such a long period of time."

More mature storytelling necessitated a Mature ESRB rating. Stewart said it would have blunted the game's narrative edge to, for instance, cut away right before the first time Lara ever kills a person. "We wanted to use the mature space to really tell a human story; we want the goose-bump moments and the moments that will make you cry."

Stewart said that while multiplayer was considered early in the game's development, it was never implemented, since its creation would take too much focus away from the single-player. While he was vague about future appearances, Stewart said in June that the reenvisioned Lara Croft story is "not just one game".