Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness Preview

By Amer Ajami, GameSpotPosted Mar 20, 2002 7:51 pm PT

Is Lara Croft dead? Apparently not. Read our preview of the latest Tomb Raider and learn about its unique gameplay style.

Say what you will about the Tomb Raider franchise, but the fact remains that the series has sold nearly 30 million copies worldwide on nearly every imaginable PC and video game platform since Core Design conceived Lara Croft in 1996--you can't argue with numbers like that. For various reasons--some more obvious than others--Tomb Raider is easily one of the most successful, popular, and instantly recognizable franchises that the game industry has ever had, so a new game in the series shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. That new game, simply referred to as "The Next Generation" for the last year and a half, is Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. We recently made the long, cold trek to Core Design's offices in Derby, England, to talk to Adrian Smith, the company's cofounder and operations director, about Lara's latest adventure, and we walked away impressed with the new direction that The Angel of Darkness is taking the Tomb Raider series in.

The new Lara Croft is made up of over 3,500 polygons.

Before you jump to any conclusions, you should know that this game won't simply be a high-resolution version of the same Tomb Raider after Tomb Raider that you've been playing for the last six years. While the graphics are getting a marked improvement--and it's probably the first thing you'll notice about the game--The Angel of Darkness will play like no other Tomb Raider game in the series. "It would have been so easy for us to do a better-looking Tomb Raider," admits Smith. "But in the end, we would have been massacred by our fans." And so Smith and the rest of the team at Core started conceptualizing a new type of Tomb Raider game shortly after they finished The Last Revelation. The end result is a Tomb Raider that introduces a brand-new character, incorporates elements from the role-playing and adventure genres, and has an overall mood that's significantly darker than ever before. Oh yeah, and it also stars one Lara Croft.

Some parts of The Angel of Darkness will seem instantly familiar to Tomb Raider fans.

But didn't Lara Croft die at the end of The Last Revelation? Obviously not. Still, mum's the word on how she escaped what looked like sure death at the end of the fourth Tomb Raider. "The Angel of Darkness picks up some time after the end of The Last Revelation, not directly after," explains Smith. "This period of time [between the two games] does exist in that we know what happened to Lara, but it won't be covered in this adventure, though you will see glimpses of this missing time from Lara's life throughout Angel of Darkness." And it's here that things get interesting. The Angel of Darkness will essentially be three games in one. That is, the game is split up into three distinct parts, each of which plays dramatically different from the others. Smith elaborates: "We've broken the game down into three chunks, and each one is a unique experience that involves a unique play mechanic. What we consider the traditional form of Tomb Raider gameplay is essentially the middle part of the game. It's what people have come to relate Lara with--lost cities, rich environments, and so on." It's here that Lara will travel to locations like Paris and Prague, and it's where she'll meet the game's new character, Kurtis. "A new character is actually something that we've been asked to bring into the game for a long time," says Smith. "Basically, Lara is the brain and Kurtis is the brawn. He's much more action-oriented than she is; he's the one who's always on the front lines. You know, he shoots first and asks questions later."

Kurtis isn't just someone that Lara will interact with, however. You'll actually be able to play as him during the third "chunk" of The Angel of Darkness, which is supposed to be heavy on the action. According to Smith, Kurtis will share a similar control scheme to Lara's for the execution of his basic moves, but he'll have his own unique set of skills and attributes. For instance, instead of packing two handguns, he'll carry a large, four-bladed discus. How exactly this weapon will function, and how the entire third portion of the game will be structured for that matter, is still a closely guarded secret at Core.

What about the first section of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness? Read on to find out.

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