The Man Behind Lara Croft

Ever since Crystal Dynamics became in charge of developing the Tomb Raider series, Lara Croft has seemed to have changed dramatically in terms of appearance and personality. She's more fierce and darker, a now more determined character on a journey to discover her past, and problems surrounding her childhood, many of this having to involve her late mother she lost as a child and how she tragically died, who apparently so she "thought" happened to her, which has always been a mystery in the series.

For Core Design, their connection with Lara Croft and Tomb Raider was broken and now in the hands of another developer. Would Crystal Dynamics be able to make a breakthrough and be able to produce a even better Lara Croft then Core Design and make her appealing to the world once again? Tomb Raider creator Toby Gard was "originally employed at Core Design, he designed the original Tomb Raider video game in 1995 along with the character Lara Croft. His work on the game included building and animating most of the game's characters (including Lara), animating the in-game cutscenes, storyboarding the FMV's, and managing the level designers."

Sadly Toby Gard left Core Design in 1997, the first blow to the company's success, as Core Design were not giving him the "creative freedom" he originally had. As more projects involving Tomb Raider came about, his options were limited and did not appeal to him, so in the end he left, forming his own company called "Confounding Factor". Years after his departure from Core Design, Eidos hired him to work with Crystal Dynamics and bring Tomb Raider back to life starting off with Tomb Raider: Legend.

Considering Crystal Dynamics' recent history and Tomb Raider's status as one of the most recognizable brands in the industry, the listing shown for jobs available with Crystal Dynamics led many to believe that the studio was staffing up for a new Lara Croft-led action adventure. Lending more credence to that speculation, the creator of the buxom brunette herself has taken the reins as lead designer at Crystal Dynamics. In 2007, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, directed by Toby Gard himself, was released to mark Tomb Raider's 10th Anniversary which was a complete remake of the original first game he created 10 years previously in the series.

In November 2008, the darkest and most realistic version of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: Underworld was released. It seemed to being going so well for Crystal Dynamics, but their newest game didn't get the praise they expected it to recieve. In return, the worrying news that once brought down Core Design with Angel of Darkness struck Crystal Dynamics with Underworld, two TR games that happened to show a "different" side of Lara Croft. It seems games involving the newer and more mysterious heroine never did so well financially-strange. Jobs were cut down by Crystal Dynamics following the unexpected blow. According to this article from gamesindustry.biz:

"Eidos' Crystal Dynamics studio has shed another 25 positions, the publisher has confirmed.

"We can confirm that Crystal Dynamics has made a reduction of approximately 25 people at the San Francisco studio," said Eidos in a statement issued to GamesIndustry.biz.

"This decision is a reflection of the continued drive to focus resources at the studio. We would like to thank all of the employees affected by this difficult decision for their hard work during their time at Crystal and we wish them all the best in the future."

Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics sacked around 30 staff at the start of the year, following disappointing sales of the latest game in the series, Underworld."

It was revealed after Underworld that Toby Gard had been tapped to lead development on an as-yet-announced project at Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics. The information was significant, considering that Gard created the highly acclaimed original Tomb Raider and that Eidos indicated it would give the franchise a major makeover in the next installment. Unfortunately after 9 months into the "secret" project, Toby Gard left Crystal Dynamics, transitioning to a new role as an independent game consultant, with an emphasis in animation, story, and cinematic design, character design, game design, and balancing. Neither him or Eidos Interactive commented on his decision to leave.

"The only real way that I can really effect Lara Croft is to be in charge of a project. More and more as I was working at Crystal, especially on Underworld where I was just doing cinematic work, the reality is the control of the characters is in the hands of the creative directors and the publisher.

"I think it's just something you have to learn to realise that there's no one person really in charge of what goes on with a character and they have a life of their own in the hands of the team."-Toby Gard.

What will become of Lara Croft now that her creator, left to persue his own independent career? During Gard's departure, Eidos became unable to move forward and paired up with the highly successful Japanese RPG games company who gave us Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, two major titles completely different from Tomb Raider.

Their name? Square Enix.

[Resources]:

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Gard

-http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6212186.html

-http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6227680.html

-http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/crystal-dynamics-hit-by-more-lay-offs

-http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/gard-time-was-right-to-leave-tomb-raider