Initiated from a 1994 pitch, the project established four central gameplay pillars consisting of platforming, puzzles, combat, and story across Peru, Greece, Egypt, and Atlantis. The protagonist underwent significant iterations, shifting from an androgynous Latina concept to a British mercenary before becoming an aristocratic artifact hunter. Key developers worked past midnight for nearly a year to meet delivery targets, facing intense labor demands before publisher Eidos Interactive launched its aggressive marketing push. This campaign drove the title to major commercial success, even as staff felt the promotional strategy sometimes overly sexualized the lead character.
Key points
The development proved that a female-led action game could overcome industry skepticism t…: The development proved that a female-led action game could overcome industry skepticism to achieve massive commercial success.
Scriptwriter Vicky Arnold defined the final protagonist persona as an independent British…: Scriptwriter Vicky Arnold defined the final protagonist persona as an independent British aristocrat who hunted ancient artifacts for fun.
Publisher Eidos Interactive heavily marketed the main character, occasionally drawing int…: Publisher Eidos Interactive heavily marketed the main character, occasionally drawing internal concern over the sexualization of her image.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
Paul Douglas, lead programmer and co-creator
I joined Core Design in the summer of 1994 and met Toby Gard, who showed me his concept sketches for Tomb Raider. He’d already come up with the title and drawn a mock-up box cover with a woman holding two pistols.
I was working on a golf game called The Scottish Open when Toby persuaded me that we should pitch his idea to Jeremy Heath-Smith, Core’s co-founder, who gave us the go-ahead to make a prototype. If I had stuck to the golf game, I would have had a much easier life.
We had a couple of brainstorming sessions, and settled on the game’s four main pillars: platforming, puzzles, combat and story. Combat was always the weakest element but we didn’t have time to improve it. We also came up with the plot and level themes, and whittled a long list of interesting archaeological locations, including Petra and Angkor Wat, down to four: Peru, Greece, Egypt and Atlantis.
Lara was originally Latina and her appearance was more realistic, almost androgynous. We felt that more…
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