Gamasutra - Lara Croft's Legacy: Moving Tomb Raider Forward

The Tomb Raider series was one of the most relevant of the PlayStation generation, but quickly became swamped by its inability to live up to the purity and focus of the original installments. Features, settings, and characters which had no purpose in the games began to overwhelm the simple and engaging tale of its adventurous heroine Lara Croft.

Eventually, the series was placed with Crystal Dynamics for a successful reboot; Tomb Raider: Legend saw forward motion for the first time in years, as the game was brought back to what made it famous in the first place: exploration and combat in a series of ruins, focused around its athletic and iconic heroine.

Here, Eric Lindstrom, creative director of the upcoming Tomb Raider: Underworld discusses the processes by which the creative team at Crystal Dynamics stays on track with its latest iteration of the franchise, the first to be specifically created for the current generation of consoles. He also talks about the team's reliance on its own technology, and how his background as a fan for the series has led to insights which help maintain the vision the series needs to remain vital and appealing to its fan base.