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Old 11-07-11, 10:35   #6
lcroft_lc
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Here is the translation-

"Tomb Raider is full of emotion"

The new Tomb Raider is being developed at the old studio Crystal Dynamics and looks dazzling. Reason enough to meet with Global Brand Director Karl Stewart, so he tells us some secrets about the new Lara Croft. That was also the man and talked to about the new look of Lara, the importance of their voice and their relationship to James Bond.

Karl Stewart, the new Lara Croft looks really fresh ...
We have been working for quite a while and it tries to ensure that we get it right. Because if you want to invent a new franchise, makes an entirely new story, then the foundation must agree. You need a character, where people can build a relationship. This must be someone whom you can relate, whose feelings you experienced active. Each individual situation in the game is to convey this feeling and experience. We want to bring it to the point that a player says: Whoa, holy ****, I've never perceived as such.

I can remember the first time that we have planned a bit claustrophobic, and they all said: Well, pack them within a tunnel. And I said, no, no, no, no - we must manage to produce this complex experience in any other room. That was the key for us to be able to say: So now we'll break the camera movement and no let up in a cutscene and give the player this hellish feeling.

Movies are a great source of inspiration was? The full intro sequence quite reminiscent of The Descent ...
We asked ourselves, how we manage the emotions of the Tomb Raider the best. Films do just that very fluid. They're filming a scene and then decide whether or not this serves its purpose. In all areas we have resorted to all possible sources of inspiration. The Descent was actually a big inspiration for us. But there are actually two different sources that no one has yet discovered, this is awesome.

There are other things in the game that leave this subconscious feeling that one would have ever seen or felt. The only difference that one exactly now earned himself a character whose inner life is only just beginning to understand. But there is someone you actually know quite a long time. Thus, the ideas come from many directions. TV shows are great because the longer run, over a period, there is more history and depth, a kind of evolution of different elements.

Who is the voice actor of Lara, we may not know, but their work makes a very good impression. Should it be someone aware that Lara's development of girls transported back to the self-conscious adventurer?
If we take the cave scene at the beginning and watch their interaction with Roth in the cutscenes, it is clear that a lot of experience and emotion is conveyed only by listening to Lara. We will listen to her more often in self-talk, because it is driven by feelings of loneliness, loss and fear, and she is the person who wants to be.

We really wanted to find an unknown actress. Someone who can play and has a really strong future ahead. Someone who understands the performance, not only at a level from the beginning to the end of talks. The game is divided into clear sections, and the first section shows a girl who is traveling alone and scared and trying to find themselves. If Lara is stronger, it changes their whole language. The actress is a very important factor in the game because they will be more than in any other game, heard in the past. And they will interact with the players in a way that they have never seen so. Right here comes out a part of the real emotions and personality.

As well look at the hardcore fans of their new Lara game?
We were there from day one, very carefully. As we approach the new with the rest of the old and the new history had together, we have done some things to make sure we do everything right. One of them was to engage with the community in touch and vision to preach and history. Exactly these hardcore fans should tell us what you think about our vision. There is an affinity with the character of Lara. Of course people will say that you should not break with the. But there is also the feeling in the years to come, if you do not really dare such major changes and decisions. We are very pleased with the feedback from fans and came to the point: We need to bring something new on the way to tell a story that you have never seen or heard.

Does it feel really like the first Tomb Raider for Crystal Dynamics to - and previous games are rather just a reference or even the vision of someone else?
That is certainly still our vision. As Darrell Gallagher, the current head of the studio and art director for the last three games, took over his post, it was still important to say: Crystal Dynamics will not again make the same kind of games.

We have some very creative people in the studio, people who are passionate and want to bring back Tomb Raider there, where it once was. We want to make something fresh and new. The first six months of back and forth with the story and the vision were hard. It calls itself incessantly, wondering if this is the right way. But eventually you realize: only courage helps. Over time, we then realized that it really is that the new Tomb Raider. This is Lara Croft.

If we are in comparison with other games then Uncharted should [Karl rolls his eyes and nods] not be missing. Interestingly, however, I find the comparison with Bourne and Bond - there is something not easily copied, but revives the series again.
This is a great comparison [laughs]. I hear the first time, but I'm going to remember and use themselves. Bond has been around a long time and it just needed a new direction. Bourne came and the agent has stolen the show - even if it was after closing three parts. We have done our own investigations and also used for different series. Above all, we have collected, what is the origin of what naturally belongs and of which we can not desist. But just so we have to break, so it feels fresh. James Bond is a character we've looked more closely and if we are the agent over time, it all leads to one conclusion: to be culturally relevant.

Bond offers a wide range of impressions and experiences and there were several actors who have shaped the character. Let's start with Roger Moore in that at the time was just right. For the people it was their character. He was a womanizer. He had the license to kill. There was something very solid. But we go further and end up with Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan - they were simply trying to hold a license to kill. And since it appeared that the first comments said: Hey, even my grandpa has been under this License. The relevance was just not there anymore. But Bond was still a womanizer and he is still chasing the bad guys. And as Bourne took to the stage. A tough guy with a dark past - it was to simply tell a story. Well, there was this James Bond.

The Aston Martin was written off, he gives a damn about what he drinks and is a womanizer, but with a heart. Because when she dies, he breaks and wants revenge. And of course there is the still, that he is sitting in an airplane at a bar and he has his drink and then we think that is just a bond. He does so, it still feels like James Bond. They have not lost what makes him. I think it's Batman and Bond have succeeded. Superman and Hulk were not as successful, but the comparison of Bourne to Bond and Uncharted is very similar to us. The experience is unique, very broad, with lots of steam. Our goal is to develop the character, it's about the psychological aspects and the emotions that go along with it. There are two fundamentally different things that complement each other perfectly. I've looked at both and there's no reason to play Uncharted only now and then Tomb Raider.

The Island in Tomb Raider surrounding mystery. Is there a connection to mysticism? Will there be another artifact, a sort of treasure or a secret document containing important information, which largely drives the plot?
There is no such an element is always something that brings us forward. What we try and do well at the beginning of the game is that we delineate this secret. Lara hits the storm, and wakes up in a strange, strange place. She gets up and leaves the cave and goes to a cliff, where she suddenly sees a Spanish armada next to a Viking ship and a destroyer of the Second World War.

For us this is unusual because we have tried to find places and spaces. This was right after we decided that we want to show entire range of emotions to build a relationship with the heroine. In the past, Lara has moved from place to place. She was all over the world and has given me a lot of people interacting. We soon realized that because we lack the basis for emotions. First, they must make more or less interact only with themselves. In this way, we came up with the idea of ​​limiting the whole thing to a scene. We needed a white screen.

Everything happens on the southeast coast of Japan, at a location from the fiction of a few should be known as a dragon triangle. It is the counterpart to the Bermuda Triangle, which allowed us to say: This is the island and all these things have happened. It allowed us a whole range of things to discover, which were never before possible.

All of this is the beginning of Lara Croft. But there is the point at which concludes the story and they gained the confidence and the enthusiasm of its predecessor. Or are there plans to tell the story and its new size of this game out?
We will never intersect one of the earlier games. This new background is the foundation to develop them. The short shorts and tight tops, they will never wear again. In terms of their personality will always remain human. They will challenge themselves and questioning if she starts to feel more confident. But they will surely never again be a caricature of the person she once was.

That was part of the basis why we initially decided to pursue this new direction. We wanted to get away from what she had become. That fits in some ways no longer together. She was successful, but you never felt that it was deep. That is the point where we feel the experience of film and television. Where we can laugh and cry in a movie of ninety minutes, we move in a game of ten hours literally by these emotions. We want people to have something where they can hold on to.

It's a step back, to play the game and see what happens and to feel it. I wanted to do just that and live by it, but with the old Lara has not worked. There was simply no match.

We expect that the answer is "No comment", but will there be a sequel to Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, or at least a continuation of the approach chosen, digital path?
All I can say something. We have already made ​​a decision quite early on that the Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider series can exist side by side in different worlds. Guardian of Light for us a great success and we are very happy with it - new approaches, very creative. But right now our focus is on Tomb Raider. We want to make sure that our vision and rises on the right way. And so this is successful, we need clear communication.

If they succeed, nothing stands in our way, then break out again and explore the other path continues. Tomb Raider is the big new experience for the future. The old Lara Croft would be the approach for various other media. In our investigations we have also seen that Batman as a movie, comic, TV show or what ever can exist. We believe that Tomb Raider and Lara as the embedded mark just something in the future could be. But now we need a foundation first.

Last edited by lcroft_lc; 11-07-11 at 10:40.
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