Update:
Crystal Dynamics has released a statement denying the existence of an “attempted rape” scene. Full story.
Original Story:
Given the trailer and gameplay we’ve seen so far with the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot, comparisons to Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series were inevitable.
Lara Croft’s new adventure seems to be more stylish, more cinematic, more set-piece heavy and more character than ever before… just like Uncharted. However, Crystal Dynamics studio head Darrell Gallagher has said that, despite the two games being the same genre, “there’s a lot of differences between the two.”
“Well, naturally, they’re action-adventure, OK, so there’s going to be some comparison,” said Gallagher. “I don’t think we can get away with that. And there are certain things the Uncharted series has done, which is borrowed heavily from Tomb Raiders [of] old. So, again, there’s gonna be some crossover. That said, I think when we show the game as a whole-when you get to experience it, start to finish-we believe there’s a lot of differences between the two.
“I guess the comparison I can make is, you can have two summer blockbusters, and they can be big action things, with two different actors and things like tone and mood and story separate the two very differently. So, our tone is very different. Our storyline, our narrative. Our lead character is very different.”
Part of Lara being a “very different” character comes with the fact that she’s young, female and constantly under threat. We know that the game’s younger edition of Lara will be subject to beatings, kidnappings, being bound by rope and become the victim of an attempted rape.
As far as the attempted rape goes, that has been included to make players feel protective over Lara.
“When you see her have to face these challenges, you start to root for her in a way that you might not root for a male character,” said executive producer Ron Rosenberg.
“When people play Lara, they don’t really project themselves into the character. They’re more like ‘I want to protect her.’ There’s this sort of dynamic of ‘I’m going to this adventure with her and trying to protect her.'”
Rosenberg believes that those hardships help Lara feel more human and realistic.
“The ability to see her as a human is even more enticing to me than the more sexualized version of yesteryear. She literally goes from zero to hero… we’re sort of building her up and just when she gets confident, we break her down again.
“She is literally turned into a cornered animal. It’s a huge step in her evolution: she’s forced to either fight back or die.”
You can read our E3 2012 preview of Tomb Raider here.
Source: Kotaku
