The KTEB

Eric Loren Murti Schofield Interview

The Dark Angel Symphony brings together Murti Schofield and Eric Loren for The Angel of Darkness’ 16th Anniversary with an exclusive interview! Hear Eric’s impressions of AoD’s legacy and the cult following it has within the Tomb Raider fandom. 

 Pre-order The Dark Angel Symphony at shop.trdarkangel.com 

It was repeatedly established Crystal spreads lies and fallacies about the nature of Classic Lara’s story and has distorted her bio to make said story “acceptable” (trading passion for pain as the “empowering” motivator for a female character). But they are not above using her body to try to enhance the sales of their games (vain endeavor given the recent and repeatedly acknowledged by multiple gaming sites fiasco that was Shadow of the TR).

Eidos has been doing this for years starting with when Core was in charge - except Core and particularly the women on the team like Heather Gibson vehemently opposed it and outright shut down Eidos’ requests for Lara’s sexualization. Which is why there is no example of Core Lara being sexualized in game versus multiple examples of Crystal sexualizing LAU Lara.

In the same vein, Crystal are now presenting sexist male nerd crowd with the opportunity to reduce Laraboot’s muscles in photo-mode which is all the MORE evidence they don’t view either classic Lara or their sexist distortion of her that is Laraboot as characters in their own right.

As for practicality and functionality, Crystal and Eidos are deliberately using the regular and/or most recognizable outfits from the Classic games to bait the classic fans. AoD skin was presented to try and prey on Core fans’ lingering disappointment over AoD being left unfinished BECAUSE of Eidos (same company that did not let them finish the Anniversary after stringing the Core team along for months).

Crystal, on it’s part, had no problem - as I noted above - having one of their male employees hold a riffle to AoD Lara’s head - https://69.media.tumblr.com/a91c352d690fbe499525e8359385c30b/tumblr_inline_o50jb4IGrn1tmhoiy_500.png

Only to then incorporate this exact AoD model as one of the optional skins for the two Reboot sequel games - https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/File:Classic_angel_of_Darkness_Outfit.png

https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/File:ANGEL_OF_DARKNESS.jpg

Some of the Classic skins incorporated in the Reboot are more functional than the Reboot outfits (whilst some of the Reboot outfits are a gross cultural appropriation, more on that in a bit), such as Lara’s Bomber Jacket from TR2.

https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/File:BOMBER_JACKET.jpg

They are certainly more functional than the LAU bikini, needlessly revealing swim-suits (as opposed to the practical and covering ones worn by Core Lara) or the ripped off Tokyo dress showing off LAU Lara’s breast cups, buttocks and, in the case with the latter - LAU Lara’s underwear (another display of Crystal’s misogyny and reduction of women to their bodies) -

https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/File:TR_L_Evening_Gown_Ripped.jpg

According to this page - https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Lara’s_Outfits - LAU outfits are not incorporated as available skins for the Second Reboot (doing so would mean Crystal owning up to the fact that they - and not Core - have been sexualizing Lara). But I can’t attest to that since I didn’t play the Reboot and the page might be incomplete.

However, this skin with a “re-imagined” Antarctica Suit from TR3 featuring Laraboot wearing the outfit of the same design has her wear a semi-tightly fitting version of it as opposed to the baggy one (that barely highlighted Lara’s breasts) that classic Lara wore in-game:

versus:

(images found on the wiki page linked above and are property of their respective owners).

There is also the matter of the Classic Render for this outfit displaying no cleavage at all and having Classic Lara covered almost up to a collar (which is consistent with the cold weather in the location where she wore it):

Laraboot’s version both has a deeper decollete zone AND a tightly fitting design (versus the balance Core had between the two in the render and in-game model. Though the camouflage trousers are baggy even in the render), with the emphasis being placed on how Laraboot’s body looks in this outfit rather than on the costume’s practicality.

The VCI cat-suit - also exploited in Rise as a skin for attention seeking purposes - was practical from the gaming stand point (in the Chronicles and with Classic Lara, that is), both in and out of universe. In-universe, it helped Lara infiltrate her ex mentor and his father’s company (where they had a heavily armed workforce along with murderous cyborgs to kill the intruders on sight; so they could perform shady teleportation related experiments with the Iris) and perform various stealth attacks unnoticed.

From the out of universe perspective, the lack of Lara’s trademarked double holsters containing her dual pistols (they are present in the render but not in-game) and a limited ammo she had in VCI levels prompted the gamer to use stealth as the main survival and offensive technique. As Richard Morton pointed out, it was needed to prepare the gamer for the stealth becoming one of the key elements in AoD -

“Towards the end of Chronicles, we are put in levels in which stealth is very important to get through them.  Was this to prepare the gamer for the release of Angel of Darkness?

Yes, in a way it was, we were under pressure to include stealth gameplay more and more as the series progressed”.

http://tomb-of-ash.tumblr.com/post/148144640105

In the Reboot the skin is only there for baiting purposes and not because it’s justified game-play or story wise (seeing as it’s the optional skin, as far as I am concerned).

Even if we go by the “functionality and practicality are not the same thing” logic (i.e classic Lara’s Russian Camouflage outfit is certainly practical given the weather conditions. Her Nevada outfit comprised of heavy camouflage trousers and top is also practical both in terms of the warm weather and the fact that wearing trousers rather than shorts helped reduce the skin damage when climbing rocky surfaces). And take this description - “Rise of the Tomb Raider is the first game in the main series that clothing will function more than just cosmetically, and will offer perks” (credit) - at face value it still doesn’t negate the fact that Classic Lara DID wear functional outfits and the Reboot gets no credit for inventing this feature.

Easiest example would be the Extreme Depth Suit from Chronicles.

(source linked above)

It is “equipped with 10 chaff flares, which can be used as decoys to draw enemy torpedoes away from her”. - https://tombraiders.net/stella/walks/TR5walk/deepsea.html

Lara’s AoD swim-suit was supposed to feature a Diver’s knife as per the Render and FMV model -

https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/File:Lara_Croft_Wetsuit_(AOD).jpg

While the aqualung is not a part of the diving/swim suit it was still a part of the underwater sequence and Lara’s equipment within it.

Laraboot’s “functional” outfits such as the Russian outfit where she exploits the emblems of honor she does not get to wear unless she served in the Russian army (like Admiral Yarofev in the Chronicles who served in the Russian Navy for decades, before and after the fall of the Soviet Union) are blatant cultural appropriation:

https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/File:Ushanka.png

A more disturbing example would be this “Cozumel Disguise” where Laraboot - a rich white Western woman - exploits the mask and outfit pertaining to a traditional Mexican Holiday Dia de los Muertos -

https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/File:Outfit_-_Cozumel_Disguise.png

(source linked above)

Thanks to @positivelyamazonian for alerting me to this and to the following:

“Before she dies, Unuratu implores Lara to complete the ritual but warns her not to let the Box influence her”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Tomb_Raider

Per this plot, not only does Laraboot wear another outfit exemplifying cultural appropriation but she also takes on the role of a Mayan goddess in place of a woman of color who was supposed to be the one to fulfill that role (per Wiki description. As I noted, I have not and will not play the Reboot games).

TLDR: I gave the Reboot a second chance, regretted it, and have no desire to replay them.

"More nostalgic than functional."

The main team was composed by 6 people, indeed, among them, Heather Gibson as level designer - a woman, when recently Crystal Dynamics has stated that for the first time in the reboot a woman was recognized and included in a significant role in the team, namely the writer, Rhianna Pratchett. Another bullshit to add to Crystal’s collection.

There she is. In fucking 1996. And who’s not in the photo is Vicky Arnold, who was the writer of the first three Tomb Raiders. Another woman. Just saying.

Left to rightNeal Boyd (level designer), Jason Gosling (programmer), Gavin Rummery (programmer), Heather Gibson (level designer), Paul Douglas (lead programmer), Toby Gard (concept artist) - Source: Tomb of Ash.

But of course more people were involved in the developing of Tomb Raider - just 6 people are not enough to produce a videogame. Every name mentioned in the credits of the game has to be taken into account, not only them - for example, Nathan McCree as the music composer. Take a look to the credits for further detail.

Happy Birthday Kurtis Trent!

#FanartFriday #AoD15 • FANART of the WEEK ⭐️

“Lara, from the angel of darkness, with better graphics  I don’t know, I just wondered what she would look like more realistic  And it was an excuse to try out doll hair again. It didn’t turn out like I wanted.. Almost threw the sculpture through tha window because I had such a hard time with the hair!   it was a bit thick for the size of this piece.  I still like her face though! This bust was handmade with super sculpey polymer clay and was meticulously painted with acrylics. She’s quite small, her face is only about 1 ½ inches! It was a practice piece and fanart so it’s not for sale.”

The Hidden Lux Veritatis Website

In 2017, Tomb-of-Ash rediscovered this once lost sub page of the Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness website. He was correct in saying that there was a little prize given out at the end of solving some puzzles - and we’ve rather excitedly discovered what that prize was, but don’t get too excited, as the prize is actually a common downloadable.

Whilst digging through the news archive of the fan site traider.pl, we discovered a news entry, dating to 11 October 2002. (See link for original entry and original web link) but the entry reads when translated from Polish: ‘Eidos put quite nice screensaver on TAA’s website. To get it, you need to solve a small puzzle’. So the prize given out was a Screensaver. The screensaver in particular is THIS ONE. We came across two versions of this screensaver in the Wayback captures, a standard and a lite version. The lite version is a little less flashy but it is the exact same. We’ll provide some direct download links:

Standard - here

Lite - here