The upcoming reboot of the Tomb Raider series will provide gamers with many moral dilemmas including a traumatic first-kill moment. The young Lara Croft is very different than the female protagonist that starred in the original game back in 1996.
In a recent interview with IGN, creative director Noah Hughes talked about Lara Croft's personal journey through the new video game.
"The central answer is that we try to make all of Lara's actions feel motivated. We don't want every kill to be the first kill," Hughes said. "Lara does need to cross a line, but you see her struggle several times with staying across it. She even tries to talk down the enemy combatants, but they're not having any of that."
Hughes says that the villains in the game make it very clear that it is a kill or be killed situation for Lara and he added, "Our hope is that we get to the pace of gameplay that feels appropriate, but it should feel like a motivated transition - if a bit accelerated," Hughes told IGN.
"We try to challenge Lara emotionally in other ways, and as we get into later aspects of the game we challenge Lara's core belief system," Hughes said. "The challenges make her become who she will become one step at a time, and that's not all about killing people. She doesn't enjoy killing people. She doesn't quickly go from not wanting to kill to wanting to kill; she goes from not wanting to kill to forced to kill. And she always struggles with that."
The article states that another character in the game is the island itself. The island emerges as an influencing factor over Lara and her enemies and IGN says there are some flashes of mystery that are reminiscent of the television series "Lost."
"Early on we really are telling a fairly traditional survival story, but we're hinting at the mysteries of the island and Lara's passion for understanding it," Hughes said. "Ultimately over the course of the adventure that becomes less of a side-pursuit and more central to getting to the bottom of the island and escaping it."
Tomb Raider will release on March 5, 2013 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows.
