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Tomb Raider: Underworld

By: Nick Evanson Feb 01, 2008

Dr Croft, I presume?

Towards the end of Core Design's captaincy of the good ship Croft, it was readily apparent that what fans wanted were lost worlds to explore and ancient puzzles to solve, rather than shoot numerous humans in modern cities. Underworld thoroughly respects these wishes:

Our focus is on finding, exploring and overcoming large-scale integrated challenges, of which combat and puzzle solving are both ingredients.

The locations and story in the game take her on a new adventure taking her to the depths of the underworld. All the environments were influenced myths surrounding various ancient cultures. CD have spent a lot of time studying cryptids (these are animals believed to be extinct) and ancient machines. They also sent photographers to various continents to capture reference material. The Mayan Ballcourt and pyramids for the demo are authentic replicas.

By offering 8 very large levels of gameplay, you will spend a good amount of time travelling around them, instead of following a linear path of tasks to complete. The demonstrated Mayan level was a later one in the game but hopefully sets a good standard for the rest; we're obviously not talking Oblivion-esque landscapes here, but the dark corridors of Tomb Raider: Chronicles are long gone.

The actual level matches the concept art (and real life) surprisingly well

Climbing wet surfaces is much harder than clean, dry ones

Crystal Dynamics dropped a few hints about the traversing of levels: Lara's bike returns once more, but not as an FMV prop, nor as a "driving level." We were shown a brief usage of the motorcycle (the current model is rather akin to Judge Dredd's Lawmaster, with its fat-ass tyres, but I suspect this will not be the final rendition), where Lara picks it up where she last left it in the level, before zooming off to another section in order to complete a puzzle in time. The developers were very coy about how the bike fits in, but gave the cryptic hint of:

The bike which appeared in the presentation will have dual purpose, it's a gear item, will help facilitate exploration.

Your guesses are as good as mine...

If it moves... oh wait, we did that one

As well as the graphics touches in the environment, much emphasis was made on how interactive the levels are, as a whole. Physics plays a big role here: for example, the retractable grappling hook is still present but the wire is now genuinely solid, and can be used as leverage for objects. Failing that, Lara's own weight can be used to unbalance blocks, as well as push/pulling them around. Crystal Dynamics wanted players to look at the world for clues, and figure things out for themselves - whilst not every flashing identification icon has been removed, rings and catches for the grappling hook no longer glow bright blue.