The reboot of Tomb Raider is about four months away and its developer has begun to reveal more information about the upcoming action-adventure platformer. We already know that the game is set in a new Tomb Raider continuity and has no connection to previous games in the series.
While the game reconstructs the origins of the franchise's leading character Lara Croft, some of the long-running series' elements will remain intact such as the exploration and discovery of tombs.
In a recent interview with Game Informer, studio head Darrell Gallagher and global brand director Karl Stewart discuss the recently announced tomb raiding aspect of the game.
"We have a number of secondary tombs in the world, and we also have primary path tombs as part of the experience," Gallagher told Game Informer. "The central hubs have a number of different challenge tombs and for us we really wanted that feeling of discovery. The ability to discover a tomb and come across it."
He added, that the developer will give gamers hints about the location of the tombs, but also said that the player will have to go find the vaults for themselves.
"There is this sort of joy of actually going into it for the first time and discovering something that is off the beaten path," Gallagher said. "So that's the first piece of it. I think the second piece is also to provide some cool interesting challenges for going off the beaten path."
Stewart added an anecdote about his play through of the game and how the game's hub will not only act as a place for exploration but will make the game feel alive.
"Yesterday I was playing through it, and you finish an area and you move on and then you come back into that area later on and there happens to be scavengers," Stewart said. "It's scavengers actually there dismantling an airplane doing things - you feel like, "Holy crap the game came back in and spawned them?" I've actually stumbled across them and they're talking to each other and discussing stuff. So it feels like when you start using the base camp and start fast travel you feel like the island is alive. The hubs, rather than just being large exploration spaces, we want them to feel like they are a major part of the game as well."
Gallagher says, that the tombs will also offer gamers a unique challenge with puzzle elements.
"I think the second piece is also to provide some cool interesting challenges for going off the beaten path," Gallagher said. "So the tombs are all puzzle oriented and you can spend any number of minutes to tens of minutes in each challenge tomb and they are at different complexity. All of them are putting to use specific systems and the gear you've collected along the way."
He also added that players will be rewarded for their exploration and completing the challenges of the tombs.
"There are extra rewards for completing the challenge tombs, getting XP and skills points as a result for completing the challenge tombs," Gallagher said. "I guess for us we really wanted to make it feel like that there was a wealth of content in the game -there was more to do. It is a living breathing place. Everything from the AI we thought about through to the challenge tombs."
Tomb Raider will release on March 5, 2013 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. Learn more about Lara Croft's personal journey here and about her inability to swim here.
