Tomb Raider, the upcoming 2013 action adventure reboot to the old franchise has been often in the news, and more often than not, it’s been compared to the Uncharted games because of their cinematic and gameplay style. It’s ironic because the original Uncharted was originally called a Tomb Raider rip-off.
Anyway, Tomb Raider’s creative director, Noah Hughes believes there are plenty of differences between Tomb Raider and Uncharted and hopes that people will notice them.
“I may be wrong, but I think if we didn’t have such strong similarities in the subject matter – adventure and archaeology – I don’t think Tomb Raider would be tied directly to Uncharted,” Hughes said while speaking with NowGamer. “We felt probably system-wise combat was one of the things we really needed to evolve the most. That it had fallen behind the curve a little bit and really our goal was, more than anything, just to modernise that combat. Having said that, I hope players see that there are some key differences that we’ve tried to make sure were sufficiently Lara-like.”
The cover system, for example, is different in Lara Croft’s new adventure. “The idea the cover system is less ‘sticky’ than many modern shooters, we really wanted to urge people to keep moving between cover rather than hunkering down in one place,” said Hughes, emphasizing the different feel that the game’s combat has to it. “This was also true of the stealth, the pre-combat and the environmental combat opportunities, it was really just to realise that Lara isn’t just about having the biggest gun, but giving you opportunities to think a little and move a lot.”
“My hope is, as much as it has similarities with some of these other games, is that it really just feels like a modernisation and update of a Tomb Raider combat system,” he concluded.
Recently, the Crystal Dynamics devs also talked about how Tomb Raider is different in that it has a female and actually feminine protagonist. Read the full report here.