Tomb Raider (2013 video game) Wiki

Tomb Raider was announced in 2011 to everyone’s surprise. The franchise had been rebooted by Crystal Dynamics.

It features a younger Lara Croft and showcases the events before she became a tomb raider.

The game has been received positively by critics. It takes place on an island and is all about survival, and also features multiplayer.

It came out on March 5 on the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The PC version of the game supports AMD’s TressFX technology which gives a realistic looking hair to Lara. The game was re-released on PS4 and Xbox One in North America on 28 January 2014 and in Europe on 31 January 2014 as the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition which included graphical updates and frame rate improvements.

The first review for the game was a glowing 9/10 by GamesMaster. [reference]

• 1. Development
• 2. Gameplay
• 3. Story
• 4. Characters
• 5. Multiplayer
• 6. Tomb Raider PC Features

Development

Crystal Dynamics creative director Noah Hughes says that having developed Tomb Raider Anniversary, the studio in charge of the newly resurrected franchise got to play the original Tomb Raider games, and playing the first one helped the studio understand the series much better. [reference]

“When Crystal first had the opportunity to do a Tomb Raider it was naturally going to be different than the Core games, because we had our own engine and technology, and expertise and sensibilities,” he said while speaking with OPM. “But we really just tried to deliver [with] our version a continuation of what Core had established. And I think one of the things that Anniversary did for us as a studio is that it made us become intimate.

“We all played the original Tomb Raider obviously and enjoyed it, but that allowed us to really dig in and feel like we understood the franchise enough to take the step that we’re taking now.”

Creative director of Tomb Raider, Noah Hughes talked about several important aspects of the game. He explained how the game had an open world feel to it, the importance of hubs and hunting. [reference]

“As a Tomb Raider game you want to create a world that’s rich with atmosphere and high fidelity enough to feel like a real place. Another aspect, that was essential to keep, was that sense of finding things. It wasn’t acceptable to trip along a linear path. So the hubs were really that middle ground where we felt we could deliver on that sense of exploration and maintain that fidelity that we thought was important.”

“In the context of hunting, Lara gains experience from that. We know that food is essential for survival but we didn’t want a simulation game. It’s really a way to enhance your survival and gain skills. And we wanted to make sure that there was enough AI behind something like the deer so you feel like it’s alive in the world.”

BAFTA Winner Jason Graves will be composing the music for the game. [reference]

Crystal Dynamics brand manager gave some details on the HUB system in the game. [reference]

“No, not that at all! What we’ve done is built a section of hub systems as well as the compliment of a base camp system, so the base camps allow us to move around the world with ease. We can move backwards, we can’t move forward to later on because we have a story to tell, but take that prying axe for instance, as soon as you get given it, which we all know because we showed that off last year, your thoughts should say “I want to go back and find out what was in that” if you want to be a completionist,” he said.

“So it’s about re-exploring spaces, it’s about giving the player the opportunity to be able to find new things, discover new things and have some fun, and I think the hub system is a real opportunity to allow the player to explore and not feel like it’s a linear story all the way through.”

Gameplay

Lara can use stealth and the environment to take care of her enemies. Apparently, the bow will play a major role in helping the player get across the adventure. Lara can shoot lanterns and barrels to kill a group of enemies together. [reference]

The video also takes  a look at the scavengers. These guys will set traps and will try to draw attention while another enemy will try and kill you. As you progress through the game, you will earn skills which can then be used to unlock new abilities in the Brawler tree.

Lara can unlock the dirty skill due to which Lara can throw dust in her enemies faces  to take them off guard. Further more, Lara can customize and improve several weapons like the pistol, shotgun and machine guns.

Story

Tomb Raider explores the intense and gritty origin story of Lara Croft and her ascent from a young woman to a hardened survivor. Armed only with raw instincts and the ability to push beyond the limits of human endurance, Lara must fight to unravel the dark history of a forgotten island to escape its relentless hold. [reference]

Characters

Lara Croft: At the beginning of the story, we experience Lara embarking on her first job after graduating from University.

She shows fear in the face of danger, initially lacking confidence in her own abilities and judgment. Still, we can see the seeds of what Lara will eventually become. She possesses a powerful sense of moral courage. She is clever, resourceful and determined.

Conrad Roth: Captain Conrad Roth gained his grit and no-nonsense attitude through two tours with the Royal Marine commandoes. Putting his unique skills to use after leaving the military, Roth became a freelance treasure-hunter, scouring forgotten shipwrecks for anything of value.

Traveling the world, his reputation for intelligence, toughness, and a tendency to bend laws that limit the traffic of historical artifacts precedes him. In order to secure a prize and do right by his crew, Roth will lie, cheat, and break the law. Remorse isn’t part of the equation.

Multiplayer

Eidos Montreal is handling the multiplayer component of Tomb Raider. They also worked on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, so there’s definitely some good talent there. [reference]

The multiplayer has a lot of features, which you can check out below. [reference]

• But of course comes back to say that after playing it feels the “creation and execution are coming from the right place.
• “a team of Lara’s surviving allies pitted against a group of hostile natives cutely referred to as “scavengers.””
• “an immediate wrong turn out of our cavernous base … had us sliding down a rocky water tunnel…”
• “the maps aren’t too wide open”
• “lever-baser traps that shot spikes out of walls, climable surfaces (ohh, fancy), destroyable environmental elements (like bridges), and weaponry like Lara’s now trademark bow and arrow.”
• Second game type “Rescue” survivors have to collect a certain amount of med-packs and deliver them to rotating destinations while scavengers must reach a certain kill count.
• Rescue gives survivors a “bleed-out” time, that you can cut short with a “brutal” melee finisher. No talk if you can bring back people that are bleeding out.
• “Wind Chasm” was the map they played on. Tropical, with traps, vantage points and junk.
• Karl “dropped hints about a mode called “Cry for Help,” which apparently will place a strong emphasis on discovery and collection.” Adventure as opposed to combat game type.
• Unclear if any other modes available.
• “select from a deep roster of characters.”
• “different stats and loadouts.”
• “primary firearm/bow, sidearm, grenade style projectile, climbing axe that serves as a melee.”
• XP gained can go to altering stats and purchasing more advanced characters.

Tomb Raider PC Features

Square Enix has announced that Tomb Raider will feature a new technology from AMD called the TressFX. The technology is great and produces realistic looking hair but it’s unclear how much processing power it requires. [reference]

For Tomb Raider, it is required that you have a AMD HD 7000 series card for optimal performance.

“TressFX Hair revolutionizes Lara Croft’s locks by using the DirectCompute programming language to unlock the massively-parallel processing capabilities of the Graphics Core Next architecture, enabling image quality previously restricted to pre-rendered images,” AMD’s blog reads.

“Building on AMD’s previous work on Order Independent Transparency, this method makes use of Per-Pixel Linked-List data structures to manage rendering complexity and memory usage.

“DirectCompute is additionally utilized to perform the real-time physics simulations for TressFX Hair. This physics system treats each strand of hair as a chain with dozens of links, permitting for forces like gravity, wind and movement of the head to move and curl Lara’s hair in a realistic fashion.

Example:

PC specifications:

The PC port is being done by Nixxes who are generally known for making efficient ports. The system requirements are modest and feature a lot of goodies for PCs with advanced hardware as well.

General:

Full integration with Steamworks to offer cloud storage for saves, multiplayer matchmaking, achievements, as well as automatic updates and new content. [reference]
Support for Steam Big Picture Mode.
Configurable mouse and keyboard support.
Gamepad support.

High-end graphics:

Very high resolution textures with up to 16x the amount of data
Detail Tessellation to enhance the detail on many surfaces in the game
Higher quality shadows
High quality bokeh depth of field with near-blur
Tessellation algorithms used to smooth out geometry
Improved cloth, SSAO, quality wetness effects, and post-filter effects.
LOD quality is adjustable for better quality on higher-end machines.

Low-end graphics:

Crystal want Tomb Raider to run on older systems, unlike many other games they still support Windows XP.
A lot of scalability options to suit a range of machines.

Alongside these advancements, full PC specs have also been outed.

Minimum system requirements for PC:

Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Vista,7,8 (32bit/64bit)
DirectX 9 graphics card with 512Mb Video RAM:
AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT
nVidia 8600
Dual core CPU:
AMD Athlon64 X2 2.1 Ghz (4050+)
Intel Core2 Duo 1.86 Ghz (E6300)
1GB Memory (2GB on Vista)

Recommended system requirements for PC:

Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM:
AMD Radeon HD 4870
nVidia GTX 480
Quad core CPU:
AMD Phenom II X2 565
Intel Core i5-750
4GB Memory

This wiki was last updated on 1st January, 2015.