Tomb Raider (1996 Video Game) - Development History

Development History

Preliminary work on Tomb Raider commenced in 1993, but it was not until November 1996 that the game actually saw the light of day as a retail product. The title was crafted by Core Design of Derby, England, who took 18 months to develop it. The team consisted of six people, among them Toby Gard, who is credited with the creation of Lara Croft. The character went through several changes before Core settled on the version she became famous for. In its earliest conception, Lara Croft was a male placeholder for an as yet undefined character, but as Core decided that puzzles and stealth should be more important to the game than action, they found that these requirements better suited a female character than a classic male action hero.

Lara Croft was originally born under the name "Laura Cruz". As her backstory began to take shape and it was decided that she would become more English and that it would be a major part of who the character was, her first and last names were changed in order to reflect this. According to Toby Gard, the idea to make her more akin to a female Indiana Jones was not present from the beginning. In fact, in early concepts, Lara was originally had a cold-blooded militaristic-type personality, but Gard and the team decided to create and play up the "proper English lady" aspect of her character in order to establish that there was more to Lara's personality and life than just her immediate actions during Tomb Raider's gameplay. During some interviews, Toby Gard has also claimed that he changed the character from male to female because he decided that if he had to stare at the character's backside for hours on end while designing and playtesting the game, it might as well be an attractive female backside - although this is assumed to be a joke on the part of Gard, poking fun at the attention Lara was receiving for her sex appeal and had little if any actual sway into the final decision to make Lara a woman.

The front of the Derby Studios building where Core Design worked on the game was later used as the front of Croft Manor. It is Core's contention that the company was struggling somewhat with 32-bit development at that time. The first glints of the game were seen on Sega Saturn development kits. However, ultimately, it would be the PlayStation rendition that would be known best, and while the series would see four more installments on the original PlayStation alone, no additional Tomb Raider games were ever released for the Saturn following the original.