(Transcript) Exclusive Interview with Karl Stewart at E3 (2/2)

How much work is still to be done in the game - a statement’s been made [by Mike Fisher - President & CEO for Square Enix US] that it could be released at this point and it would be a perfectly satisfactory game – obviously you’re going for a bit higher than satisfactory – what bits will you be focusing on between now and the release?
(Asked by Karen)

So one of the things which we’ve tried to communicate, hopefully it’s come across pretty well, is that we don’t treat this lightly, we take this very seriously, that we’ve had the opportunity to take a fifteen year old franchise and bring it back to life in a way in which very few media have had the opportunity to do so and for the guys and the team who have worked on it, this is the game of their careers, right? How many people get the opportunity to do this?

And we have to be very careful that we don’t, after spending all this time, rush it and put it out in a window or at a time when we just don’t feel like it’s going to live up to the expectations that we want to set, you know, we’ve talked a lot over the last year about the work that’s gone into it, so really for us it was a case of –in times gone by we probably would have looked at the game right now – let’s polish it, put it in a box and ship it, right?

And it’s great, it’s playable from start to finish, but we made a promise, before we ever announced Tomb Raider we made a promise that Crystal Dynamics would be about quality over quantity, we didn’t want to rush things, we wanted to make sure it was done right and, you know, despite it being used a lot, it would be ready when it’s ready that’s really where we looked at it, it’s that, you know, we wanted to make sure that we delivered the best experience and the time that we’ve got between now and March next year, really the focus is to look at story, look at the way in which we can bring certain things in that get to shore up, maybe, some of the holes that we feel - after we’ve played it over and over and over again – need to be fixed, you know, that we, you know, have an opportunity to do something that we really very rarely, ever get to do and that’s play our game, a thousand times, and actually question some of our questions, some of the decisions that we’ve made and make sure that shore them up and put a great amount of polish in and deliver a great experience.

Regarding the more vulnerable Lara, coming from a point where she doesn’t have any special skills or even a deliberate aim to get into a situation like this – how do you go about creating a vulnerable female protagonist that doesn’t fall into stereotype? I know that in the demos we’ve seen - obviously early in the game - the men are very predatory and I know that there has been some concern that this is putting her in the role of a victim and that she’s going to be stronger because she’s been victimised...
(Asked by Karen, this was also a concern at the TRF)

So I think there’s two sides to that, one is - taking away the victimisation side for a second - we want you to go on a journey to see her grow, we want you to see her become something which is going to stand the test of time throughout the franchise.

In regards to the sort of victimisation, that will play out in the story as to why you feel that way and there’s going to be “eureka” moments that make you go, okay, now I understand, it all comes together, and without getting into spoilers, we don’t do things for the sake of saying victimisation is going to be a great way to get people to go “oh my god, let me talk about it”, there’s a reason for everything we do, right, so we’re going to have to - so in some sense some of the negativity that we’ve read – and it’s very, very little that we’ve read, over the last couple of days, I think that when people see the demo and they talk to us they quickly realise what our intentions are.

I think that’s always going to be there when you show a very small portion of your game, a snippit, but I think after people play the game they’ll quickly realise that we have built a game that has been mapped out from minute to minute and there’s reason behind every decision that we’ve made.

And I think it would be fair to say, I wouldn’t want to put words in your mouth, but that the decisions that have been made have been made with thought and consideration rather than just a shortcut to – we want this emotional reaction--

Oh yeah, yeah, we’ve spent, you know, I can’t say how many times we’ve laboured over scenes, we’ve gone back to the motion capture studio more times with this game than I think we have on three games put together, because I think it’s about making sure that the scenes are played out correctly and the story has gone through many iterations to make sure that we deliver the start, middle and end to a scene, not just one particular emotion to one particular scene but there has to be a build up, you know – you watched that demo yesterday and what you saw was a side to a character like Whitman bringing you on this journey where you feel, okay, now I don’t trust him, he’s a little bit strange, a little bit cagey, and eventually you get to a point where you think ‘ah, now it’s starting to come together, but look at me, now I’m captured, thank you very much Whitman, you shouldn’t have done that’ – so everything feels like it’s got a start, middle and end and that it’s not just done for the sake of shock factor.

And on the game on the whole you’re confident that will be validated?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

One question left – and can I just ask what question you would like to be asked in interview that you haven’t been asked ... and please answer!
(Asked by Karen)

(Laughs) What’s awesome is that question! That’s the question that...


Can I get a slightly fuller answer?? (Jokingly)

Well, yeah, slightly fuller answer, I’ll give you my perspective actually – interviews like this are the interviews that I love doing because we can talk a little more in depth, you know the game very well because you’ve been following what we’ve been saying and how we’ve been saying it and it’s great to be able to put meat on the bones and not say the same thing over and over again – I wish, and this is just an unfortunate – I get asked the same question so many times that sometimes I go, you’ve got me for the next fifteen minutes – ask me an awesome question that nobody else has asked!

You’ve read everything, right? You’ve obviously studied it really hard, and you know - it’s things like that that I feel not enough people pick, you know, look for the meat on the bones of what we’re saying and we’ve spent so much time passionately building this game, that I wish that sometimes people would ask the harder, harder, questions and get a little bit more deeper, but I think it’s opportunities like this where I can do that.

So I think this is very unique, this, you know, your line of questions and the rest of the team’s line of questions are things that we don’t always get asked because people are looking for the high moments, they want to kind of [clicks fingers] get it onto a website, get readers and this is more about the passion of what goes into making this.


I did have a question about dual pistols and whether they’ll come back if you’d wanted questions that had already been answered! 
(Asked by Tiernan)

Never say never! Never say never ...

(Thank you to Karl for answering our questions, they were very informative! And it was a real pleasure interviewing you. And thank you also to Meagan for setting up the interview and for inviting the ambassadors to the event! You're wonderful.)

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(Transcript) Exclusive Interview with Karl Stewart at E3 (1/2)

My sister recently travelled to E3 as a Tomb Raider UK Ambassador. During her time at the event, she had the opportunity to interview Karl Stewart (Global Brand Director). The questions were a combination of some my personal ones, a selection sent in by the owners of Music of Tomb Raider and Lara's Society (G&G E3 partner sites) and a handful sent in via this site's social media pages:

Transcription of interview with Karl Stewart which took place in Los Angeles on 7th June 2012:


Jaden from Guns & Grapple would like to know were there are any reference photos taken to aid the creation of the concept design and artwork?

Yeah, Brian took a lot of photographs, I’ve - every now and then I try to inspire myself by dipping into his archives, you know, to just sort of help me understand and get an idea of his perspective so when we’re talking about the game and when we’re presenting it we’ll know more about the process in every area, yeah – let me just say there’s a lot of photographs in Brian’s folders!

I’ll underline “lot”! And where were they taken, which locations?

In a variety, as Brian mentioned we travelled to Japan not so long ago, and Brian took a day off the beaten track off up to Toniko to be able to take some photographs for reference. And in general Brian likes want to try to get out and see things from himself as well so most of the locations that are in the game, at some point in time, Brian has had the opportunity to get out and study them and analyse, make sure that they feel real and feel natural.

And we also work with a very talented group of concept artists who have done a tremendous job of using source material and reference material to be able to bring our world to life, so it was a lot of photographs have taken but the goal is to try to make it feel as real as possible.

Harry from Music of Tomb Raider has asked if there’ll be additional bonus material in the Collector’s or Limited Edition sets?

Yeah, we actually, we’re right in the middle of deciding that as we speak, there’s a lot of content that get created in making a game and there’s a lot of stuff that ends up on the cutting room floor, you know, much like movies, you know, a movie starts at four hours and ends up at ninety minutes.

You know, for us, there’s a lot of stuff we want to talk about, we’ve been a little more strategic in the way in which we go about doing it now, so that when we do performance capture we capture all our B-rolls to make sure that we’ve got it all and then instead of just launching it all, you know, in one big lump in a collector’s edition, this is where we’re going to be doing these chapters as you’ll see over the next coming months is to bring some of that to life and in a very unique way, so it’s very important that we show people some of the procedure that we go through, the process that we go through, so yeah, you’ll see a lot of additional content.

Harry has also asked, regarding iTunes releases whether any of the music either from this title or from previous titles (or any other – other suppliers are available).

I need to have a look at that right now, I think it’s - obviously, you know, iTunes has now become the defacto place to go and get most all your music in a lot of cases so I know Meagan’s worked hard to make sure that we do things like getting podcasts are up there, I know certainly from our experience of our soundtrack when we do release the soundtrack we’ll make sure that it’s on iTunes because it’s the defacto, so, you know – it’s interesting, I might have a look if they’re not up there already I would like to make that happen actually, it would be great to get all the previous soundtracks – or whatever soundtracks are out there, up on iTunes.


You said the soundtrack will be released in line with the game – regarding the game’s release, is that going to be a worldwide release date or is it going to be staggered?

Right now it’s a world-wide release date, we’ve been talking with our European counterparts and we’ve made the decision that March 5th will be the date that we launch the game in our EFIGS territories [English, French, Italian, German, Spanish] and North America, we haven’t made a final decision yet with regards to our Asia markets and our Japanese markets, that will be a little harder because they’re a little more complex, to make sure that, you know, translations and VO and making sure it hits at the right time.

So certainly from North America, South America, right through to all of Europe our goal is for it to be day and date, which is a big thing, because obviously normally it’s Tuesday at one place and Friday at the other – we wanted it to be March 5th as a global release date.


Tiernan from Lara Society has some queries regarding Lara’s background in her reinvented form and wants to know how much has changed and whether she still has her aristocratic roots.

So, obviously, I get that question a lot you know, about who she is and where she’s from and really we looked at the character and thought, you know, when breaking it down and trying to bring this new vision for Lara and reimagining her, you had to be willing to – to be willing to take the risk of delivering emotion you have to have a character which feels believable and real for today and you look at Lara on this journey, this is her first adventure and already you see a very different side to her, she hasn’t paid to be on this – in past worlds Lara would have bought the ship and paid for it herself and hired a crew – or not even bothered hiring a crew and doing it herself – this is a girl that wants to be accepted, she wants to be a part of the team, she doesn’t want to be, you know, kind of left out on her own, you know, she really wants to do this and she wants to show her worth. And we see a side to Lara which we’ve never really seen before.

You know, we haven’t and we won’t just yet, start talking about her backstory in any depth because I think that detracts from what we’re trying to present right now, I think there’s a time and a place to be able to get into that detail but for now certainly what we’re presenting is a young girl that’s energetic, ambitious and maybe a little bit naive because she thinks she can do the things that – you know, it’s a little bit like Nemo’s dad? You think you can do these things but you can’t? You know, we’ve got to take you on the journey to see how she grows and she becomes a person, you know, and when we set the foundation on this game, we’ll see how that plays out, but right now we don’t really want to get into – too deep into the backstory of, you know, who she is versus who she was.



There’s been some interest in an animated series like the Gametap episodes, is this something you might be interested in bringing back to promote this game or possibly future releases?
(asked by @RyanRaider_)

There’s no plans right now to do any animation, or animated series, our goal as a studio is firmly in making sure we build a great game and we take this awesome opportunity to, you know, bring the series back to life in a way which hasn’t really been done in video games, so I think we have to be careful that we don’t lose focus.

CLICK HERE to Read Part Two of the Interview

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Transcript: E3 Community Ambassador Group Interview (1/3)

(Thank you to Meagan for the transcript and also to Karen for fitting in several of G&G questions)

Featuring Karl Stewart, and Brian Horton (who joined about halfway through)


Q: What makes this Tomb Raider better than the other ones you've released?

Karl Stewart: I think one of the things that we want to make sure we preface with...The last 15 years, we've seen some phenomenal Tomb Raiders. I don't think it's a case of saying that this one is better than any of the other ones. I just think our goal is to create something that is very unique and very new.

We have an opportunity to take a beloved franchise like Tomb Raider and bring it back to an origin story where we almost sort of bring it to... Not just a broader audience, but we allow people to feel like they now know who she is. Give her a very unique personality. And make her, as most of you have read, sort of culturally relevant for today. Because Lara, as you know, the years... She kind of became a caricature. You knew she had her guns, you knew she had the outfit and the personality that she had, but you never knew very much about where she came from.

For us, we set the goal of saying, let's take the opportunity to go back to the very beginning, and when you do that, go back to the very beginning, you then have to look at who the character is today. We've looked at a lot of franchises, I know you've read that I talk a lot about the Batman analogy. It's the easiest way to sort of explain what our challenges are and move forward with it. We looked at Batman, and it falls into sort of three different categories. The first one is, you have that original Batman, the Adam West, right? We all know what Adam West looked like back in the day, real kitsch, kinda cool-looking product of its generation. And then you move into the George Clooney, Val Kilmer idea of what Batman was for the '90s. And then you move into the Christian Bale, you move into that era where Batman is re-imagined and re-invented for today's audience.

We look at Tomb Raider and think, the first Tomb Raider right through to Angel of Darkness, you look at that and think, it's a product of its time. I'm not saying it's an Adam West Batman, but it was a product of its time and it did very well, people loved it. Then you moved into the Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld, and again, it was a product of its time, very successful. But we've moved to a space where we believe that the audience, and I include yourselves there, you want to know where she came from. You want to feel a connection to our character that you've never really felt before. We're not trying to say this one's the best ever, this is going to be the best of all of them. What we're trying to do is create a very unique experience for this audience, and for you, for today. Make you feel like you're now connected to a character that you love in a very unique and different way. And most Batman fans look at Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan's Batman... They still look at Adam West... I'm a big Batman fan, right? I still love all the Batmans. There's still something cool about George Clooney being Batman. Kind of bizarre, but there's something cool about it. So it's not like we're trying to re-invent the wheel too much. It's more about, we just think this is an opportunity to do something very unique and new.


Q: They have been re-imagined, but the scenario that's surrounding the character remains very important in the Batman and James Bond storylines...Did you do that for Tomb Raider?

Karl Stewart: I think the James Bond analogy... James Bond had certain traits that, again, were relevant to his time. A lot of the study that I did with that character was looking at, when James Bond came out, a license to kill, traveling around to these exotic locations, and getting the girl at the end of the movie, that was again a product of its time. It was something about what he did. He drove a particular car, you knew a little bit about his background, he drank his martini shaken but not stirred. All these little things that make him iconic and that you remembered. But for this James Bond, they kept some of those traits, but they also looked at traits that they didn't need to have. He didn't need to get the girl all the time. Instead of getting the girl, they showed that all of a sudden he could fall in love. All of a sudden emotions came up that he never had before. Which made him sort of multi-dimensional as a character, where before he was one-dimensional. He was like, "James Bond, license to kill, I can do whatever I want." Those days are gone for them.

You look at James Bond today, it feels like there's more of a connection. So what we're trying to do with Tomb Raider is ensure that you still feel connected to the character, you still feel like I know the iconic moments... Now, I have to be careful not to spoil anything, because what we've shown so far and what you've seen is really just a snippet. We've broken up this game into bits or phases, where right now, it's about telling the journey of how she becomes stronger. We didn't want to start the journey where she has pistols and a shotgun... You're getting each of these elements along the way and you're starting to understand her a little bit more. We've really just scratched the surface of her even meeting people.

So we'll start to show a side of her personality. It's very key to us that we keep certain traits to make sure that it's the Lara Croft that we all love. We will start to see that come through. I can't speak for you, but the hair stood up on the back of my neck when, for us, the first time, playing this game, in the alpha phase you can really play the game from start to finish, and you get an hour or so in, and all of a sudden she jumps off a ledge into her first tomb. You stand there going, oh my God, she's discovered it for the first time, and she's a little bit in awe herself, because this is what she wants to do.

Those are the moments that we want people to go, “I remember the first time she ever came across a tomb.” So we want to make sure we still have those iconic moments, and I don't want to spoil too much, because that really is the joy of playing it for the first time, experiencing those things, and making the hair stand up on the back of your neck when you say, I will remember that. Much like the demo yesterday, when she had to kill that guy for the first time. That's a young girl... She just wants to go on an adventure. She didn't think that in a couple of days after setting sail on the ship, she's going to have a guy on top of her and she's going to have to shoot him. Our goal is to make sure you still have a relationship and a connection with the character, she will have traits that you'll look at and say, I see Lara Croft start to shine through.


Q: When you decided to start over with Tomb Raider, was it clear from the beginning that it would still be Lara Croft as the hero of the game, or did you also think about replacing the main character?

Karl Stewart: No, it was always very clear. It was always going to be Lara Croft, it was always going to be Tomb Raider. Nobody else would have come close. I don't see the point in doing it if it wasn't Lara Croft.


Q: Do you have in mind, when you show the trailers, how to avoid spoilers? For example, in the trailer we can see the helicopter, you can see that approach... How do you deal with that?

Karl Stewart: So what we try to do with spoilers is not very literal. In a sense that, I don't want to tell you the first time she does this, the first time she does that. Because that really spoils... But when putting together a trailer in particular... You watch movie trailers all the time. A great example is, you watch a Batman trailer or you watch a James Bond trailer, you get a full snippet of the movie. Prometheus is a great example. We watched the Prometheus trailer, and I'm going to a midnight showing tonight because I'm such a big fan of Aliens, but you watch that trailer and you go, I want to get that arc, I want to understand, I want to see all these different beats that make me feel like I'm going to put my money down and buy that.

If we were to only make trailers based on the concept of what we're showing right now, you'd only see one dimension. You'd only see that one thing, and that doesn't inspire you to want to know more. So we do put in snippets inside our trailers to show where we're going with it, so the audience overall can feel like, okay, I know that it's not just about a journey, I know she's going to get stronger, I know she's going to have a gun, I know she's going to fight. You see that helicopter, that just brings up questions. I'm not going to tell you what happens with the helicopter.

Putting together a trailer really is an art form, we spend a lot of time trying to manage...We brought on Ignition, Ignition Creative, based in LA, who I've worked with quite a lot in the last few years. They were the guys behind all the Batman trailers, the Prometheus trailers, they're not cheap, but when you sit down with them, and they put together a video game trailer on the same principles and strategies as a movie trailer, they bring to light things that we simply didn't think about. We had a large array of snippets from the game, they played the game from start to finish, they came back and said, you have your vision and here's how we can add to that. Here are the things we think you can tease from this and here's the story you can tell. Between us, we created that trailer. We believe you need to see some of that. You have no idea at what point it happens. We don't put it in chronological order, so halfway through the trailer means halfway through the game. It's more of a tease.

Read Part 2 of the Interview - CLICK HERE

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Transcript: E3 Community Ambassador Group Interview (2/3)

Q: With the movies, sometimes they'll put in the trailer one single scene right at the end, that's more important than it is in the movie...

Karl Stewart: Sometimes it's very hard to compare directly to movies, because... Knowing and working with a lot of movie people, I tend to find that their trailers are created in one of two ways. One is, if they know they have a really good movie, they try and hold back. They tease you just enough and they hold back. And you can generally tell that, they'll be up there getting their audience share points when they go and show it to audiences around the country, and they make a decision on how far they're going to push.

And in the same sense, if a movie's not trending too well, and they need to spend some more money, then they pick all the best parts of the movie for the trailer. You watch and think, oh, it's really good, and all of a sudden you watch it and...Wow. All the best parts were in the trailer.

For us, we brought in the best in the industry to work with us, we spent a lot of time trying to make sure we carried that story to the very end. You do have to be careful, we don't want to spoil anything. It kills me to think that I've sat and I've played the game maybe 25-plus times from start to finish, and after a while you just become desensitized. I hate that, the fact that I've played it so many times, I don't... I still appreciate that the audience hasn't had the chance to experience it. There's a very different way in which you experience watching a movie, versus when you play a game. When you play a game, you're in control. So I'm trying to make sure I don't spoil anything for you. Keep it so you pick it up and play it for the first time and the hair stands up on your neck... We tease a little bit, but I don't want to spoil anything.

 Q: I was curious, did you use an actress as a model for the face? How did you go about choosing what she looked like? I see a strong resemblance to a British actress, Rosamund Pike, from Die Another Day...

Karl Stewart: So the process we went through, and Brian was obviously talking in some depth about it... Brian and I started both around the same time, I kind of watched his process a lot. He went through iteration after iteration of what he liked in a character, and what he was able to bring across...To feature what we liked in the Lara Croft of yesteryear, and yet it felt fresh and relevant.

I think at one point he had lists and lists of girls and faces. It almost got to the point where he was like, I like her eyebrows, but I don't like her nose, I like that chin, I like that face... Brian actually went to work on bringing all of that together. If you watch the making-of, we did a making-of trailer for Game Informer, he literally started from scratch in that respect. It's the same process that Brian went through to create Lara in the first place. Brian is art director, we'll talk together, but there were some key people involved, myself included, who just every now and then locked ourselves in a room, brought it up on the screen and looked at all the different comparisons, and really went into the details of some of the smaller things. Like the M in her lips. One of the things that, over time, could become iconic, but still make it feel like Lara.

So it started from a blank canvas of, we like the eyes here, nose there, mouth there, put it all together. We will probably print an artbook for the launch, so in the artbook we're going to make sure that we show an evolution of where it started. Because there's still some concept art up on the walls of the studio, and it's pretty awesome to see how far we've come with a character that started as the Lara Croft of Underworld, and then taking the radical steps to a place where... You look at it and you say, really, we're trying to be something that we're not. And then you start dialing it back in, and bringing it into line, and then you get what we see today. It's not literally just, there's one girl, we like her face. It's an amalgamation of many different attributes. The funny thing is, it's not as easy as you think to take a pair of eyes, a nose, and then ears from different people and put them all together, because you get such strange-looking faces... You have to be able to blend them in order to get a new look.


Q: Every one could feel different, this one has bigger eyes, this one has a smaller nose, then they all have to come into agreement.

Karl Stewart: That's a good point as far as how far you can push the character. When designing Lara, it was very important that it's not just creating a character where you look at her and you say, she's beautiful. You have to be very careful that... We're putting this survival filter over everything, bringing the player to situations that you've never seen Lara in before. There's the great example of that first kill, we want you to feel like it's real. We want you to feel like it's going to actually happen. It feels like it's happening to a real person. Therefore we have to make sure that the character, you have a connection with that character, you feel like she's somebody who you could possibly meet. Because it heightens the sort of tension, heightens the personality, the closeness to the emotion of what's happening.

You still have to make sure that you can achieve that, have a character that allows you to achieve that. To have a caricature, somebody who... Let's say you put in Lara from Legend. We don't believe you'd be able to get the same emotion from that character, because she wouldn't feel as real. You'd feel like it was still the Lara that we knew. And she's still... She's beautiful, but... We know that she has very long legs, she's very slim, great posture, but it's trying to make you feel that connection... Therefore, there's a balance. You want to make sure the character feels almost like someone you could meet.


Q: Tomb Raider has always had great music that was really immersive. Can you tell us who the composer is?

Karl Stewart: You're right, Tomb Raider has always had awesome soundtracks. We've been very keen to make sure that for this game we have an awesome soundtrack, and we are creating a soundtrack right now that will be released at launch. You've seen most of my tweets, I love soundtracks. I listen to soundtracks 99.9 percent of the day, I don't listen to words in songs, and I've got every movie that I can think of that I love... So we're very passionate about soundtracks. With that, we made sure we've chosen the right team of people, including a composer, to be able to bring together this soundtrack. Again, we are getting very close to announcing this person...

What I'm trying to do, so you're aware for all your sites... As you know, most campaigns, all of a sudden out of nowhere you hear, oh, this person's the voice, or this person's making the music, this person's written the script, and there's no real...understanding of how the process happened or why it happened or how we chose that person. So what we're doing over the course of the campaign, starting in about, let's see... I don't want to put an exact date on it because it may change, but let's just say in the next month, we're going to announce who the voice of Lara is. And then from that, every eight weeks we're going to announce a major part of the game. So for instance we're going to announce who the script writer is, we're going to announce who the composer is, we're going to do that all the way through the campaign, so that we make a big deal about these pieces of information. We give it the prestige that it deserves. It's a very big franchise, and if you were to watch the making of a movie, you know that when a director comes on board or an actor comes on board, it's a big deal.

It's not about just the fact that we make the game and the studio, once again there's some phenomenal talent... What we're trying to do is present that in a way that allows us to show that it's not just that person or that talent, it's about a process that they've gone through to get to where we are today, and it's about bringing that to life in a very definable approach that you feel like... It allows you to see a part of the game and a part of development that you never imagined happened.

What we're doing with Tomb Raider, we're doing some very exciting, very unique and different things that we've never done at Crystal, let alone on a Tomb Raider game. We want to make sure that when we announce these types of things, whether it be the composer or the script writer, we do it in a way where... When you watch this or you read this you'll feel like that is something special, very special. We have some things that we've proposed that are very exciting. It's not just about, hey, here's the person. The composer has gone through extraordinary lengths to get the types of noises that you hear in the game, and then made music from them. I'm looking forward to watching them bring that to life. Expect it...We're going to do this probably over five different episodes, we're going to make the announcement on what that all means and how it's going to come to life in a few weeks. But in the next month, I'm very excited to be able to get our girl and bring her out there and show her off to the world, do some interviews with you all and chat about it. It's very exciting.


Q: Building on the question about the composer, and the influences for this game, was there any inspiration from previous Tomb Raider titles?

Karl Stewart: With a re-imagining, we always say the same thing, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And I've used that many times, actually I get people saying, explain that! [laughter] It sounds very extreme. But one of the key things with every aspect of Tomb Raider is we can't forget who we are. In making all these changes, we don't want to forget that we have an identity, we have a formula. Something that's unique. And in everything that we do, whether it be casting for a new Lara, getting the voice right, down to composing and trying to find the right music, we still looked back at what made Tomb Raider Tomb Raider. There were certain things that will become iconic in this and you'll remember... We'll have sort of throwbacks or an element where you'll think, I remember that, even small snippets. But what I will say is that this one is very fresh and very new. And it's more about the game that you're playing, about the world that we're building. And also about setting a foundation for the future of the franchise. We want something to become iconic that belongs to this game. We also want it to be familiar, yet different.


Read Part 3 of the Interview - CLICK HERE

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Transcript: E3 Community Ambassador Group Interview (3/3)

Q: It's a tall order...

KS: It is a very tall order. And I think, you know, again, getting back to...Looking at, for instance, the music of Batman, I listen to the music scores constantly, listen to film scores constantly. And I look at the Batman score, it's probably one of my favorites, because they made it iconic, they've made it their own, and some of the music that was in that has crossed over into many other movies and many other scores. Because it became so powerful, had such an identity for that movie, that people now look at that and go, that's Batman.

When you hear the trombones going BRRRM, BRRRM, you think, I've heard that before. Of course it gets overused in some cases. But for us we want to make sure that it's familiar, yet different. You'll still listen to it and say, I know certain things... And that isn't in a literal sense, where you'll here the chime when she picks something up or when she puts it in her backpack, those are all the small little things that you have to push aside and look at what becomes iconic.


Q: Do you go through puzzles, like in the past episodes? Or are you not making puzzles?

Karl Stewart: We've placed Lara in a world that has existed before her. In the sense that we have these scavengers, and we have the mystery around the island. They've created these contraptions...And Lara's been put in a situation where, unlike before, where she would go in and have to pull levers and move rocks and align stuff, this is very different. This is more about, you know, making it feel as real as possible and not as forced. So again, I have to be careful about saying too much about the puzzles, I don't want to spoil all the adventure of finding these things for the first time, but we've given some examples of our vision for puzzles, in that it becomes more about the physics-based. We're calling it smart, resourceful Lara, because really we want the player to feel smart. The players come in and look at this space and go, I can solve this, because you've taught me the building blocks and the elements of what it means to solve this puzzle.

Puzzles will come in a couple of different shapes and sizes. It's so hard to talk about without giving stuff away, I don't want to do that, but... What you've seen so far is really our goal in terms of, we want Lara to come in and have to solve it for herself, and sometimes it gets very complicated. I will say, though, that we're not moving back into the traditional Lara Croft, move the rock over, align the sundial, pull the levers and all the rest of this. It's more about the space that she's in, it a living, breathing space, and she has to figure it out for herself as she overcomes the challenges that she's in. There will be a couple of semi-traditional... But it's more about the environment and the world that she's in.


Q: I have a similar question, can we expect to see boss battles again, or is that going to be...?

Karl Stewart: Well, it wouldn't be a game without... Batman has to fight the Joker. You have to have that big climax, there's got to be something. That's not a spoiler, that's just reality... [laughs]


Q: But in Underworld, it kind of moved away from traditional bosses and into more puzzle-oriented, is it going to be kind of like that?

Karl Stewart: No, well... Treading lightly. You will still have to overcome different sorts of scaling and different impasses from the game. Yes, there will be a boss fight, or boss fights.


Q: You said that you wanted the game, I think, in general, rather than just specifically the music, to be familiar, yet different. Would you say that's been one of the hardest elements in re-creating the franchise?

Karl Stewart: Yes, very much so. As I said, with that vague analogy... When we went through a process, when we began looking at the re-imagining, the process first and foremost was, let's put Tomb Raider aside and let's look at the competitive landscape. The competitive landscape... Mainly to understand who we're up against, what's out there. We started to look at, of course, a whole host of games, from Assassin's Creed to Gears to Call of Duty, what made it so big... And we started to look at bringing all of those pieces together. Building this kind of concept, let's see what everyone is doing, let's take what's good there, what's good over there, let's bring it all together.

And all of a sudden you have this strange beast, this amalgamation that you try to... We kind of felt like, this is not Tomb Raider, this is not who we are. We have a formula and we have something which has been very unique for Tomb Raider for so long, let's push that aside for a second and look at that core pillars of what make Tomb Raider Tomb Raider. It starts with the puzzle-solving, the combat, and the exploration. In previous Tomb Raider games, obviously they were weighted very differently. 70-20-10 in some cases, with puzzles being some of the bigger picture and combat not really playing a part. We realized we needed to address that, we needed to rebalance it.

So for this new Tomb Raider, you still feel like the original pillars of Tomb Raider are there. We've still gone and taken things that we like, and also things that players have come to expect now from video games. I think you can't have a game without doing that, because when people play it, they play a lot more games than the one Tomb Raider, and they already have a sense of what's good and what's not. So we have to be careful of that, that we're familiar, yet different. That people who play Tomb Raider will say, this is a Tomb Raider game, I can see that, but it's different in the sense that it's fresh and it's for today. You can't end up with this strange beast that tries to fit a mold of, here's all the games that are great today brought into one. You still have to be very careful that Tomb Raider is Tomb Raider. It's very unique, it's got a formula, it's been around longer than most of the games we're competing against by far, and you have to be very honored to be able to take those attributes and bring it across into this kind of... Familiar yet different is one of the phrases that sum that up.


Q: Then another element of what makes it difficult would be being consciousness and the awareness of the legacy that you're handling, not wanting to take the wrong step...

Karl Stewart: Of course, because it's... Outside of having a great community like yourselves and a lot of fans, a lot of the journalists that Brian and I talk to, a lot of them over the last two days have gotten very passionate about what we're doing, and really gushed about the fact that they're so enamored with how we've gone back to tell the tale of a character which, in most cases, was the first game that they ever played. And when they start talking to us, they're saying, like, I remember the first day I played Tomb Raider. We have to be careful that we don't burst that bubble. There was a time when... Getting back to all those analogies about what Batman and James Bond were years ago, Tomb Raider was Tomb Raider. It was on a platform like the PlayStation or Sega Saturn. People remember getting those consoles and playing the game for the first time and getting emotionally involved, it was awesome. That was the one thing kinda changed their lives, and in some cases made them want to be into video games entirely. We can't forget that we delivered that at a time when other people weren't. And now, when making this, we want to make sure that we transcend that, and make sure that when they play this game, they feel like this is doing something... It's different for today, but they still get that hairs on the back of their neck, it's still the first time that they've played a Tomb Raider game feeling. It's still important to us that we don't forget who we are.

(Brian Enters)


Q: So, why is Lara only five-foot-three?

Brian Horton: She's not five-foot-three. So that's... She's about five-six. I had a conversation with Toby [Gard], and I asked, "How tall is Lara?" I really wanted to know. And he's like, "She's five-four." "Five-four. Really?" "Yeah, that's how tall she is." "I don't remember being that short." But what he did say is really important; he said that regardless of whatever height she is, you want Lara to be... Not necessarily the tallest woman in the room. She's supposed to have some underdog status. She's not supposed to be as tall as a man, but at the same time she's doing something a man could do. So in our version, she's about five-six. She's got a height that we feel is a good average height for a woman, but when she's next to a man, she is considerably shorter. We feel like that's an important attribute, that even though she is a stronger person, she isn't going into the battle with size and brawn. She does it with smarts, she does it with athleticism, she does it with her determination going forward. So five-six is what we're sticking with, that's where we're at right now, but the most important thing is that she feels as believable and real as we could possibly make her. Somebody could look at her and say, I know that girl. That's someone I know. But then she becomes someone amazing, someone that starts off ordinary becomes the hero that we all know and love.

Karl Stewart: Quote him. Five-six. That's it, forever.


Q: I have a question for Brian... What kind of reference and research has been done for this game, particularly...?

BH: We've done a lot of research. In fact, Karl and I went to Japan, to Visual Works, to work on the trailer, and that gave us a wonderful opportunity to take references... I went to Miko, this village, it's a forest village...

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Karl Stewart: Let me just say, going to Miko, when we told the Japanese team where he was going, they actually had to go and get maps and get translators and say, "Are you sure? Can we get you a car to bring you there?" "No, I'll just get a train, it's fine." That's like going hundreds of miles inland, off the beaten track

Brian Horton: It wasn't a short trip, but it was vital, because we needed to capture the authenticity of this place. So the island is fictional, it's not Japan, but I really wanted it to feel like it came from the DNA of Japan. The trees, the ground, you saw a little bit of footage where the shrines are on fire, those shrines were taken from Miko. As a source of inspiration. So we really wanted to make sure this was an authentic culture, something you could look at, and even though it's an amalgamation of myth and history, like a Tomb Raider game is, but it is grounded and it is believable. So we did a tremendous amount of traveling, and also extensive research on the web, making sure that anything we wanted to do was as believable and correct as possible. I think that's obviously super important, so does the whole team, and that goes all the way through the entire game.

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Have your Tomb Raider questions answered by Crystal Dynamics

The upcoming E3 event held in Los Angeles, provides Tomb Raider fans with the opportunity to have their questions answered by the games' developers. There are two interviews taking place on Wednesday 6th June.

The first interview is an hour long which will be recorded and transcribed. Crystal has requested that only a transcript of the interview can be made publicly online.  The second interview is more personal with a one-on-one recorded video interview. The recorded interview will contain questions that are frequently asked or eye catching ones.

To ask your question, you can either post in the comments below or send me an email at jadenmorretti(at)yahoo.com

There's no limit to the number of questions you can put forward, but due to time not all questions may be answered; I'm sure Karen will do her best though to attempt this. We'll be handing Crystal caffeinated energy drinks before the interviews and everything to make sure they speak fast! :P

Those who put forward a question which is answered will receive an email from me as soon as the transcript or video goes live.

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