Tomb Raider Legend Returns For Special Manga Box Art By Nagu

To celebrate twenty-five years of Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics have teamed up with a group of artists who were each tasked with bringing their own reimagined twist to the game covers we all love and grew up with.

As celebrations for the anniversary were delayed at the start of the year, throughout August, the studio was celebrating both "Tomb Raider Legend" and "Tomb Raider Anniversary", to ensure that each game received coverage. For Anniversary, we saw a reimagined take by Brenoch Adams featuring our favourite enemies. However, eagle-eyed fans may notice that we never saw the Legend piece. Complications arose with the piece, and an alternative artist was selected, but today, we finally have a finished piece! 

To celebrate the game, Crystal teamed up with Nagu to create a manga-themed design for Lara. If you play mobile games such as "Azur Lane", "Fate Grand Order" or "Arknights", chances are that you've seen some of her work already.

Her piece captures the fluidic movement of the game. "Tomb Raider Legend" is a fan favourite for many people, with the game's vast amount of diverse landscapes, stylish outfits, vehicle sections, and puzzles. It is just a bundle of fun! Nagu's artwork perfectly captures that energy and grace that Legend is associated with. The vines, which also played a big part of the game's multi-level transversal, neatly spells out "25" to honour the year. 

Talking about her work on the Tomb Raider 25th website, Nagu stated that "there is always something magical and unreal about being able to draw for a series you grow up with, and I am honored to be a part of the celebration! For this piece, I wanted to draw Lara swinging on a vine while exploring the ruins. I thought it would be nice for the vines to add into the energy of the illustration and to also represent the 25th anniversary. Thank you very much again for the opportunity and I look forward to seeing more of Lara's adventures in the future!"

You can continue to follow Nagu on Twitter and Pixvi!

Download the full artwork on the Tomb Raider 25th website, HERE! 

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Crystal Dynamics Reveals Collaboration With The Initiative On "Perfect Dark"

A bit of unusual but exciting news today! Crystal Dynamics has started begun a development collaboration with Santa-Monica-based studio, The Initiative. The two have been working on a reboot of "Perfect Dark", a title only announced at The Game Awards last year. 

The person in charge of The Initiative is Darrell Gallagher, who may also be a familiar name to those in the Tomb Raider community. Originally the Director of Art on "Tomb Raider Legend", "Anniversary" and "Underworld",  Gallagher became Head of Studio at Crystal Dynamics before his departure in late-2015. His tenure as studio lead oversaw the start of the reboot of the franchise in 2013.

The Initiative is also a fairly newly established studio, which only opened its doors in 2018. The original game that they're rebooting is a science-fiction, first-person shooter, originally developed by Rare, and published in 2000 for the Nintendo 64. A sequel was developed by the same developers five years after for Xbox 360, titled "Perfect Dark Zero". The latest game in the "Perfect Dark" series is a remastered edition of the original for the Xbox 360, which came out in 2010... So, it's certainly been a while! 

Speaking about the collaboration, The Initative stated on Twitter that, "The teams couldn’t pass up a chance to work together. We’re still early in development, but incredibly excited to use this unique opportunity to deliver on the vision for Perfect Dark!"

While we don't know to what extent Crystal Dynamics is providing support, we're looking forward to learning more further down the line and seeing what's next for the series!

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Tomb Raider Underworld Community Livestream Starts October 1st

It's almost time for the Tomb Raider Underworld livestream, signifying the end of Crystal Dynamics' month-long celebrations of the 2008 title. The broadcast will begin at 7am on Friday, October 1st on the Crystal Dynamics channel.

Following an introduction from the Crystal crew, the controls will be handed over to Lomadiah, Wawa_Cwoft, Hedteur, Terenete, and CalypsisGames. They will be exploring the Mediterranean Sea, Coastal Thailand, Croft Manor, Southern Mexico, Jan Mayen Island, Andaman Sea, and Arctic Sea. (It's a game filled with islands and seas!)

You can watch the full livestream over on Twitch, HERE, starting at 7am PDT (2pm BST / 3pm GMT) on Friday, October 1st.

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Hayley Atwell To Voice Lara Croft In Upcoming Netflix Series

[13th September 2021] At the start of the year, Netflix announced that they are working on a brand new Tomb Raider anime series in collaboration with Legendary Television and dj2 Entertainment. This month, we heard the exciting news that Hayley Atwell will be voicing the iconic heroine. 

Hayley Atwell is a name that a lot of nerds will recognize as the beloved Peggy Carter in Marvel's Cinematic Universe. Originally her character debuted in "Captain America" film before going on to star in the lead in "Agent Carter" Netflix series. In addition to her roles with Marvel, she has worked on "Conviction", "Black Mirror", "Doctor Who", "Howards End", and "3Below: Tales of Arcadia".

The announcement was made on the Netflix Geeked Twitter account. 

Long-time Tomb Raider fans may remember Gametap's animated series which celebrated the tenth anniversary of the series back in 2006. For the series, they worked with numerous artists, writers, and voice actors to create storylines with very different themes and styles for the iconic character. The previous series, and the love still generated by it, likely paved the way for the new Netflix to be greenlit. 

Best known for "The Witcher: Blood Origin" and "Red Sonja", Tasha Huo will be writing and producing the series, which will continue Lara's adventures following the reboot trilogy. 

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RaiderCast Turns To Legend & Anniversary In New Interview Collaboration

[8th September 2021] This month, RaiderCast was back with another exciting collaboration with Crystal Dynamics, this time celebrating the Legend and Anniversary.

Chris was joined by Neha (CM & Social Media Manager for Tomb Raider) as co-host for the forty-five-minute interview, this time with two fellow Crystal devs who worked across the 2006 and 2007 games.

In the interview, Chris and Neha talked to Jason Botta (Lead Technical Artist on Legend and Creative Director on Anniversary) and Noah Hughes (Director of Design on Legend and Anniversary). Both developers are also still part of the studio, now working on the newly launched Marvel Avengers. 

During the in-depth interview, Noah and Jason talk about their reactions to discovering that they would take on the next Tomb Raider, the influence of the Tomb Raider movies, why the team was wary to continue the Angel of Darkness storyline, and the new physics system. It's a really fantastic interview!
 
Check out the interview below or directly on YouTube HERE. 

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Tomb Raider Legend Community Artwork Showcase

We're just speeding through 2021! If you've been following the 25th-anniversary celebrations, you will know that August was Tomb Raider Legend month. To wrap up their month-long tribute, Crystal Dynamics published a new community showcase featuring all of the Legend-themed artwork, cosplays, crafts and more, that were submitted during the four weeks. 

Hundreds of submissions were made for the video, which spans over thirteen minutes. You can watch the full video below or on the Tomb Raider YouTube Channel, HERE! 

If you submitted something, where did you spot your creation! 

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Laura H Rubin Takes On Lara's Shadow In New Box Art Reimagining

[7th September 2021] To celebrate twenty-five years of Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics teamed up with a group of artists who would bring their own reimagined twist to the game covers we all love and grew up with. For September, the studio has been focusing on Tomb Raider Underworld (2008) and teamed up with Switzerland-based artist, Laura H. Rubin. 

Tomb Raider Underworld is considered to be one of the grittier of the series, featuring a deeper emotional depth than we had sometimes seen before, and with buried tombs with dark secrets. Darkness plays a huge part in the experience, from more realistic weathering on Lara's skin to the sometimes limited use of light for the atmosphere. For the piece, Laura represented Lara's dual personality, showing both the adventurer and her doppelganger but also representing that darkness, both in the feel of the piece and in Lara's look. 

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Talking about her inspiration behind the piece, Laura states on the Tomb Raider 25 blog that "the big challenge in reinterpreting the artwork for "Tomb Raider Underworld" was Lara in combination with her evil doppelganger. Both look almost the same, but are fundamentally different, and it also had to be clear that this is not a 'psychological doppelganger', (i.e. the dark side of Lara herself), but that this is an independent character in the game.

Inspired by old movie posters, I moved the two characters close together, creating a classic "adversary" look. However, I slightly offset them so that they are perceived as two different people. The stone fragment in the background shows various Norse runes, which refer to the main relic (Thor's Hammer) in the game.

So my goal was to depict two strong female characters: Lara Croft, as brave and courageous as we know her, and Lara's evil doppelganger, who watches her from the darkness."

You can learn more about Laura's piece, HERE! 

Full piece. Click to enlarge.

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