20 years in the past this month, on a greater timeline, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was launched for PC and PlayStation 2, with the latter marking Lara Croft’s next-gen debut.
Avid Tomb Raider followers — together with my then 13-year-old self — rushed out, purchased it, performed it, and liked it. We praised its willingness to interrupt away from the method established by the primary 5 video games within the collection by together with daring new options like talent levelling, non-hostile areas the place you could possibly collect info and top off from vendor NPCs, a second playable character, and a plot you could possibly truly comply with, all with out sacrificing any of the shooty-shooty-puzzle-solvey goodness we would come to count on from the collection.
Sadly, we dwell on this timeline, the place what truly occurred is that Tomb Raider builders Core Design had been instructed at brief discover to tug ahead the discharge date for Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness from its deliberate 2003 Christmas interval launch slot to June of that yr, chopping off the final 4 or 5 months of the anticipated growth interval. The consequence was a recreation that was, in some ways, deserving of the descriptor “unplayable”.
The factor is, although, all the things I praised concerning the recreation in that first paragraph can also be true. Like its low-key emo restyling of Lara Croft herself, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness is difficult. It appears like no-one understands what it has been by means of, you already know?
Should you’re questioning what may possess a writer to demand a developer transfer up manufacturing by practically half a yr at brief discover, we have by no means heard a definitive reply, however a take a look at the timeline suggests one robust idea: that poor outdated AoD was basically handled as a advertising and marketing tie-in to the second Tomb Raider film, which was resulting from hit cinemas in August 2003. And, effectively, everyone knows that film tie-in video video games have a fame for being even worse than online game films, so seen by means of that lens, perhaps what occurred with AoD should not be all that shocking.
It is particularly galling in Tomb Raider’s case, although, to see a recreation rushed out to advertise the film that is allegedly using the wave of that very same franchise’s reputation within the gaming scene. To this present day, you will see followers of the movies arguing that The Angel of Darkness killed the Angelina Jolie movie franchise, solely to be hotly countered by followers of the Core Design-era video games who really feel that the push to make the movie the centre of consideration was the loss of life knell for the video games’ authentic continuity and the studio that created it.
Perhaps, if given sufficient time to cook dinner as a recreation sequel unbiased of the budding film franchise it spawned, The Angel of Darkness would have gone down in historical past as a significant turning level for Tomb Raider. However, to be trustworthy, I believe it will doubtless have been half-remembered as a mid-series recreation that launched some cool new concepts, however did not implement them within the optimum trend. That stated, the truth that a lot of its concepts had been picked up in later video games — particularly the 2013 collection reboot — is proof that The Angel of Darkness was, in some ways, arguably only a bit too far forward of its time.
Nonetheless, I do consider that we’d have seen it no less than pan out right into a trilogy as deliberate, and even these Kurtis Trent spin-offs do not feel an excessive amount of like castles within the sky if Core’s daring try at introducing a male co-lead into their motion franchise had been given the therapy it deserved. Significantly, search for AoD’s lead author Murti Schofield (who nonetheless passionately advocates for the sport to this present day) and have a learn of the backstory he wrote for Kurtis. Then inform me that character wasn’t actually born to steer a deeply early-2000s military-dystopian city fantasy collection.
Sadly, I do know Tomb Raider followers who have not even performed The Angel of Darkness who’ll swear up and down that it sucks. Which is true on a really technical stage, however nonetheless an unlimited oversimplification. So I might wholeheartedly implore anybody who loves TR, however passed over AoD, to sacrifice the £1/$1 it prices on Steam on the time of writing and provides it a go.
Mechanically, it is a pile of jank, and no quantity of sugar coating on my half goes to vary that; however by way of the power of its narrative, its dealing with of darker themes, and the introduction of some formidable new methods, it is probably one of the best of the unique Tomb Raider sextet produced by Core Design. It simply occurs to, you already know, be the worst in another methods.
Should you do not wish to choose the sport up on Steam, you can even get a bodily PS2 model on Amazon.