Where do you see the Tomb Raider franchise going?

[THM]

I dropped the game on a ship graveyard. Because sttory was incomprehensive mess of deliberate attempts to create compassion on basis of suffering. "Oooh, look, Lara is hurt again! And again! And again! See how she suffers?! See?!! You sure like her at this moment a lot!!!" - shouts the game; "No, I don't, - I reply, - Because what you are doing is not only taking a great character and turning her into a perpetual victim, but also doing it in a way that is ridiculous."

This. Good God, so much this - which was why I dropped the TR2013 myself. I didn't get the game to have interactive torture porn, I got it because it's an action/adventure title with supposedly a good pedigree behind it. Christ, if I'd wanted just to experience her suffering, there are enough Rule 34 pics and fanfictions out there that'd scratch the itch. Especially now.

OT: I have no clue where the series should go next. Apart from 'Lara Croft is Nathan Drake with tits, and gets the shit kicked out of her by the Universe in general for no apparent reason'. They can drop that stuff.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I see it going into a wall. At terminal velocity. With a bunch of the usual AAA bullshit riding its wake to create a scene most spectacular once everything splatters and the shit goes flying through the air with the grace of a flaming tractor trailer.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

I dropped the game on a ship graveyard. Because sttory was incomprehensive mess of deliberate attempts to create compassion on basis of suffering. "Oooh, look, Lara is hurt again! And again! And again! See how she suffers?! See?!! You sure like her at this moment a lot!!!" - shouts the game; "No, I don't, - I reply, - Because what you are doing is not only taking a great character and turning her into a perpetual victim, but also doing it in a way that is ridiculous."

This. Good God, so much this - which was why I dropped the TR2013 myself. I didn't get the game to have interactive torture porn, I got it because it's an action/adventure title with supposedly a good pedigree behind it. Christ, if I'd wanted just to experience her suffering, there are enough Rule 34 pics and fanfictions out there that'd scratch the itch. Especially now.

OT: I have no clue where the series should go next. Apart from 'Lara Croft is Nathan Drake with tits, and gets the shit kicked out of her by the Universe in general for no apparent reason'. They can drop that stuff.

To be fair, if anything Nathan Drake is Lara with a dick. I would actually love it if Nu-Lara became more confident and a bit more like her old self. Victim-Lara was nice for one game as a prequel. A second game is pushing it.

 

[Redryhno]

I wouldn't bother. A lot of people seem to have a bone to pick with the new Lara. What actually happened is irreverent.

Probably because Nu-Lara doesn't really do much. She upgrades her 80-500 year old equipment with 80-500 year old junk and lets pretty much everyone but Sam die because she can't be bothered to be proactive about anything(and that's solely because Sam was important to the people on the island) without someone else doing the majority of the heavy lifting. Some people don't really like when a beloved franchise suddenly changes tone as drastically as TR2013 did.

OT: After seeing Rise, I'm going to have to say that it's probably going to be put on the shelf or completely forgotten. TR2013 was honestly just another cover-based shooter with a handful(and I do mean literally a handful) of varying puzzle quality that sometimes did or didn't follow the gritty real world physics the game decided did or didn't apply as the plot demanded(and even then you had to look really hard and backtrack to even get to them with the exception of like one because you didn't have an extra quarter of an inch welded onto your climbing axe that somehow appeared there to get to them). Much like the story of both games in general. The supernatural elements are sorta just dropped in at the middle and given a cameo near the end and you never see much other than dudes in rags with guns shooting at you for the majority of your time playing.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It's my understanding that somewhere over the last decade Lara Croft grew a ween, and everyone started calling her Nathan Drake, and he had a bunch of exciting adventures that people eventually got really apathetic about. By the time Lara returned, vagina intact, everyone was exhausted of sassy adventure serials, so it needed a twist, and the twist was "realism". Unfortunately realistic archaeology is about as exciting as watching paint dry, so they went for "gritty drama" and ended up with a bunch of furrowed brow hand wringing in a story about ancient lightning ghosts, and the entire enterprise devolved into off-tone rubbish.

The games look really nice and play well when they're not cramming QT events up your Tomb hole, but they lack soul. They lack anima. They feel very calculated and designed-by-committee. The writing is bad, Lara is a carefully crafted template instead of a person, and the games lack confidence. They're just wobbling around in larger shoes worn by older games, trying to act the part but never really striking the right pose.

 

[DementedSheep]

I wouldn't bother. A lot of people seem to have a bone to pick with the new Lara. What actually happened is irreverent.

Probably because Nu-Lara doesn't really do much. She upgrades her 80-500 year old equipment with 80-500 year old junk and lets pretty much everyone but Sam die because she can't be bothered to be proactive about anything(and that's solely because Sam was important to the people on the island) without someone else doing the majority of the heavy lifting. Some people don't really like when a beloved franchise suddenly changes tone as drastically as TR2013 did.

I not particularly a fan of the character but this is utter bollcks. She is not "proactive" is a few bits at the start.

 

[cikame]

More lifeless reboot sequels if anything, personally hoping for a return of actual Lara Croft.

 

[HybridChangeling]

I have the feeling that it will be rebooted or ignored right before it gets back to the roots. I don't like that idea but this has happened in the past and will keep happening. Game Studios are not happy unless the game gets them roughly enough money for a few islands, and she was perhaps a half island's worth with the last two game's sales. Which makes me sort of sad because apart from the most obvious flaws the series has been pretty solid.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

...personally hoping for a return of actual Lara Croft.

Y'mean the one you subjectively like the most? Gotcha.

OT: I adored the reboot (it needed more tombs/puzzles and less combat, but I've played TR since the original first came out, and this Lara's without a doubt my favourite, and Yamatai was a superbly crafted setting), but the first volume of the comic set off alarm bells, in that the series would blandly slide back into having Lara battle inane secret organisations/companies. I never gave a single toss about any of the groups Lara went up against in the classic era/s, and I never wanted that component to be brought back to a reboot that was ostensibly just a laser precise survival story.

...to be fair I've not finished Rise yet, but even that doesn't bode well; I loved the first game, but drifted away from the sequel only after a few hours (got to The Snowy Forest Bit - Siberia? - and the first optional stealth section), and since getting two other games I've not gone back to TR2 after several weeks.

Is it a better game to play than the reboot? Perhaps (I certainly appreciate the much slower pace, diminished focus on combat, and the fact that you can fully disable the cheat-oh-HUD vision modes), but to me that's not what really matters; I wanted something fresh to follow on from the survival arc, and so far it doesn't look like I've got that at all.

So I suppose my answer to the question is: I see the franchise heading in a direction I don't want it to - which seems to be par for the course when discussing the rebooted era, 'cept I loved the previous game and just wanted something more inventive in terms of character narrative.

 

[Mahorfeus]

I really liked the reboot, and though I haven't finished it yet, the sequel is shaping up to be in a similar vein. Maybe too similar, but it has innovated the gameplay a bit.

But...

There is a certain mood that they haven't been able to capture with the newer games though, one that had nothing to do with the original Lara. In the original you were in these dark, dank tombs, with long and drawn out puzzles that often required clever thinking, or the collection of the objects throughout the level. Heck, some tombs were several levels long. Not often did you see the light of day.

There were some enemies here and there, but very rarely humans, let alone the countless dudes with guns you fight in the reboot. I want to see reboot Lara grow more confident, maybe even jaded, and move more toward that style of gameplay. Granted, I don't know how well it'd mesh with the new games' combat centric gameplay, or with the survival aspect.

But... Square almost gives me the impression that they want to commit franchise suicide, with the way they chose to market Rise.

 

[Redryhno]

I wouldn't bother. A lot of people seem to have a bone to pick with the new Lara. What actually happened is irreverent.

Probably because Nu-Lara doesn't really do much. She upgrades her 80-500 year old equipment with 80-500 year old junk and lets pretty much everyone but Sam die because she can't be bothered to be proactive about anything(and that's solely because Sam was important to the people on the island) without someone else doing the majority of the heavy lifting. Some people don't really like when a beloved franchise suddenly changes tone as drastically as TR2013 did.

I not particularly a fan of the character but this is utter bollcks. She is not "proactive" is a few bits at the start.

And anytime you ever hear from another character. And when you're about to get a story upgrade. Or a new toy...

 

[happyninja42]

Rise of the Tomb Raider was an improvement over an already excellent game

That's a matter of opinion there, but sure I'll agree with it for the sake of argument.

with a more intricate story, more engaging gameplay mechanics (especially weapons and stealth).

I sure hope they make a better story than the first one, since I felt it was terrible. The mechanics were ok for the most part.

Where do I think it's going? If it continues to sell it will likely become a female version of Uncharted, but less humorous. I personally don't expect much out of the series other than reasonably made games with a mediocre plot (read excuse) to have Lara running around and grunting and moaning as she gets hurt a lot. But if they keep to the first game, then they will always have to find a series of support characters to introduce, in order to kill them off so that Lara can progress. "You can do it Lara!" *dies*

 

[thepyrethatburns]

It will probably be rebooted before the end of this console generation. Hopefully, Lara will not be put on a shelf next to Samus but it is always a possibility. As many have said, the problem with bringing Tomb Raider to market is that the Uncharted series exists. If the next reboot is to be successful, the creators have to ask two things:

1) What were/are the strengths of the Tomb Raider franchise?

2) What unique or superior gameplay features should our game have to make it stand out from games like Uncharted? (I add "superior" because a feature doesn't have to be unique if you can do it better than anyone else on the market.)

 

[Tanis]

It seems to be going the same way the original did.

The first game was pretty solid, the second game was more of the same, the third was more and more of the same and then...well, large drop in quality.

 

[josemlopes]

The inevitable Tomb Raider: Still Has Not Risen Quite Enough, is it not?

I liked the chain of small open areas that the TR2013 was, I liked how the game was quite polished and functional, but that's about it. I've chosen to completely ignore the story parts, I hated the "cinematic" sequences, and there was way too much shooting for my liking.

I will purchase the second game once it's heavily discounted and I will probably ignore most of the game the same way focusing only on tombs and stealth sections.

I had to force myself to read through the rest of your post when hitting this part. Why do you have to be like that? You're clearly a gamer who can string together an intelligible sentence... so why not give the story a chance? A single chance. If you're literally in this for the gameplay alone, then crap, I find that depressing.

The new Lara isn't that interesting since she's basically a discount Twilight Sparkle, but without enough colourful friends and awkward social situations to keep things interesting. She does not have any lust for treasure that I could sympathize with either. Just a nerdy girl that has power "because friends".

What.

The new Lara craves discovering history. It's her whole freaking story in RotTR. Sure, she wants to appease the memory of her father out of guilt for never believing his outlandish claims of the supernatural, but she was -already- a passionate archaeologist before she found there were actual spirit elements in the world. That's why she went to the Dragon's Triangle in the first gawd damned place.

"Twilight Sparkle"... I don't even... are you talking about her friendship with Sam? What's wrong with having friends?

Were you just in a bad mood when you made that post or something?

The game has a lot of legit problems, the way someone handles them varies from person to person.

For example, the game (only played 2013 so far) is way cinematic and lacks exploration of tombs, something that to me felt important, I liked being in this lost temple where no one else has stepped a foot in 700 years, its a cool feeling.

Either way, a good example of the cinematic aspect getting in the way can be seen right at the start of the game, basicly in this video at 12:00

Basicly that moment in the tree is one of those "balance yourself" minigames, something like when grinding a rail in a Tony Hawk game, just keep the balance and move forward, cool... but the thing is, you cant fall here, the game doesnt let you, and yet Lara will always slip once at the exact same point for everyone, its basicly a cutscene at this point. Seeing that shit so early on in the game killed whatever drama there was in most of these sequences as it showed that the devs never really put the player in much danger and worked mostly on just making it look like you were in danger. Style over substance.

Now, how much of that actually bothers the player is up to the actual player to figure out. For me it was a lot since I like my games to have multiple interesting gameplay elements that the player has to learn and combine as it goes, and the game just showed in that sequence that balancing yourself wont be one of them because it was just for show in that particular moment.

 

[Drakmorg]

Obviously the next entry will be another reboot. That's clearly what whoever's in charge wants, what with being dumb enough to release the last title on the same day as Fallout 4.

Personally I don't really care what they do with it either way. TR2013 is the only game of the franchise I've even played, and while I enjoyed it, it wasn't amazing and I won't be angry when they ditch this new direction.

 

[happyninja42]

Obviously the next entry will be another reboot. That's clearly what whoever's in charge wants, what with being dumb enough to release the last title on the same day as Fallout 4.

Personally I don't really care what they do with it either way. TR2013 is the only game of the franchise I've even played, and while I enjoyed it, it wasn't amazing and I won't be angry when they ditch this new direction.

I wanted to enjoy that game, however the game kept getting in the way of my enjoyment. I never played the old TR games....well, actually now that I think about it, I think I played most of one of them? I don't know which one, I just remember there was a scene where she was in China I think, and did a dive off a high place into water really far below. Since that's the only thing I recall, the game obviously didn't make any mark on me. So I have no real investment in old Lara, I just don't like the new one. The writing was lame, the characters were thin excuses to have tragedy tossed on Lara, as they were offered up as plot sacrifices. Hell even one of the characters in the game pointed out how prone people were to dying around her. It was all just, meh, with a few genuinely frustrating parts.

So, yeah, don't know where they will go with it going forward, and I don't really care.