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whattheschmuck · 7 years

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Dear Crystal Dynamics,

For the next Tomb Raider game I would like to see several things happen:

**I had made a post like this on Twitter fairly recently and figured it would be prudent to share my thoughts on here as well. Please note that there might be several add-ons in this post (meaning that some of these weren’t on my Twitter list).

1.) Sam.

I have to say it right off the bat: Lara is a flat, one-dimensional character without a fun-loving foil there to interact with her, emphasize different parts of her personality, and help bring her to life. The human, relatable side of Lara is what brought so many new fans to the series in 2013, and without Sam we don’t really get to see that side of Lara. Crystal Dynamics, you should really reconsider throwing away all of that untapped potential.

2.) Tombs.

I want to see tombs that are central to the plot rather than being added into the game as optional extras. After all, isn’t the game named Tomb Raider?

3.) Puzzles.

Speaking of tombs, the puzzles need to be made more difficult and logic puzzles need to be incorporated rather than only having the standard physics puzzles. I want to be shown how brilliant and intuitive Lara is.

4.) Globetrotting.

I want to see Lara actually go globetrotting rather than recycling the “stranded and fighting for survival” trope again...and I’d like to add that it is possible to follow through on this suggestion and keep the current combat and leveling systems. All you need to do is provide us gamers with several regions/maps to explore (each having their own plot-centric tombs too, of course!). I don’t care if the map sizes are cut down to facilitate this--you can get rid of all the extra outfits for all I care! When we, as gamers, are told that Lara’s going to be globetrotting we expect to see actual globetrotting! Having a single Syria segment does not count, sorry.

5.) “Daddy Issues.”

NO. DADDY. ISSUES. Please! It’s such an overused trope in every TR-verse and it directly contradicts who the Lara you’ve created is! How is she supposed to make a name for herself if she’s stuck following daddy’s research and walking in his shadow? It’s a double whammy: it compromises the integrity of her character and strips her of her independence--which happens to be one of the traits that made her so awesome in 2013! Just let Lara be her own person instead of defining her by who her parents were.

6.) No Hero Cliché.

If you want to make Lara a reluctant hero then by all means go for it! But don’t make her a white knight. That’s not who your character is and it’s not who you’ve developed her to be. Lara’s a survivor who is setting out to make her mark, to find adventure. Focus on that and Lara’s own personal interests. If she has to stop a big bad cult of religious fanatics to get what she wants, so be it. But don’t make this a narrative of “Trinity is bigger than I ever imagined. They have to be stopped.”

7.) Better Villains.

The villains in Rise were weak and underdeveloped. Take Ana for example, she was so transparent that her betrayal didn’t even come as a shock to me...why else would you guys throw a shady character that we’ve never met before into the game if not to have her be an antagonist? Here’s the frustrating part: she actually had the potential to be a wildly complex and multidimensional character--she just didn’t get the development she deserved. I didn’t know what hers and Richard’s relationship was like, I didn’t know what kind of a relationship her and Lara had or how close they were, I didn’t even know if she was lying when she said “I loved Richard” or if there was actually some capacity for moral ambiguity there! I swear, this kind of waste should be criminal.

8.) Enemies.

There needs to be a better variety of enemies in the game than what we’ve seen so far. I mean, the very first Tomb Raider game had dinosaurs in it for Pete’s sake! And while I’m not saying you need to throw dinosaurs into the next game, what I am saying is that I’m tired of fighting dudes with machine guns and immortal warriors. You clearly want to delve into the supernatural with these games so do that! Create something wacky and terrifying yet still fun to fight because you pretty much have full creative freedom to do so here--your imagination’s the limit! And while you’re at it, please give us a real boss battle!

9.) Gameplay.

Bring back the days of boat chases down the canals of Venice. Add more variety to the gameplay instead of serving us yet another plate of mass slaughter. For example, let us play through flashbacks instead of making us watch them. Or better yet, Rise took place in Siberia and Trinity clearly had a lot of technology at their disposal, right? So how about a high-speed snowmobile chase across Siberia’s treacherous terrain? Variety.

10.) Stop Clumsy Croft 2K17.

Stop making Lara look like the clumsiest, most lucky bint in human existence. Literally everything falls apart beneath her; it’s overused and it actually has the complete opposite effect of what you apparently intend it to have. Instead of putting me on the edge of my seat, stuff like this actually detracts from the drama of the game because I’m more focused on making fun of Lara for being worse than Nathan Drake in terms of breaking pretty much everything in sight despite being a brilliant young woman who graduated from UCL, one of the top-ranked universities globally. Cut back on this and show us that Lara has gotten skilled and hardened since Yamatai. Show us that she’s the Tomb Raider.

11.) “A Hardened and Experienced Survivor.”

Shouldn’t Lara have retained something from the island if she’s supposedly more “experienced”? I’m not saying that everything has to carry over from the previous game, but I shouldn’t have to relearn how to recover arrows from corpses. I also feel like a “hardened survivor” would at least be prepared for an adventure with a pistol, survival knife, and some rope. Worried about people who are new to the series having a steep learning curve? Put in an optional tutorial sequence at the beginning of the game. Otherwise just take a leaf out of Uncharted’s book and combine the tutorials with the actual gameplay.

12.) Improved Melee.

I cannot stress just how much this needs to be addressed. Tomb Raider’s melee combat system is imprecise, clunky, and just not that effective in actual combat. Here’s the thing: we know that Lara’s a bit of a scrapper based on the fight she had with the Trinity thug in Croft Manor around the beginning of the game. So why can’t we get her to fight hand-to-hand like that in the actual gameplay? Even if she lost her fight with the thug, she certainly seemed a lot more effective in close-quarters combat in that cutscene than she ever has in actual combat with her axe(s). I get that using the climbing axe as a weapon is becoming sort of a trademark for reboot Lara, but it’s just not practical and I personally feel like it should be dropped as a weapon (besides which point she already has the bow as her signature weapon). Explain the melee change as being a result of her having taken self-defense classes following the events of Rise. Just do something.

Below the read-more link is a continuation of this list with things that are a little bit more of a personal preference than the things I’ve listed to this point. Feel free to look over them if you want!

13.) Dual Pistols.

There’s a legitimate canonical reason for this. As we all (hopefully) know by this point, Roth was not only a father figure to Lara but also her mentor. He taught her everything she needed to know for survival--including how to fight. Now, Roth also preferred to dual-wield pistols so considering that and the fact that he is the one who taught Lara to fight, it’s not unreasonable to assume similar fighting styles between them (when Lara’s not scavenging for weapons). Thus: Lara dual-wielding pistols. It’s a nice way to honor Roth’s memory in future games and it gives a neat (in my opinion) backstory to Lara’s iconic dual-pistol combo. CD, make this happen!!

14.) Companions.

The presence of helpful companions (for select missions) who can hold their own can only help enhance the overall gaming experience. Having companions (like Sam for instance) would give Lara some people to banter with and help bring her character back to life. Making Lara a lone wolf hasn’t done anything for her character, there’s too much missing without someone else for her to bounce her thoughts off of. At the very least I would like to see Lara communicating with other people on an earpiece. The main thing is to have her consistently interacting with others who actually know her in some way, shape, or form because that’s when she shines.

15.) Scars.

This is actually more important than I think you realize. Give me the actual scars from Yamatai, not this thing you’re doing where the only scar you gave her is the Vladimir-pistol-whip scar artistically placed beneath her right eye. It’s cool that you included the scar from her first kill but it’s not enough. Lara’s origin story was ugly, dark, and gritty but she survived. Why would you want to erase that? Lara’s skin is a blank page and her scars are the words printed on it to tell a story. That’s the point: they were originally supposed to be kept on her character model to tell the story of how Lara Croft became Lara Croft.

It looked like you were going to stick to that plan too when you released the first Rise trailer that featured her in therapy. Her hands were scarred, she was having flashbacks, she was anxiously foot-tapping...it was perfect. But then you eliminated all of that. Here’s the thing, Crystal Dynamics: having those “ugly” scars is what will make Lara beautiful because they showcase her determination, and they showcase how powerful she is to have received all of them and endured. They most certainly would not make her look weak if that’s what you’re afraid of. Give me the deltoid scar, give me the scars on her chest, and, while you’re at it, give me the left eyebrow scar on her turning point model. Give me all of it because I want to see Lara for the undeniable badass she is.

16.) PTSD.

Mental illness is not a weakness! Let me tell you something: I am currently on three different medications (Wellbutrin, Trazodone, and Vyvanse) and I know that doesn’t make me weak. In fact, it makes me infinitely stronger than all of you big shots making the calls on Lara’s character because it is incredible that I have made it this far when I have struggled with mental illness for eight whole years! It takes strength to force yourself to get up in the mornings when you feel completely dead on the inside. It takes strength to force yourself to work harder than all of your classmates in spite of this because you had an undiagnosed learning disability and were at a disadvantage right from the start. It takes strength to tell yourself better things are coming when you feel like you have nothing worth living for.

Just living life takes strength. So how dare you call mental illness a weakness! Being mentally ill makes you anything but that, and I think that PTSD would be a testament to Lara’s character and her inner strength. Scratch that, I know it would be and I know that her having PTSD would make for an incredibly compelling narrative that also addresses very real and very serious real life issues. Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, it’s a common human struggle that many people go through. What isn’t human is magically coming out of the entire Yamatai ordeal with your psyche completely intact. That right there is what will make you lose fans: suppressing Lara’s humanity and locking it in a fridge. Stop worrying about controversy! There is nothing controversial about a person going through normal person stuff. Nothing. Stop making excuses and just take a chance for once!

#Tomb Raider #Rise of the Tomb Raider #Lara Croft #Crystal Dynamics #Shadow of the Tomb Raider #?#wish list #Tomb Raider Reboot

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