Just what the hell was the development budget for this game?
I dunno, but I think most of it may have gone into Lara's TressFX hair.
Regardless, hopefully they'll make another Tomb Raider. Personally, what I think would make a cool but "new direction" for Tomb Raider would be having it be more of a survival exploration experience, combining aspects of Tomb Raider 2013 with the older style Tomb Raiders and games like Stalker. The way it could work could be similar to how the new game gets started, combined with La-Mulana, in that Lara gets stranded during an exhibition to the Bermuda Triangle, ending up in a sort of "netherworld" where Lara and her team have to build up a basecamp, gather supplies to keep themselves alive (food, water, a safe place to sleep), and explore the many different "themed" temples to gather items and artifacts that may help them get back home.
It'd need to be less linear and more open in that regard, although some direction would be required in that different regions would be accessible once Lara has the right tools to achieve access, like some sort of pseudo-Mayan grappling hook or a staff that turns Lara into a jaguar or winged boots that give her a double jump. As Lara finds more mystical macguffins she'd be able to venture further inland and come across the final temple, yet require just a few more objects from the previous temples, with said items being acquired through puzzles that Lara was unable to work with at the time. Very much in the fashion of La-Mulana only with a bit less of the Nintendo Hard fashion of figuring things out, by having Lara figure some of the stuff out by herself and letting you niggle the rest of it through by connecting the dots.
It'd be a lot to do in terms of programming and creative design, but in general the way around that is to work less on the graphical realism part and have more people working on the actual gameplay. In an age where the power of modern consoles is supposed to be in their processing power, big name industry has failed to heed the demand of making proper games rather than wasting money on tarting shit up. If your game isn't interesting, engaging or fun to play, you've failed and all those man-hours spent on making things graphically amazing have failed. We have to bring games back to the gameplay side of things where they belong, since we can't keep fooling ourselves in the pursuit of graphical realism, a goal we will never reach and will waste so much money just trying to get near enough.
[QUOTE=ironman17;43612544]I dunno, but I think most of it may have gone into Lara's TressFX hair.
Regardless, hopefully they'll make another Tomb Raider. Personally, what I think would make a cool but "new direction" for Tomb Raider would be having it be more of a survival exploration experience, combining aspects of Tomb Raider 2013 with the older style Tomb Raiders and games like Stalker. The way it could work could be similar to how the new game gets started, combined with La-Mulana, in that Lara gets stranded during an exhibition to the Bermuda Triangle, ending up in a sort of "netherworld" where Lara and her team have to build up a basecamp, gather supplies to keep themselves alive (food, water, a safe place to sleep), and explore the many different "themed" temples to gather items and artifacts that may help them get back home.
It'd need to be less linear and more open in that regard, although some direction would be required in that different regions would be accessible once Lara has the right tools to achieve access, like some sort of pseudo-Mayan grappling hook or a staff that turns Lara into a jaguar or winged boots that give her a double jump. As Lara finds more mystical macguffins she'd be able to venture further inland and come across the final temple, yet require just a few more objects from the previous temples, with said items being acquired through puzzles that Lara was unable to work with at the time. Very much in the fashion of La-Mulana only with a bit less of the Nintendo Hard fashion of figuring things out, by having Lara figure some of the stuff out by herself and letting you niggle the rest of it through by connecting the dots.
It'd be a lot to do in terms of programming and creative design, but in general the way around that is to work less on the graphical realism part and have more people working on the actual gameplay. In an age where the power of modern consoles is supposed to be in their processing power, big name industry has failed to heed the demand of making proper games rather than wasting money on tarting shit up. If your game isn't interesting, engaging or fun to play, you've failed and all those man-hours spent on making things graphically amazing have failed. We have to bring games back to the gameplay side of things where they belong, since we can't keep fooling ourselves in the pursuit of graphical realism, a goal we will never reach and will waste so much money just trying to get near enough.[/QUOTE]
So essentially, Tomb Raider: Platformer edition?
I was thinking more of Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara/Tomb Raider meets La-Mulana. Varied interesting environments, 3D Metroidvania-style exploration in a similar vein to Dark Souls, cool mobility-aiding items a'la Zelda, well-designed puzzles and secrets, and a general theme of exploring a strange and hostile world at your own pace. Thing is, last Tomb Raider I remember that allowed you to explore the "worlds" in the order of your choosing was Tomb Radier 3, where after the introductory India world, you could go to Nevada or Polynesia or London to find the pieces of the meteorite.
By the by, I'm kind of going on the assumption that a fair few of you know what La-Mulana is. For those that don't, it's very much a Metroidvania-style platformer with Nintendo Hard difficulty in which you explore an architecturally-varying collection of ruins in search of artifacts and lost knowledge whilst fending off beasties, solving puzzles, and challenging the eight massive guardians that reside in their parts of the ruins. I had a good deal of fun with it, but I spent half the time going back and forth between the game and the wiki, which I express no shame for since many of the things are obscured, and the clue to a puzzle in one area may be on the other side of the ruins.
Haven't finished it since the last two Guardians are kicking my ass beyond recognition and it's more a matter of personal skill than lacking the right items, since whilst I do like Metroidvania-style platformers like this game and Dust: An Elysian Tail (Dust being a fair bit easier and more akin to Order of Ecclesia meets Devil May Cry), I'm not exactly the kind of guy who is amazing at the kind of control one would expect in the NES Castlevanias, wherein you can't really change direction during the jump a'la Mario. Also you can't attack in 8 directions like Contra either, making combat a bit harder in terms of hitting stuff.
Back on topic, that's more or less my vision for what Tomb Raider could be, albeit with less of the more "vicious" elements of La-Mulana whilst retaining a similar theme of ancient culture mishmash in a strange hostile world.
[QUOTE=Flapjacks;43612209]Just what the hell was the development budget for this game?[/QUOTE]
Apparently approaching $100 million, according to [url=http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/27/analyst-tomb-raider-cost-100-million-needs-10-million-sales-to-succeed/]this[/url]
Crazy how games that cost that much need to sell at least 5 million copies to simply [i]break even[/i]
I really don't understand how this goes into the 100-millions. I understand wanting to get things done on a time, and making sure that the people on the project are the very best, but that's 1/10th of a billion dollars. I mean most of this has to be in marketing right?
I really enjoyed the game, even though it was pretty linear, I really like the direction they took the character. I hope they make a sequel and have it a little more open-world. Kinda like Far Cry 3..
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