Shadow of the Tomb Raider: interview with Jason Dozois and Heath Smith, Narrative Director and Lead Game Designer

Koch Media, in addition to a proven Shadow of the Tomb Raider, allowed us to interact directly with two key members of the development team, Jason Dozois and Heath Smith, respectively Narrative Director and Lead Game Designer. The interview focused in particular on the evolution that Lara's character and, more generally, the brand went through.

Previous chapters featured a still inexperienced Lara. Will it be the same this time too?

Jason Dozois: From the narrative point of view, the character undergoes a considerable maturation, going towards an almost obsessive proactivity. However, the path has not yet come to an end, as Lara has to learn to be more moderate. This attitude of hers, in fact, will soon lead her into trouble. His aim is to chase the Trinity and get hold of an artifact: he will do whatever it takes to get it, driven by the belief that it is the right thing to do. What we want to teach is that insisting is not always the best way to react to a situation. Lara, in fact, makes mistakes and tries to remedy it, so the biggest challenge in this sense was precisely to make her more aware of the world around her.

Heath Smith: From the point of view of game mechanics, however, we have now reached the third chapter, and we want to show that the protagonist is becoming the real "Tomb Raider". For that reason we took a look at the old chapters, so that we could see which abilities were present there, but not in the most recent episodes. In this trilogy, in fact, Lara learns only when the situation requires it, she reacts much more promptly than in the past, but in the early stages of the game we see how she is more prepared from a physical point of view, now stronger and more resistant.

Does developing a game on Lara Croft make the job easier, or is it a difficult legacy to manage?

Jason Dozois: Both things. On the one hand we have a reboot, which brings with it the same themes as the original story. We already have Lara, of whom, for example, you already know how quick her jump is; in general we end up with already established game mechanics, and that is the easy part of the job. However, the difficulties arise in the moment in which you have to find the balance between what is new and what is old, since if too many new features are introduced, the players will find themselves disoriented and will not identify themselves with the title; on the contrary, in the absence of noteworthy innovations, they will feel that they are always dealing with the same game that never changes. What we focused on in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, therefore, it was to create a sense of familiarity, while still adding new elements. The development was also a challenge for the game mechanics, such as the race: we tried to make something that felt natural, since the title is a celebration of Lara's abilities. From the point of view of level design, we made sure that everyone could enjoy the same single player experience, now you need to be more careful to move, but there are several optional paths to move forward.

Since 1996 Lara has been a real sex symbol in the videogame panorama. How was your work from this point of view?

Jason Dozois: With Tomb Raider 2013, what we wanted to do was reimagine the character, and that's a process we went through step by step. Unlike Indiana Jones' choice of setting, Lara is a timeless character, so it constantly needs to evolve along with its sensitivity. Our heroine in the reboot is an intellectual character, someone very capable and who is preparing to become the Tomb Raider, but very different from the one born in 1996. Our aim is to bring something new to the public: we respect the past, but we also want to embrace the future. The characteristic of sex symbol typical of the original Lara Croft no longer belongs to the character since it is a different era, and also for this reason we have decided to introduce new weapons, such as the bow.

So in the future we will no longer see the classic double pistols?

Jason Dozois:  We have no idea, we will not know what will happen in the future!
Heath Smith: For the moment we intend to focus on this chapter and close the already started series in the best possible way.

How much did the last film influence the new chapter?

Heath Smith: Zero. Rather, it would appear that the film is inspired by Tomb Raider 2013.

Heath Smith: It is a completely different medium. A game takes a lot more hours of time, and what you do in a game you will never be able to do in a movie. Beyond the inspiration for the first chapter of the new series, there are not many points in common. We saw the trailer and we were like, "Oh, they're making the movie!". Furthermore, there are several differences regarding the timeline, in games this is more progressive and the setting is decidedly different.

What do you think of the words of the two developers? We remember that Shadow of the Tomb Raider will land on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC next September 14st.