168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tomb Raider was a colossal hit right out of the gate, a fact that drove Eidos to create yearly releases for the franchise. Starting from 1996's groundbreaking original title, Tomb Raider would spawn a new console entry every year until 2000's Tomb Raider: Chronicles. Putting aside a couple of handheld releases, Eidos's franchise would not welcome a new console game until 2003's The Angel Of Darkness.
As one of the PlayStation 1's stand-out franchises, Tomb Raider was expected to extend its momentum into Sony's subsequent hardware. Alas, that did not happen, primarily due to Angel of Darkness garnering near-universal disdain from critics and fans. What led to such a disappointing final product? Here are 10 enlightening facts about Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness's development.
10 ꦉ Developed Alongside Tomb Raider: Chronicles 🤪
Despite nearly three years separating the 5th and 6th mainline entries in the series, for approximately a year, were simultaneously in development. While Core Design was working on a project called "next generation," which would eventually become Angel of Darkness, Eidos greenlit a final s🌜equel fo꧋r the PlayStation 1.
In response, Core Design split off into two teams so that both projects could be developed, albeit priority was naturally assigned to the more pressing PS1 title. The end result was a mediocre sequel in Chronicles and a lot of wasted time in Angel of Darkness's development.
9 🍌 Two Teams Merge
Once Chronicles released to average reviews, Core Design reunited its two teams to focus on Angel of Darkness. According to an with lead programmer Richard Morton, at this point, Angel of Darkness had to essentially restart from scratch.
Despite being in development for approximately a year, Core Design only had a basic story and some concept art to show for its efforts. Although the PS2 was already in consumer's hands, a next-generation Tomb Raider game seemed incredibly far away.
8 The Pe൩rils Of New ꦆHardware
While new hardware can be rather exciting, some growing pains are to be expected. During the early stages of Angel of Darkness's development, Core Design had to make do with "," as the team learned that many of the tools that helped shape the PS1 Tomb Raider games were no longer useful.
The team had grand aspirations and strived to put together a truly next-leve☂l experience, but producing for the ꦰPS2 slowed down the development cycle.
7 A Delayed Game Is Eventually... 𒐪
Unsurprisingly, Angel of Darkness's development was not proceeding quite as smoothly as anyone anticipated. Consequently, the game had to be . Originally, Eidos planned to publish the franchise's inaugural PS2 entry towards the end of 2002, presumably to take advantage of the Christmas season, but Angel of Darkness was pushed back to early 2003.
However, one delay proved to not be enough and Angel of Darkness would not be released until June 2003.
6 ...But A Rush﷽ed Game Is Forever Bad
Despite the multiple delays, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness still launched in a seemingly unfinished state, suggesting that it was rushed onto shelves before being fully cooked. Speculation suggests that Angel of Darkness was shippe💛d to meet the deadline of 30th June, as this coincided with the end of .
Following the game's release, Angel of Darkness'𝓰s developers stated that a was needed to iron out all the game's issues. Unfortunately, that would not come to pass.
5 💯 Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life
Besides the end of Eidos's financial year, there was another reason Angel of Darkness needed to be out around June 2003: 's sequel to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was set to drop around that time. The debut of a new Hollywood production based on the gaming franchise served as the i♌deal opportunity to release an exciting new game.
Amusingly, The Cradle of Life would go on to not perform particularly well at the box office, a fact on Angel of Darkness's poor reception.
4 Scale🌠d Back 🅠
A theme that defined Angel of Darkness's development is ⛎"ambition," albeit one that primarily succeeded in adding complications to an already messy production.
Putting aside the natural growth stemming from the jump to new hardware, Angel of Darkness implemented a secondary playable character, RPG elements, and focused even more on stealth, a mechanic the franchise had been gradually implementing following the success of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metal Gear Solid.
Due to time constraints, Core Design had to scale back certain components of the game, with the controls and mechanics suffering as a result. An entire level set in a was also remo💜ved.
3 🌃 Toned Down
Around a decade before 2013's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tomb Raider revamped the franchise in a modern and realistic light, Angel of Darkness was set to inject a bit of edge and maturity into proceedings. The game was marketed as Lar🌟a Croft's most adult-oriented adventure, presumably to complement the franchise's aging fanbase.
While the game's story and tone were edgier than the previous entries, Lara remained relatively unchanged in Angel of Darkness. This was not always the case, as t🀅aking the iconic protagonist down a darker route, to a certain degree.
2 That Soundtracꦰk ♋
Nearly every aspect of Angel of Darkness feels a few months short of completion, whichไ contributed to the game's negative reputation. That said, Peter Connelly and Martin Iveson's soundtrack tends to be spared any such criticisms; in fact, the game has some of the best music in the entire franchise.
Unlike the majority of Angel of Darkness's production, the soundtrack's development was relatively free of difficulties. Furthermore, Angel of Darkness features an orchestral score that was quite a departure from the previous games in the series, arguably making the soundtrack the only part of 2003's sequel that is worthy of a next-generation Tomb Raider.
1 Kurtis
Described by Richard Morton as his "" when it comes to Angel of Darkness, Kurtis was originally envisioned as a playable character who could blend mystical abilities with swordplay. In theory, this would have differentiated Kurtis from Lara; unfortu♏nately, Core Design simply did👍 not have the time to implement any of the character's special abilities.
Consequently, Kurtis plays like a carbon copy of the female protagonist who also happens to not be as fu𒉰n to use, which is saying a lot since Lara leaves quite a bit to be desired.