One of the original Tomb Raider creators has shared some details on a previous request from a Japanese publisher, which asked the team to give Lara Croft an anime-style redesign to make her more widely appealing.
According to Paul Douglas – who in his own words “co-created Tomb Raider half a lifetime ago” – publisher Victor Interactive wanted the team to change up Lara’s in-game look to “appeal more to a Japanese audience”.
The Tomb Raider creator said this redesign request included ideas for Lara to have “huge eyes/head etc”. Douglas added the publisher went so far as to send over a fax with some design suggestions late in Tomb Raider’s development. However, fellow Tomb Raider developer Toby Gard “didn’t really want to alter Lara”, Douglas said on his Bluesky account (thanks, @CoreDesign_com).
In order to keep both parties happy, a compromise was reached. This saw Tomb Raider’s manual and guide feature more “manga-style” characters, though Douglas is “not sure who did that render or illustrations”.
Back in 2021, Douglas shared some images of these characters, with a few extra background notes. At this time, the Tomb Raider co-creator said he believed Victor “just assumed altering all the models would only take a few days of work”. However, this was “early days of 3D… 🙄”, so would of course take considerable time.
“It started out as a request to change all the in-game and cutscene models.Then just in-game. Then just Lara. Then just Lara’s head…”
You can check out more of these manga-style Tomb Raider images below.
The original Tomb Raider is currently getting a from the ground up remake, known as Legacy of Atlantis. This will be released later this year, across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Steam.
Along with the remake, Crystal Dynamics is also working on the next Tomb Raider series entry with Amazon. It’s known as Catalyst, and takes Lara to Northern India. Earlier this week, Eva La Dare – known to many as Sheva Alomar in Resident Evil 5 – announced she was part of Tomb Raider: Catalyst’s cast.
