While Crystal Dynamics is putting the finishing touches to its re-imagining of Lara Croft® in the newTOMB RAIDER®, a dedicated team at sister studio, Eidos-Montréal, has been working on the game’s first versus multiplayer mode. The mode breaks new ground for the franchise and delivers an experience that has only been made possible through close collaboration between the two SQUARE ENIX studios.
“It’s something we talked about when creating the initial design for TOMB RAIDER, but it was very important that there weren’tany distractions from our focus on delivering a great single player experience, so we parked the idea of creating multiplayer at Crystal Dynamics and looked to our sister studio, Eidos-Montréal,” said Darrell Gallagher, head of studio at Crystal Dynamics.
Stephane D’Astous, general manager at Eidos-Montréal added, “It’s been a privilege for the team at Eidos-Montréal to be a part of TOMB RAIDER. We built multiplayer from the ground-up, around the core theme of survival, using some of the key elements of the single player campaign and re-purposing them for a fast and exciting experience. It’s been an amazing project, one we’re immensely proud of and one which we really think gamers will have a lot of fun with.”
Multiplayer in TOMB RAIDER sees the island’s indigenous Scavengers pitted against the crew members from the shipwrecked 
Endurance. Set in the island’s hostile landscapes, players will use traversal and hunting skills from single player, plus trap-setting, to create fast-paced combat in a selection of versus gaming modes.
Gallagher concluded, “For me, the multiplayer has to fit and has to be fun or no one will play it. We’ve worked hard to make multiplayer fit seamlessly with the single player game and its key themes and we’ve play-tested the hell out of the multiplayer game. It’s working well and gamers are enjoying it. Now we’re all just eager to get TOMB RAIDER into gamers’ hands in March so they can experience the entire game for themselves.”
THE FINAL HOURS OF TOMB RAIDER: MULTIPLAYER EDITION
In the fourth episode of THE FINAL HOURS OF TOMB RAIDER, Zachary Levi goes behind the scenes on one of the most radical additions to the TOMB RAIDER franchise, the addition of Multiplayer.
Levi travels to Montréal to sit and chat with some of the key team members from Crystal Dynamics about the rationale and direction for this new feature, and introduces viewers to the team from Eidos-Montréal.
The team discusses the core focus to ensure they injected attributes from the single player with a multiplayer twist, such as team survival, verticality and the inclusion of environmental threats.
http://youtu.be/8BosSnj51Ms
Related Links
Official Homepage: www.tombraider.com
Official Facebook® page: www.facebook.com/TombRaider
Official Twitter®: @tombraider
Official YouTube®: www.youtube.com/user/tombraider
