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** Creator/CoreDesign were in the process of making their own remake of the original game (which was looking to be far more faithful than ''Anniversary'') before Eidos dropped them.

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** Creator/CoreDesign were in the process of making their own remake of the original game (which was looking to be far more faithful than ''Anniversary'') before Eidos dropped them. An alpha build of the game eventually leaked online and was further tweaked by the fans to make it playable, only adding fuel to the "what if" pondering that started right after ''Anniversary'' premiered.

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* TrollingCreator: A promo video from the '90s concluded with one of the developers, seated at his workstation, responding to a burning fan question: What does Lara look like without her clothes on? He turned to his computer, which had Lara's in-game model open in a modeling program, and after a drawn-out moment of anticipation, he.... turned the texturing off, reducing her to a wireframe.

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* TrollingCreator: TrollingCreator:
**
A promo video from the '90s concluded with one of the developers, seated at his workstation, responding to a burning fan question: What does Lara look like without her clothes on? He turned to his computer, which had Lara's in-game model open in a modeling program, and after a drawn-out moment of anticipation, he.... turned the texturing off, reducing her to a wireframe.wireframe.
** ''VideoGame/TombRaiderII'' has exactly the same cheat codes as the first game... except Lara needs to hold a lit flare. No flare? ''She will explode'' upon finishing either of the codes.
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He brought that in a 10th anniversary interview as the very final nail to quit, so the "likely" is not needed


* SexSells: The conclusion of Eidos execs when deciding how to sell a game about a strong, independent and intelligent female protagonist. The quality of advertising for the first three games really suffered due to this and soon after the first game's release, Toby Gard and Paul Douglas ''quit'' out of pure disgust caused by the raunchy ads.[[note]]There was an incident where Gard went to the marketing team to show them movie posters he made of Lara in order to get them to see her as a badass adventurer instead of an sex icon, but they brushed him off and one of the marketing members went "Who are you? Why are you trying to tell us what to do? You're a developer." This was likely the final straw that made Gard quit.[[/note]] On the other hand, this sex-backed imagery '''really''' bolstered sales, turning Miss Croft into an icon.

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* SexSells: The conclusion of Eidos execs when deciding how to sell a game about a strong, independent and intelligent female protagonist. The quality of advertising for the first three games really suffered due to this and soon after the first game's release, Toby Gard and Paul Douglas ''quit'' out of pure disgust caused by the raunchy ads.[[note]]There was an incident where Gard went to the marketing team to show them movie a posters he made of Lara in order to get them to see her as a badass adventurer instead of an sex icon, but they brushed him off and one of the marketing members went "Who are you? Why are you trying to tell us what to do? You're a developer." This was likely the final straw that made Gard quit.[[/note]] On the other hand, this sex-backed imagery '''really''' bolstered sales, turning Miss Croft into an icon.
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** Due to the amount of work needed, Core Design finally had enough time to move to UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 (which was planned as early as the release of the third game) and develop a new engine for it. Because the company had no real structure to speak of and Jeremy Heath-Smith, the main executive of Core Design, was constantly tied by different project at Eidos, the first year of work created ''nothing''. While there were 40 people involved in the project, nobody was in charge and nobody knew what were the goals - nobody even ''set them''. And out of those 40 people, none were involved in making of any of the previous games in any other way than secondary programming. Suddenly the full creative freedom went against the company. It wasn't helped that there were a lot of people hired from the outside, thus undermining the fraternity which allowed them to manage all the previous projects without any supervisors. By the time damage control started to be implemented, it was already mid-2002. Eidos, which needed Tomb Raider revenue to maintain solvency, set two absolutely unrealistic dates, then changed plans completely and released the unfinished game just to close revenue report in April 2003. ''VideoGame/TombRaiderTheAngelOfDarkness'' suffered greatly due to all of this.

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** Due to the amount of work needed, Core Design finally had enough time to move to UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 Platform/PlayStation2 (which was planned as early as the release of the third game) and develop a new engine for it. Because the company had no real structure to speak of and Jeremy Heath-Smith, the main executive of Core Design, was constantly tied by different project at Eidos, the first year of work created ''nothing''. While there were 40 people involved in the project, nobody was in charge and nobody knew what were the goals - nobody even ''set them''. And out of those 40 people, none were involved in making of any of the previous games in any other way than secondary programming. Suddenly the full creative freedom went against the company. It wasn't helped that there were a lot of people hired from the outside, thus undermining the fraternity which allowed them to manage all the previous projects without any supervisors. By the time damage control started to be implemented, it was already mid-2002. Eidos, which needed Tomb Raider revenue to maintain solvency, set two absolutely unrealistic dates, then changed plans completely and released the unfinished game just to close revenue report in April 2003. ''VideoGame/TombRaiderTheAngelOfDarkness'' suffered greatly due to all of this.



** A port for the UsefulNotes/{{Gizmondo}} was cancelled after the handheld's disastrous launch.

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** A port for the UsefulNotes/{{Gizmondo}} Platform/{{Gizmondo}} was cancelled after the handheld's disastrous launch.
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* SexSells: The conclusion of Eidos execs when deciding how to sell a game about a strong, independent and intelligent female protagonist. The quality of advertising for the first three games really suffered due to this and soon after the first game's release, Toby Gard and Paul Douglas ''quit'' out of pure disgust caused by the raunchy ads. On the other hand, this sex-backed imagery '''really''' bolstered sales, turning Miss Croft into an icon.

to:

* SexSells: The conclusion of Eidos execs when deciding how to sell a game about a strong, independent and intelligent female protagonist. The quality of advertising for the first three games really suffered due to this and soon after the first game's release, Toby Gard and Paul Douglas ''quit'' out of pure disgust caused by the raunchy ads. [[note]]There was an incident where Gard went to the marketing team to show them movie posters he made of Lara in order to get them to see her as a badass adventurer instead of an sex icon, but they brushed him off and one of the marketing members went "Who are you? Why are you trying to tell us what to do? You're a developer." This was likely the final straw that made Gard quit.[[/note]] On the other hand, this sex-backed imagery '''really''' bolstered sales, turning Miss Croft into an icon.

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* BabyNameTrendStarter: In English-speaking countries, the name Laura spiked in the late 1970s/early 1980s, died down, but popped up again briefly as "Lara" around the beginning of the 2000s in a resurgence attributed to the Tomb Raider franchise. Oddly, it doesn't seem that many gamers directly named their daughters after the character, but that the game's popularity simply caused the name's visibility to increase enough that non-gamers became more aware of it.
* ExecutiveMeddling: Hoo boy. [[Creator/EidosInteractive Eidos]] saw the franchise as a money making machine and they demanded a new Tomb Raider game be pushed out every year, quality be damned. This line of thinking eventually bit them in the ass when ''Angel of Darkness'' tanked in sales and reviews... for which [[NeverMyFault they've put entire blame on Core Design]]. Then they've restarted the entire cycle ''again'' with Crystal Dynamics, until they were bought up by Creator/SquareEnix.

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* BabyNameTrendStarter: BabyNameTrendStarter:
**
In English-speaking countries, the name Laura spiked in the late 1970s/early 1980s, died down, but popped up again briefly as "Lara" around the beginning of the 2000s in a resurgence attributed to the Tomb Raider franchise. Oddly, it doesn't seem that many gamers directly named their daughters after the character, but that the game's popularity simply caused the name's visibility to increase enough that non-gamers became more aware of it.
** Outside of English-speaking countries, both relatively obscure Laura got its resurgence, and previously unseen Lara started to pop up since the turn of the millennium. While in the case of Laura the influence is debatable, the fact that a previously unrecorded Lara started showing up definitely qualifies.
* ExecutiveMeddling: Hoo boy. [[Creator/EidosInteractive Eidos]] saw the franchise as a money making machine and they demanded a new Tomb Raider game be pushed out every year, quality be damned. This line of thinking eventually bit them in the ass when ''Angel of Darkness'' tanked in sales and reviews... for which [[NeverMyFault they've put entire blame on Core Design]]. Then they've restarted the entire cycle ''again'' with Crystal Dynamics, until they were bought up by Creator/SquareEnix.Creator/SquareEnix - who had ''their'' share of meddling into the dev cycle.
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* BabyNameTrendStarter: In English-speaking countries, the name Laura spiked in the late 1970s/early 1980s, died down, but popped up again briefly as "Lara" around the beginning of the 2000s in a resurgence attributed to the Tomb Raider franchise. Oddly, it doesn't seem that many gamers directly named their daughters after the character, but that the game's popularity simply caused the name's visibility to increase enough that non-gamers became more aware of it.

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Restoring examples cut and moved by a ban evader


* WhatCouldHaveBeen: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/TombRaider Has it's own page]]

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* WhatCouldHaveBeen: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/TombRaider Has it's WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Before things started to formalize with legal assistance, in the early days of the franchise, there was a project for a comics series by [[FrancoBelgianComics Glénat]], green-lighted by Eidos. Dark Eons managed to only release a single issue before it was quickly cancelled and removed from the market, as other branches of Eidos finalized their deal with [=TopCow=]. The single issue has a considerably different tone, themes and atmosphere.
** Lara was originally supposed to die for real at the end of ''The Last Revelation'' - Core Design wanted to kill her off as they were [[CreatorBacklash fed up with having to make a new game every year]]. [[ExecutiveMeddling Eidos Interactive had other ideas]].
** ''The Angel of Darkness'' was supposed to be the first game in a trilogy. [[spoiler:Karel]] was supposed to survive and be in Turkey, trying to bring back his fellow Nephilim. Kurtis's fate apparently depended on how much the fans liked him (i.e. he would come back if he was really liked, or he would not if he was really disliked). Of course, since ''The Angel of Darkness'' [[ExecutiveMeddling failed miserably]], the trilogy idea was scrapped and ideas attached to it along with it - [[OrphanedSeries and the original continuity was never continued]].
*** Also in the same game, the watch Lara can find in Francine's apartment was supposed to play a bigger role or at least have a sub plot of its own.
*** The planned trilogy was going to reveal that the Nephilim and Atlantean races were connected, and Natla was possibly going to be brought BackFromTheDead, thus connecting it to the very start of the series.
*** Jean-Yves was planned to be killed in the beginning of the game instead of Werner, and Werner instead was going to play a much larger role in the game.
** Creator/CoreDesign were in the process of making their
own page]]remake of the original game (which was looking to be far more faithful than ''Anniversary'') before Eidos dropped them.
** At one point developer Creator/TravellersTales pitched a Franchise/{{LEGO}}-themed game based of the franchise to Creator/EidosInteractive but due to a copyright dispute with Creator/LucasArts (complicated stuff), as well as the franchise not lucrative enough to warrant a LEGO game, the idea was scrapped.
** Before Creator/SquareEnix took over and went for a complete reboot, Crystal Dynamics was working on ''Tomb Raider: Ascension'', which was going to be a completely different genre and experience than any previous game. It was intended as a SurvivalHorror game set in open world, with Lara travelling around on horseback and fighting for her survival against hordes of supernatural beings summoned by ''something'' in that area. The game also had very detailed physics for bows... and flamethrowers. Many elements from Ascension were later retooled to be used in ''VideoGame/TombRaider2013'', which might explain why certain elements of the 2nd reboot feel a bit disjointed from the rest (like the concepts of finding shelter and food).
** A port for the UsefulNotes/{{Gizmondo}} was cancelled after the handheld's disastrous launch.

Changed: 51

Removed: 3101

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None


* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Before things started to formalize with legal assistance, in the early days of the franchise, there was a project for a comics series by [[FrancoBelgianComics Glénat]], green-lighted by Eidos. Dark Eons managed to only release a single issue before it was quickly cancelled and removed from the market, as other branches of Eidos finalized their deal with [=TopCow=]. The single issue has a considerably different tone, themes and atmosphere.
** Lara was originally supposed to die for real at the end of ''The Last Revelation'' - Core Design wanted to kill her off as they were [[CreatorBacklash fed up with having to make a new game every year]]. [[ExecutiveMeddling Eidos Interactive had other ideas]].
** ''The Angel of Darkness'' was supposed to be the first game in a trilogy. [[spoiler:Karel]] was supposed to survive and be in Turkey, trying to bring back his fellow Nephilim. Kurtis's fate apparently depended on how much the fans liked him (i.e. he would come back if he was really liked, or he would not if he was really disliked). Of course, since ''The Angel of Darkness'' [[ExecutiveMeddling failed miserably]], the trilogy idea was scrapped and ideas attached to it along with it - [[OrphanedSeries and the original continuity was never continued]].
*** Also in the same game, the watch Lara can find in Francine's apartment was supposed to play a bigger role or at least have a sub plot of its own.
*** The planned trilogy was going to reveal that the Nephilim and Atlantean races were connected, and Natla was possibly going to be brought BackFromTheDead, thus connecting it to the very start of the series.
*** Jean-Yves was planned to be killed in the beginning of the game instead of Werner, and Werner instead was going to play a much larger role in the game.
** Creator/CoreDesign were in the process of making their own remake of the original game (which was looking to be far more faithful than ''Anniversary'') before Eidos dropped them.
** At one point developer Creator/TravellersTales pitched a Franchise/{{LEGO}}-themed game based of the franchise to Creator/EidosInteractive but due to a copyright dispute with Creator/LucasArts (complicated stuff), as well as the franchise not lucrative enough to warrant a LEGO game, the idea was scrapped.
** Before Creator/SquareEnix took over and went for a complete reboot, Crystal Dynamics was working on ''Tomb Raider: Ascension'', which was going to be a completely different genre and experience than any previous game. It was intended as a SurvivalHorror game set in open world, with Lara travelling around on horseback and fighting for her survival against hordes of supernatural beings summoned by ''something'' in that area. The game also had very detailed physics for bows... and flamethrowers. Many elements from Ascension were later retooled to be used in ''VideoGame/TombRaider2013'', which might explain why certain elements of the 2nd reboot feel a bit disjointed from the rest (like the concepts of finding shelter and food).
** A port for the UsefulNotes/{{Gizmondo}} was cancelled after the handheld's disastrous launch.

to:

* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Before things started to formalize with legal assistance, in the early days of the franchise, there was a project for a comics series by [[FrancoBelgianComics Glénat]], green-lighted by Eidos. Dark Eons managed to only release a single issue before it was quickly cancelled and removed from the market, as other branches of Eidos finalized their deal with [=TopCow=]. The single issue has a considerably different tone, themes and atmosphere.
** Lara was originally supposed to die for real at the end of ''The Last Revelation'' - Core Design wanted to kill her off as they were [[CreatorBacklash fed up with having to make a new game every year]]. [[ExecutiveMeddling Eidos Interactive had other ideas]].
** ''The Angel of Darkness'' was supposed to be the first game in a trilogy. [[spoiler:Karel]] was supposed to survive and be in Turkey, trying to bring back his fellow Nephilim. Kurtis's fate apparently depended on how much the fans liked him (i.e. he would come back if he was really liked, or he would not if he was really disliked). Of course, since ''The Angel of Darkness'' [[ExecutiveMeddling failed miserably]], the trilogy idea was scrapped and ideas attached to it along with it - [[OrphanedSeries and the original continuity was never continued]].
*** Also in the same game, the watch Lara can find in Francine's apartment was supposed to play a bigger role or at least have a sub plot of its own.
*** The planned trilogy was going to reveal that the Nephilim and Atlantean races were connected, and Natla was possibly going to be brought BackFromTheDead, thus connecting it to the very start of the series.
*** Jean-Yves was planned to be killed in the beginning of the game instead of Werner, and Werner instead was going to play a much larger role in the game.
** Creator/CoreDesign were in the process of making their
WhatCouldHaveBeen: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/TombRaider Has it's own remake of the original game (which was looking to be far more faithful than ''Anniversary'') before Eidos dropped them.
** At one point developer Creator/TravellersTales pitched a Franchise/{{LEGO}}-themed game based of the franchise to Creator/EidosInteractive but due to a copyright dispute with Creator/LucasArts (complicated stuff), as well as the franchise not lucrative enough to warrant a LEGO game, the idea was scrapped.
** Before Creator/SquareEnix took over and went for a complete reboot, Crystal Dynamics was working on ''Tomb Raider: Ascension'', which was going to be a completely different genre and experience than any previous game. It was intended as a SurvivalHorror game set in open world, with Lara travelling around on horseback and fighting for her survival against hordes of supernatural beings summoned by ''something'' in that area. The game also had very detailed physics for bows... and flamethrowers. Many elements from Ascension were later retooled to be used in ''VideoGame/TombRaider2013'', which might explain why certain elements of the 2nd reboot feel a bit disjointed from the rest (like the concepts of finding shelter and food).
** A port for the UsefulNotes/{{Gizmondo}} was cancelled after the handheld's disastrous launch.
page]]
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** ''VideoGame/TombRaider'' was made by a team of ''six'', while giving them free reign with whatever they wanted to pursue. After the game became a smash hit, due to CreativeDifferences with marketing department of then fledgling Eidos Interactive, Toby Gard, the main creator behind the game, and Paul Douglas, lead programmer, decided to quit, realizing they had no control over the character they created nor the loud, sex-appeal driven marketing.

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** ''VideoGame/TombRaider'' ''VideoGame/TombRaiderI'' was made by a team of ''six'', while giving them free reign with whatever they wanted to pursue. After the game became a smash hit, due to CreativeDifferences with marketing department of then fledgling Eidos Interactive, Toby Gard, the main creator behind the game, and Paul Douglas, lead programmer, decided to quit, realizing they had no control over the character they created nor the loud, sex-appeal driven marketing.
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moving tropes exclusive to first game to appropriate page (or at least trying to)


* CreativeDifferences: Toby Gard and Paul Douglas, respectively lead designer and lead programmer (out of a team of just six working on the game), quickly got sick of how marketing the game went and how they lost almost entire creative control over the game they made or the work on a sequel they didn't even plan in such a short time-span. They would both quit Core Design and went their own ways. Toby Gard returned later to help as consultant for Crystal Dynamics and quickly managed to secure enough creative control over the games that he became the lead designer and writer for ''[[VideoGame/TombRaiderUnderworld Underworld]]'', precisely to prevent history from repeating itself.
** WhosLaughingNow: The marketing patterns Crystal Dynamics' games used for their initial run with the franchise was pretty much everything Gard always wanted from the series - namely getting away from Lara's chest and focus on Lara as a strong female protagonist instead.
** Arguably hypocritical, considering how LAU are the only games in the series with an actual bikini outfit for Lara, meaning she was more sexualized in the actual games.
* DummiedOut: A surprisingly large amount of content was cut out or rearranged for the [[VideoGame/TombRaiderI first game]], including many animations. As stated below, the very first prototype known of the game depicts Lara with a braid and sunglasses in an unknown tomb with several animals, and armed with tools like an electronic map, grenades, and dynamite, which are not present at all in the final game. Level filenames indicate that an entire area, Level 9[[labelnote:*]]which would have taken place between Sanctuary of the Scion and Natla's Mines, levels 8C and 10A respectively as per the game files[[/labelnote]], was cut out (this would explain why you gain two passport stamps rather than one upon entering Natla's Mines) - this level, or set of levels, would likely have shown all three Scion pieces in your inventory. Finally, Atlantis was going to feature more enemies, including a skinless fish and an ''Atlantean dinosaur''. Models for most of these still lurk within the game's prototypes.



* PopCultureUrbanLegends: For years, fans and media outlets claimed that Lara Croft's distinctively large breasts were the result of a coding error -- in which an attempt by Tony Gard to resize them by 50% ended up doing so by ''150%'' -- [[ThrowItIn that got left in]]. However, [[https://www.thegamer.com/tomb-raider-lara-croft-design-bug-myth-2/ a 2021 article]] by ''[=TheGamer=]'' investigated the rumor, and learned that it was actually a joke Garde made during an interview that got taken at face value, not helped by an AprilFoolsDay article from ''[=GameSpot=]'' three years later that repeated the claim but attributed it to a nonexistent developer.
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The original six working on ''VideoGame/TombRaider'' was, according to themselves, assembled from people who simply didn't have anything else to do at that moment and put under the leadership of Toby Gard. Special mention should go to Gavin Rummery and Neal Boyd, as it was their first game project ''ever''. Despite this the team proved to be highly efficient and it was Rummery who wrote the iconic room building tool, fundamental for the entire series.



** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb97-APu_-k In the first game's early beta FMV]] the story would have been slightly different. The scene seems to be after Greece where Lara found the second piece of the Scion, but when she combines two pieces a {{Hologram}} shows Moai head from Easter Island instead of Egyptian temple, implying the location of the third and final piece. Also, a journal on a boat shows the name of "Arther Hamilton Graves", who was originally intended to be the antagonist before Jacqueline Natla.
** Lara Croft was originally envisioned as a SpicyLatina character named "Laura Cruz". It was decided to make her British in order to appeal to the home market more.
*** And before that she was envisioned as a man, before Core started worrying about [[Franchise/IndianaJones how much they would be sued for.]]
*** Lara's outfit was initially designed to be an one-piece swimsuit with those iconic hot pants over it. Some early concept drawings even attempted to add a heart-shaped CleavageWindow to the mix.
** One mechanic for the first game was "Permadeath" that was scrapped early on.

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