History Trivia / TombRaider

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb97-APu_-k In the first game's early beta FMV]] It shows that the story would have been somewhat slightly different, The scene seems to be after Greece where Lara found the second piece of Scion , when she combines two pieces a light show that her next stop would be the Easter Island instead of Egypt for the third and final piece , A journal in a boat showing the name of "Arther Hamilton Graves" who was original intended to be antagonist before Jacqueline Natla.

* TrollingCreator: A promo video for the third game ended 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.

* ScrewedByTheLawyers: The ''Tomb Raider'' comics series was a LongRunner, published by [=TopCow=] for 8 years in total, able to outlive Core Design and apparently the game series itself. When it was announced the franchise would be passed to Crystal Dynamics, obvious problems with licensing started. The original deal for comics was made when Core was still the sole holder of the rights - and now they are held by Eidos and leased to Crystal Dynamics, [=TopCow=]'s license wasn't even revoked - it was as if it never existed in the first place. Since the company wanted to continue their work and Crystal Dynamics' only requirement was ContinuityReboot to fit the new Lara, all remaining plot threads were wrapped up by the final, 50th issue and... that's how the series ended. Lawyers of both companies proceed to exchange letters for next two years, after which everyone simply lost interest. To salt the wound, years later Crystal Dynamics hired not [=TopCow=], but Creator/DarkHorseComics to provide {{Interquel}} mini-series for ''second'' reboot.

* 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 imaginary '''really''' bolstered sales, turning Miss Croft into an icon.

* 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.

* FanNickname: The "Unknown Entity" that possesses Amanda in Peru is commonly known as "[[FluffyTheTerrible Fluffy]]'' in the fandom.

* FranchiseZombie: [[VideoGame/TombRaiderChronicles Chronicles]] was thrown together on publisher demand for a quick buck.
** And then after that, there was [[VideoGame/TombRaiderTheAngelOfDarkness The Angel of Darkness]], which was almost a FranchiseKiller.
* InsistentTerminology: While being fully correct, use of the term "second reboot" toward VideoGame/TombRaider2013 is one of the easiest way to spot fans of original Core Design continuity.
* MoneyDearBoy: Jeremy Heath-Smith, the chief executive of Core Design, was very open about what motivates him to keep assembling new teams for yet another Tomb Raider game. On the other hand, he was always making sure [[AFatherToHisMen all the team members get fat and even slices of the money made by the studio]] for the harrowing work to push yet another game in 8 months. He is still fondly remembered by all the members of the staff.

* OneHitWonder: Anyone even remotely related with developing games within the franchise seems to share this fate.
** Core Design never managed to create any game even remotely as big as Tomb Raider. Their biggest success prior was VideoGame/ChuckRock.
** Toby Gard never managed to recreate his Tomb Raider success (however, his recent ''Here They Lie'' for PSVR is quite popular and praised). Paul Douglas never even ''made'' another game and nobody knows what happened with him since the late 90s - he just vanished without a trace. The remaining members of the original six also never managed to deliver anything else of any importance or popularity.
** Ever since picking up the Tomb Raider franchise, Crystal Dynamics seems to be stuck with it, [[CripplingOverspecialization not making any other titles at all for the past decade]]. And the record sales of VideoGame/TombRaider2013 make it highly unlikely they will ever manage to outdo them.
* 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.
* ScrewedByTheLawyers: The Tomb Raider comics series was a LongRunner, published by [=TopCow=] for 8 years in total, able to outlive Core Design and apparently the game series itself. When it was announced the franchise would be passed to Crystal Dynamics, obvious problems with licensing started. The original deal for comics was made when Core was still the sole holder of the rights - and now they are held by Eidos and leased to Crystal Dynamics, [=TopCow=]'s license wasn't even revoked - it was as if it never existed in the first place. Since the company wanted to continue their work and Crystal Dynamics' only requirement was ContinuityReboot to fit the new Lara, all remaining plot threads were wrapped up by the final, 50th issue and... that's how the series ended. Lawyers of both companies proceed to exchange letters for next two years, after which everyone simply lost interest.
** To salt the wound, years later Crystal Dynamics hired not [=TopCow=], but Creator/DarkHorseComics to provide {{Interquel}} mini-series for ''second'' reboot.

** 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.
** VideoGame/TombRaiderII had a new, slightly restructured team, but it was still a relatively small project run by the [[IncrediblyLamePun core]] members of original team, most notably Heather Gibson, the level designer of the first game. After it was made, the team disassembled ''itself'', with most of the people involved leaving and being done and through with Tomb Raider and with no ideas where to drive the series without taking a break to develop a new engine and think about new stories, thus...
** From VideoGame/TombRaiderIII to VideoGame/TombRaiderChronicles a completely new team was working on the franchise, with just minor parts of the previous team being involved. The increasingly toxic environment and lack of any cooperation with Eidos eventually led to the infamous decision to simply kill Lara off... which Eidos management decided to overrule when it was already too late to just cancel [[VideoGame/TombRaiderTheLastRevelation The Last Revelation]].
** 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. TombRaiderTheAngelOfDarkness suffered greatly due to all of this.

** In Crystal Dynamics first go, there were two different teams working on the games. One was responsible for [[VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend Legend]] and [[VideoGame/TombRaiderUnderworld Underworld]], while the other was tasked to quickly churn out [[VideoGame/TombRaiderAnniversary Anniversary]] as fast as possible. There was close to no interaction between the teams and it eventually led to the postpone of Underworld to rewrite the story and redesign large chunk of the game to make it all a coherent continuity - Natla wasn't even planned to appear in the game, while she ended up as the BigBad of it.

** Before Creator/SquareEnix took over and went for a complete reboot, Crystal Dynamics was working on Tomb Raider: Ascension, which was going to be completely a 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).
* WordOfSaintPaul: Andy Sandham, who was the level designer for VideoGame/TombRaiderIII and then the lead writer for [[VideoGame/TombRaiderTheLastRevelation The Last Revelation]] and [[VideoGame/TombRaiderChronicles Chronicles]], is probably the best source of trivia about Core's run of the series and providing explanations for numerous elements that ended up in or removed from the franchise. He wasn't involved in any way with making the original game aside watching Toby Gard play-testing it. He also quit the company before the development of [[VideoGame/TombRaiderTheAngelOfDarkness The Angel of Darkness]] really went sour. He became the unofficial spokesperson for Core Design after the company was dissolved and is highly respected for this both among fans and former colleagues.

** 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 - namly getting away from Lara's chest and focus on Lara as a strong female protagonist instead.

** Core Design never managed to create any game even remotely as big as Tomb Raider. Their biggest success prior was Chuck Rock.

** Toby Gard never managed to recreate his Tomb Raider success (however, his recent ''Here They Lie'' for PSVR is quite popular and praised). Paul Douglas never even ''made'' another game and nobody knows what happened with him since the late 90s - he just vanished without a trace.
The remaining members of the original six also never managed to deliver anything else of any importance or popularity.

*** Also, 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.

** Before things started to formalise with legal assistance, in the early days of the franchise, there was a project for comics series by [[FrancoBelgianComics Glénat]], green-lighted by Eidos. Dark Eons managed to have only single issue before it was quickly cancelled and removed from the market, as other branch of Eidos finalised their deal with [=TopCow=]. The single issue has considerably different tone, themes and atmosphere.
** Before Creator/SquareEnix took over and went for complete reboot, Crystal Dynamics was working on Tomb Raider: Ascension, which was going to be completely different genre and experience than any previous game. It was intended as SurvivalHorror game set in open world, with Lara travelling around in 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 disjoined from the rest (like the concepts of finding shelter and food).
* WordOfSaintPaul: Andy Sandham, who was the level designer for VideoGame/TombRaiderIII and then the lead writer for [[VideoGame/TombRaiderTheLastRevelation The Last Revelation]] and [[VideoGame/TombRaiderChronicles Chronicles]], is probably the best source of trivia about Core run of the series and providing explaination for numerous elements that ended up in or removed from the franchise. He wasn't involved in any way with making of the original game aside watching Toby Gard play-testing it. He also quit the company before the development of [[VideoGame/TombRaiderTheAngelOfDarkness The Angel of Darkness]] really went sour. He became the unofficial spokeperson for Core Design after the company was dissolved and is highly respected for this both among fans and former colleagues.

* CreativeDifferences: Toby Gard and Paul Douglas, respectively lead designer and lead programmer (out of team of just six working on the game), quickly went sick of how marketing of the game went and how they've lost almost entire creative control over the game they've made or the work on sequel they didn't even plan is such short time-span. They've 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 he was the lead designer and writer for [[VideoGame/TombRaiderUnderworld Underworld]], precisely to prevent the 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 - to stop being advertised as really primitive sexual fantasy and focus on Lara as a strong female protagonist instead.

* FanNickname: The "Unknown Entity" that posesses Amanda in Peru is commonly known as "[[FluffyTheTerrible Fluffy]]'' in the fandom.

* MoneyDearBoy: Jeremy Heath-Smith, the chief executive of Core Design, was very open what motivates him to keep assembling new teams for yet another Tomb Raider game. On the other hand, he was always making sure [[AFatherToHisMen all the team members get fat and even slices of the money made by the studio]] for the harrowing work to push yet another game in 8 months. He is still fondly remembered by all the members of the staff.

* OneHitWonder: Anyone even remotely related with developing games within the franchise seems to share this fate
** Core Design never managed to create any game even remotely as big as Tomb Raider. Come to think about it, they've barely managed to produce average games at all.
** Toby Gard never managed to recreate his Tomb Raider success (however, his recent ''Here They Lie'' for PSVR is quite popular and praised). Paul Douglas never even ''made'' another game and nobody knows what happend with him since late 90s - he just vanished without a trace. Remaining members of the original six also never managed to deliver anything else of any importance or popularity.
** Ever since picking up Tomb Raider franchise, Crystal Dynamics seems to be stuck with it, [[CripplingOverspecialization not making any other titles at all for the past decade]]. And the record sales of VideoGame/TombRaider2013 make it hightly unlikely they will ever manage to outdo them.
* 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 hightly efficient and it was Rummery who wrote the iconic room building tool, fundamental for the entire series.
* ScrewedByTheLawyers: The Tomb Raider comics series was a LongRunner, published by [=TopCow=] for 8 years in total, able to outlive Core Design and apparently the game series itself. When it was announced the franchise will be passed to Crystal Dynamics, obvious problems with license started. The original deal for comics was made when Core was still the sole holder of the rights - and now they were held by Eidos and leased to Crystal Dynamics. [=TopCow=]'s license wasn't even revoked - it was as if it never existed in the first place. Since the company wanted to continue their work and Crystal Dynamics' only requirement was ContinuityReboot to fit the new Lara, all remaining plot threads were wrapped up by the final, 50th issue and... that's how the series ended. Lawyers of both companies proceed to exchange letters for next two years, after which everyone simply lost interest.

* SexSells: The conclusion of Eidos execs when deciding how to sell a game about strong, independent and intelligent female protagonist. The quality of advertising for first three games really suffered due to this and soon after the first game release, Toby Gard and Paul Douglas ''quit'' out of pure disgust caused by the raunchy ads. On the other hand, this sex-backed imaginery '''really''' bolstered sales, turning miss Croft into an icon.
* TroubledProduction: The entire run under Core banner was one huge problem, from the very start of the series, partially due to the way how Core was (not) structured internally. Crystal Dynamics also had its own moments of this.
** VideoGame/TombRaider was made by a team of ''six'', while giving them free hand with whatever they wanted to pursue. After the game became a smashing hit, due to CreativeDifferences with marketing department of then fledging Eidos Interactive, Toby Gard, the main creator behind the game, and Paul Douglas, lead programmer, decided to quit, realising they have now no control over the character they've created nor the loud, sex-appeal driven marketing.
** VideoGame/TombRaiderII had a new, slightly restructured team, but it was still relatively small project run by the [[IncrediblyLamePun core]] members of original team, most notably Heather Gibson, the level designer of the first game. After it was made, the team disassembled ''itself'', with most of people involved leaving and being done and through with Tomb Raider and with no ideas where to drive the series without taking a break to develop a new engine and think about new stories, thus...
** From VideoGame/TombRaiderIII to VideoGame/TombRaiderChronicles a completely new team was working on the franchise, with just minor part of it being involved into making of previous game and all the original members either quitting or working as secondary programmers. The increasingly toxic environment of work and lack of any cooperation with Eidos eventually led to the infamous decision to simply kill Lara off... which Eidos management decided to rule over when it was already too late to just cancel [[VideoGame/TombRaiderTheLastRevelation The Last Revelation]].
** Due to the amount of work needed and granted time, 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, first year of work went on ''nothing''. While there were 40 people involved in the project, nobody was in charge and nobody was knowing what are 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 there were a lot of people hired from the outside to do this or that task, thus undermining the fraternity which allowed to manage all the previous projects without any supervisors. By the time the 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. TombRaiderTheAngelOfDarkness suffered greatly due to all of this.
** Core's big come back was suppose to be The 10th Anniversary Game project, utilising the new freerunning engine they were developing in the meantime. Due to corporate infights, licensing issues and legal battle, Core was eventually stripped of their own material, concept arts and scripts, which was all passed to Crystal Dynamics to work on it further, even if Crystal Dynamics wasn't originally even interested in the project.
** In first run of Crystal Dynamics, there were two different teams working on the games. One was responsible for [[VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend Legend]] and [[VideoGame/TombRaiderUnderworld Underworld]], while the other was tasked to quickly churm up [[VideoGame/TombRaiderAnniversary Anniversary]] as fast as possible. There was close to no interaction between the teams and it eventually led to the postpone of works on Underworld to rewrite the story and redesign large chunk of the game to make it all a coherent continuity - Natla wasn't even planned to appear in the game, while she ended up as the BigBad of it.

* ExecutiveMeddling: Hoo boy. Eidos saw the franchise as a moneymaking 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]].

* ExecutiveMeddling: Hoo boy. Eidos saw the franchise as a moneymaking 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.

* FranchiseZombie:''Chronicles'' was thrown together on publisher demand for a quick buck.
** And then after that, there was ''The Angel of Darkness'', which was almost a FranchiseKiller.

-->For me, it was really important that they did something with that money  —  bought a house, or invested it (...) I was always the advocate of "Let’s make as much hay as we can while the sun shines. And while that’s not, from a creative perspective, the best approach, it certainly is one approach when the sun is out."

* AlternateContinuity: There are '''eight''' main, different continuities within the franchise, three of which aren't even related with games. Some of them branch further. Some of them were running parallel to each other, making things really complicated. A bit of CanonWelding was done with VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend, but it only excalated the situation and was quickly dropped. [[BrokenBase Fandom took it all really hard]] [[FandomBerserkButton and any attempt to weld things together or declare something "main line" will anger hell lot of people]].

** 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 - to stop being marketed as really primitive sexual fantasy and focus on Lara as a strong female protagonist instead.

** In first run of Crystal Dynamics, there were two different teams working on the games. One was responsible for [[VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend Legend]] and [[VideoGame/TombRaiderUnderworld Underworld]], while the other was tasked to quickly churm up [[VideoGame/TombRaiderAnniversary Anniversary]] as quickly as possible. There was close to no interaction between the teams and it eventually led to the postpone of works on Underworld to rewrite the story and redesign large chunk of the game to make it all a coherent continuity - Natla wasn't even planned to appear in the game, while she ended up as the BigBad of it.

* AlternateContinuity: There are '''seven''' main, different continuities within the franchise, two of which aren't even related with games. Some of them branch further. Some of them were running parallel to each other, making things really complicated. A bit of CanonWelding was done with VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend, but it only excalated the situation and was quickly dropped. [[BrokenBase Fandom took it all really hard]] [[FandomBerserkButton and any attempt to weld things together or declare something "main line" will anger hell lot of people]].

* AlternateContinuity: There are '''six''' main, different continuities within the franchise, two of which aren't even related with games. Some of them branch further. Some of them were running parallel to each other, making things really complicated. A bit of CanonWelding was done with VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend, but it only excalated the situation and was quickly dropped. [[BrokenBase Fandom took it all really hard]] [[FandomBerserkButton and any attempt to weld things together or declare something "main line" will anger hell lot of people]].