Tomb Raider Underworld Creative Director Speaks Out, Talks Quality Concerns, DLC

by Mike Bendel on January 12, 2009 @ 10:21 am

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Eric Lindstrom, one of the 30 laid off at Eidos-owned studio Crystal Dynamics, has spoken out on the development of Lara’s latest, Tomb Raider Underworld, for which he served as creative director on. In a post on the company’s official forums, he mentions that more time should have been spent polishing the game.

I absolutely wish we could have spent more time polishing Underworld, but yes, I’m very proud of the experience we made, if not the tech issues that shipped. But before blame gets too focused anywhere, I take my share of responsibility of aiming so high that we had a reduced ability to spend time on polish — it wasn’t all Publisher pressure. Good creative leaders need to scale appropriately, and I hope to do better at this next time.

Elsewhere, an anonymous poster who allegedly also works for Eidos, was less than conservative in his criticism. Said poster revealed that an upwards of 40 percent of the Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable content was in fact cut from the original disc.

A few asked if the DLC was part of the game itself. Ask anyone who is part of it and if they are honest they will tell you around 40% of the DLC was meant to be in the game itself, originally. But it was decided later on to take out those parts because they were expecting most sales on the 360 and the DLC the way it looked at the time was looking to be a bit ‘thin’. So we were asked to cut some parts out to be used in the DLC. Now this doesn’t mean that they will be in the DLC in the exact same manner as they would have been in if they had been used in Underworld. I have to stress that. It is adjusted. So if you would see it in the DLC you don’t necessarily think, hey this was taken out of Underworld. But it is. It took away a bit of the ‘epic’ thing of Underworld.

Further to this, he admitted that making the downloadable content exclusive to one platform was a “huge mistake,” as evidenced by poor retail sales of the 360 version.

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Around the web:

Read more: Tomb Raider Underworld DLC Hit With Unexpected Delay,  Tomb Raider: Anniversary 360 Dated, Detailed,  Buzz Monkey, Crystal Dynamics Working On Next Tomb Raider Title?,  Tomb Raider 8 Confirmed,  Eidos Wants Sub-8 Tomb Raider Underworld Review Scores Held Back

Comments
Kwipper says:

I have no sympathy for anyone that works on a Tomb Raider game without fixing the fucking camera. It's like 10 fucking years and the came has never been fixed at all.

Fix the fucking camera, then maybe I will start gaining the will to play another Tomb Raider game.
January 13, 2009, 2:09 am
PAinKiLLa says:

This was a great game it was missing some vital points like a croft manor where you could just mess about in, I personally have it on the ps3 but if they was to bring out dlc on the 360 that effected the plot in the sequel then I would not be buying the sequel as the new plot would not make any sense to me.

As for the cam angle Kwipper is talking about all I can say is "noob in these sort of games u control the cam". it is way easier to turn round with the analogue that controls the cam (it keeps the cam behind you).
January 13, 2009, 11:27 pm
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