‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider’ Team Are Big Fans of the ‘Uncharted’ Games

With Shadow of the Tomb Raider now available, fans can experience the latest and perhaps greatest adventure in Lara Croft's gaming history. And you can tell that a lot of that was inspired by other great adventure games, including Naughty Dog's own Uncharted saga.

In fact, Rich Briggs, who serves as senior brand director for Crystal Dynamics, recently spoke with GamesBeat, talking about the inspiration behind the games, and how the team really enjoyed Naughty Dog's Uncharted games.

"One of the things that separates Lara is — partly her drive, partly that unique combination of skills I was talking about, the survival action lens we try to view everything through. We look at it as cinematic survival action. The tombs are also a big differentiation. We obviously draw inspiration from movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark. We have great respect for the Uncharted series. Those are games we love playing. I think that Lara has sort of defined this unique combination of being a brilliant archaeologist, having that fast-paced, movement-based combat, her ability to push beyond boundaries that would stop most people. Really, to me, it feels like a special combination. It makes her unique," Briggs explained.

He also went on talking about the transition from earlier games, including the award-winning Rise of the Tomb Raider. "This was definitely something that was very important to us. We knew that in Tomb Raider, Lara was trapped in a situation she didn't want to be in. She was trying to make her mark, and she discovered that she had what it takes to be a survivor.

You move forward to Rise of the Tomb Raider and our evolution of that was, OK, Lara now recognizes that she has a place in the world. She doesn't know exactly what it is yet, but she does know that she is uniquely qualified to fight against Trinity. She can go into these harsh environments. She has the skill and the drive, what it takes to survive. She puts herself in harm's way to take down Trinity.

"Now, we move forward to Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and since a lot of Lara's development and struggle had been about external forces pushing against her, we wanted to make her most difficult conflict an inner one. You raised this in your review, which I liked, talking about how Lara has to look inside and not become the monster that she's facing. This was really important to us. Lara being at the height of her skills, being the most confident she's ever been, gave us a lot of opportunity. It meant that Lara could now, instead of just being on this easy trajectory toward becoming the tomb raider, she has to decide what kind of tomb raider she's going to become."

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.