We’ll start to root for her in ways we ”might not root for a male” lead. Players ”don’t really project themselves into” Lara but rather choose to go along and ‘shield her’. It’s do or die time.
The team purposefully give us a vulnerable Lara and then beat her down, and then just when things are getting good they’ll break her all over again. She feeds our guardian instincts.
”When you see her have to face these challenges, you start to root for her in a way that you might not root for a male character,” Ron Rosenberg told Kotaku.
”When people play Lara, they don’t really project themselves into the character. They’re more like ‘I want to protect her.’ There’s this sort of dynamic of ‘I’m going to this adventure with her and trying to protect her.’” It’s all in a bid to have Lara Croft appear much more human and approachable than she’s been in the past.
”The ability to see her as a human is even more enticing to me than the more sexualized version of yesteryear. She literally goes from zero to hero… we’re sort of building her up and just when she gets confident, we break her down again.”
”She is literally turned into a cornered animal. “It’s a huge step in her evolution: she’s forced to either fight back or die,” continued Rosenberg. In one rather tense moment during the E3 gameplay footage Lara was held captive and had to fight off a would-be rapist. Crystal Dynamic aren’t pulling any punches.
”We wanted to make a girl that was somewhat familiar, yet had a special quality about her - something in the way her eyes look and her expression in her face that makes you want to care for her.”
”Her skin is still bare on the arms and there are going to be rips and tears on her clothes, but it won’t be about being revealing. It’s a way of saying that through these tough situations, there is a beauty and vulnerability coming through. I think that is sexy in its own way,” said the executive producer.
”We’re not trying to be over the top, shock people for shock’s sake,” he said. ”We’re trying to tell a great origin story.”
Tomb Raider releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC March 5th, 2013.
