Studio boss Darrell Gallagher said that they were ”not clear in a recent E3 press interview” and that there’s no theme of ”sexual assault” to be found in the game; there is an ”undertone”.
Naturally certain media circles have jumped on the words from dev Ron Rosenberg who told Kotaku scavengers ”try to rape her,” describing it as a ”huge step”.
Darrell Gallagher however has clarified there to be no attempted rape scene, but does admit there’s a ”threatening undertone” to a particular dramatic moment where Lara is forced to kill for the first time, but it ”never goes any further” than what we’ve seen from E3 footage.
”We were not clear in a recent E3 press interview and things have been misunderstood. Sexual assault of any kind is categorically not a theme that we cover in this game,” said the boss.
”One of the character-defining moments for Lara in the game, which has been incorrectly referred to as an ‘attempted rape scene’, is the content we showed at this year’s E3 where Lara is forced to kill another human being for the first time.”
”In this particular section, while there is a threatening undertone in the sequence and surrounding drama, it never goes any further than the scenes that we have already shown publicly,” added Gallagher.
The footage of the attempted rape ‘moment of threatening undertone’ can be seen in the ‘Crossroads’ gameplay teaser that was released by Square Enix during E3. It’s certainly clear that the scavenger has every intention of the ‘unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse’ - the definition of rape.
Given how rabid US and UK media outlets are it’s no wonder Crystal and Square want to play it down. See the footage below and decide for yourself. Tomb Raider releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC March 5th, 2013.
