Fans who visited the official Tomb Raider site throughout March and April will no doubt have tried their hand at solving the Maya-themed puzzles being used to promote Shadow of the Tomb Raider. And to reward their efforts, Square Enix was kind enough to share some tiny clues about Lara Croft’s upcoming adventure. One of these clues was this piece of promotional artwork, which depicts a Pre-Columbian (most likely Maya) site hidden away in a tropical rainforest. The audio clips released as ... [Continue Reading]
One of the things I’ve always found intriguing about the Tomb Raider series is how often the game writers, developers, and artists draw on real-world mythology and folklore for inspiration when they’re designing ancient environments for Lara Croft to explore…and the exotic creatures that populate them. In previous instalments of my Gods & Monsters series, I looked at how Crystal Dynamics masterfully re-imagined the ancient Egyptian snake demon Apep and the ... [Continue Reading]
In episode 28 of Crystal Dynamics’ studio podcast, Tomb Raider Franchise Director Noah Hughes took the opportunity to talk a little about the mythology behind Rise of the Tomb Raider and Lara’s search for the legendary lost city of Kitezh. Here’s a short summary of the key points raised in the podcast: Why Kitezh? – The dev team wanted to choose a myth that hadn’t been explored much in movies or other media and they “liked the idea of a remote Siberian ... [Continue Reading]
The highly-anticipated Lara Croft & the Temple of Osiris has finally hit the stores and those of you who’ve already played the game will no doubt be familiar with at least some of the game’s key enemies and level bosses. In the last edition of Gods & Monsters, we had a look at the evil snake demon, Apep, who can be found wreaking havoc in the Tomb of the Silversmith. This time around, we’ll be taking a look at the female demon Ammit, the “Devourer of ... [Continue Reading]
In their second developer diary “Puzzles 101”, Executive Producer Scot Amos and Lead Level Designer Jeff Wajcs introduced us to another of Lara Croft & the Temple of Osiris’s growing cast of antagonists: the evil snake boss Apep. Like the playable characters Isis and Horus, Apep was modelled after the Egyptian god (or, more accurately, demon) of the same name and is commonly depicted in Egyptian art as a large snake or water serpent. This slithery demon came to be ... [Continue Reading]
Valhalla, Mjölnir, Asgard, Thor, Helheim... All of these names will be familiar to those who have played Tomb Raider: Underworld or are fans of Marvel Comics’ long-running Thor comic-book series. But if you’re longing to learn more about the Norse myths and legends that helped inspire the narrative of Underworld, check out the five fantastic websites and online databases listed below! 1) Wikipedia’s Norse Mythology section – Wikipedia has its faults but you ... [Continue Reading]
When I first played Tomb Raider 1 back in 1996, I never realized how many real-life Pre-Columbian (and other) artefacts could be spotted throughout the game’s Peru levels. Some of them, such as the Chimú bird carving, were already familiar to me as I had done some research on Peruvian art and archaeology for a GCSE Art project. But it wasn’t until I started working on this site and replaying this 1996 classic that I began to notice that the game’s graphics artists had also, ... [Continue Reading]
Back in March, I compiled a little list of online resources on Aztec mythology for those who wanted to learn more about Xolotl and the other gods mentioned in the popular co-op game, Lara Croft & the Guardian of Light. And now that the Egypt-centric Lara Croft & the Temple of Osiris is heading our way later this year, I thought it fitting to put together a list of some of my favourite online guides to Ancient Egyptian gods, goddesses, and religion. So here are my top 5 suggestions in ... [Continue Reading]
Guest blog by C.T. Murphy. Games are an excellent medium for modern storytellers to explore ancient cultures and their mythologies. While many series, such as Tomb Raider, do so with some sense of realism, it’s the games that re-purposed ancient mythological ideas into their own entities that first introduced me to a wider world of beliefs. For instance, the player ability to summon a flying feathered serpent capable of conjuring storms and lightning in Final Fantasy VIII gave me a single ... [Continue Reading]
In the co-op action/adventure game Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Lara and the Aztec warrior Totec find themselves in a race against time to stop Xolotl, the Keeper of Darkness, from destroying the world. Players may come across a number of relics throughout the game that are named after Aztec gods and mythological creatures, such as the Mask of Tezcatlipoca and Eye of Cipactli. But if you can’t tell your Cihuacoatls from your Huitzilopochtlis, you may find the following ... [Continue Reading]
In Tomb Raider: Underworld (2009), we follow Lara as she visits a number of Norse ‘underworlds’, scattered across locations including Mexico, the Mediterranean, and Thailand. Here she finds a series of artefacts allowing her to wield Thor’s legendary hammer Mjölnir, the key to opening the gates of Helheim, where she discovers the truth of her mother’s disappearance (following on from Legend’s plot). Unsurprisingly, the mythological and historical background of the game has been ... [Continue Reading]
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