Welcome to Part 2 of our
Tomb Raider Anniversary coverage. Crystal Dynamics game designer Jason Botta is ready to talk us through the changes the team has made to one of the original
Tomb Raider's most memorable levels - the Lost Valley. Bring your dino-hunting hat...
How has the Lost Valley changed from the original game?
Actually in the original game it didn't really work - it was actually supposed to be a valley with the open sky above but, because of the limitations of the hardware, lots of that part was in a cave. So the first thing we did, we opened it up to the sky - it changed the whole feel of the environment. But overall, the feeling of the space when you came in and the floor of this valley that was lush and green in contrast to the rest of what you'd been in before - you know, up until that point with caves and grey and a little bit of running water and what-not - and er the fact is all still there.
Above: The sky in the original game was pitch black and the broken rope bridge was wafer-thin
We've sort of condensed some of the gameplay in the outlying sort of caves around there - we still have caves and little areas off of the main valley, but we've put more gameplay into the actual structure of the valley itself, so you go in, you fight the T-Rex, you get to the temple at the end and go through it all and what-not - there's more pathing and exploration of the space itself within the main complex of the valley. So you're never... believing this interesting-looking, lush, open environment and then just going off into side caves - we wanted to bring more of the gameplay into the more visually interesting area.
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