Rewriting Tomb Raider
“Personally, I could do with less of it,” says Rhianna Pratchett. “I’m not sure what the thinking behind having quite so much is.”She’s talking about the shrieking. Over the course of the three-minute trailer for the new Tomb Raider, Lara Croft shrieks, screams, grunts, yelps and sobs 23 times. And that’s not even counting the panting. As the demo on show at this year’s Eurogamer Expo showed, New Lara can’t walk down a level path without wheezing. The phrase “torture porn” was bandied around when the trailer was released, but the game is more like porn for people who get turned on by asthma. Pratchett has previous experience of giving strong female game characters a voice, having worked on the scripts for Mirror’s Edge and Heavenly Sword. Now she is the lead writer on the Tomb Raider reboot due for release in March. But although she is responsible for the words that come out of Lara’s mouth, Pratchett has little control over the other noises. Read more…
