Phil Chapman

Job: Lead Artist and Animator.

Our favourite quote: "Oh yeah and we were going to have a co-operative multiplayer version using a new character, Melissa Croft, which involved 2 player takes on many of the puzzles."

An interview with Phil Chapman
Phil Chapman talks about Core Design's Anniversary Edition.
Copyright Planet Lara 14th August 2007

<  1   |   2  >

How did the game come about? Did Eidos request a remake specifically for the 10th anniversary or was the game concept left to Core Design’s imagination?

During the making of Freerunning, about 3-4 years ago, I remember me and Rich having a talk about how good it would be to do a remake of Tomb Raider 1 for the PSP. We approached the ( then ) studio manager Gavin Rummery ( original Tomb Raider coder ) with the idea and he immediately took it and told us he had in fact been looking into the idea himself and had done a few tests on the PC to see if it was viable.

The timeline of events has been subject to much speculation among the fans. When did work first begin on Tomb Raider Anniversary Edition?

This was the next project to be done after the completion of Freerunning. However the company was going through a lot of turmoil at the time with SCI buying Core from EIDOS and the release of Freerunning was put on hold at which time the team was put to work on TR TAE.

At the time you were making this game was Toby Gard already working with Crystal Dynamics on Tomb Raider: Legend? Was it ever a possibility that he’d be working with your team?

I don't think there was ever a chance that Toby would return. I do know he saw our version of TR TAE a couple of weeks before it got canned and I was told that certain events, like the T-REX cut scene brought a wry smile....but I wasn't there so I can't confirm that.

A lot of fans are confused as to why the project was actually cancelled, it seemed as though it was almost complete. Was the cancellation because of the series changing developers? If so, why was the game commissioned in the first place?

Initially we were totally confused as to why it was canned also. Whilst we were making the game there was never any hint from EIDOS that Crystal were also making a version and it must have been developed in parallel. When the news came that our game was canned it was pretty devastating to the team. It was quite well advanced along its production schedule and everyone on the team was really happy with the game we had created thus far. Personally I felt very angry towards EIDOS, not because they canned us, that's something you learn to accept in this industry but because they had strung the team along for so many months knowing that they had Crystal producing their version and that they would eventual end ours...In my books that's pretty disgusting and unprofessional behaviour.

In the end I think all the decision making was political, EIDOS didn't want their biggest franchise being developed by a third party developer, which of course Core-Design had then become.

Other than the graphics, how does the Anniversary Edition differ from the original Tomb Raider game? Was it a priority for Core to stay as true to the original as possible?

Being real fans of the series ourselves we wanted to make it instantly recognisable to anyone who had played the original but with enough of a twist to keep players on their toes. So a room might look familiar but it would play quite different, after all game play has moved on somewhat in the last 10 years and we had to make sure that the game play would keep today’s gamer engaged as well as providing those moments of nostalgia.