That was utterly humiliating for one-time superstars Core, made worse by Dark And Darker Gold being entirely justified. Worst of all though, the newcomers' reboot, Legend, was excellent.
The backstory goes something like this. Tomb Raider was released in 1996, and proved 'rather popular'. Lara Croft's face and sundry other body parts became as familiar to the world as Mario's moustache, and for a while, the world went crazy.
There were magazine covers and models; there were appalling music CDs and bad Angelina Jolie movies, and porn spoofs and at one point, Lara was even arrested outside Tesco—though that turned out to be a hilarious mistake.
Freeze! Game police! Put down the reboot and back away from the shop shelves! Unfortunately, there were also too many bloody games , rushed out to capitalise on the character while the gold rush lasted. They all played much the same, with the addition of typically one big new thing per game.
The second, "Tomb Raider II", added outdoor levels for instance, the third, dubbed 'Adventures Of Lara Croft' as if screaming for help, went for more complicated geometry and thankfully not this guy's ideas. No-one likes a micromanager, Croft. You want to take over, you go right ahead.
The Last Revelation tried having one complicated setting instead of lots of little ones. Chronicles took different spins on the character, from Famous Five-style childhood adventures to weird Matrix-style heists. They sold, but the series was noticeably off the boil and getting colder.
The Angel of Dark And Darker was Core's big play to change that. It was going to reinvent Lara Croft as buy Dark And Darker Gold a darker antihero. On the run from the law, up to her neck in secret societies, and stumbling into a story so complex, it would need a trilogy. Well, she stumbled! That's a start, right?
