Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Angel of Darkness

The Good
By the end of The Last Revelation, Croft was merely left for rubble, and in Chronicles, just a slew of memories. Thus, Murti Schofield was hired by Core Design to rewrite the series for a new generation. The result was Angel of Darkness, in which Schofield opted for a Gothic renovation of Tomb Raider inspired by both noir and Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen developed by Silicon Knights. The orchestrated score featured in Angel of Darkness sounds phenomenal, and was composed by Peter Connelly and Martin Iveson, and performed by The London Symphony Orchestra.

The Bad
Once Crystal Dynamics took over the franchise they would not continue with Schofield’s proposed sequel entitled The Lost Dominion. Sneaking around the Louvre like Solid Snake was a change of character for Lara Croft. Additionally, maneuvering Lara was made even more awkward with broken mechanics that were rarely reminiscent of the original Tomb Raider. Eventually, the player would discover the Tomb of Ancients beneath The Louvre. However, much of the game was spent conversing with characters in a Parisian Ghetto via dialogue trees straight out of Funcom’s The Longest Journey.

The Bottom Line
Due to the commercial failure of Angel of Darkness, Schofield literally burned the game’s manuscript, which inevitably prompted Crystal Dynamics to reboot Tomb Raider. To make up for Schofield’s proposed sequel, Eidos shoehorned novel adaptions such as The Amulet of Power by Mike Resnick, and two other novels that are loosely tied with Angel of Darkness. Despite the interesting direction and presentation, Angel of Darkness did not live up to its hype.