page_title: Tomb Raider III
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Tomb Raider III / Development
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Ein Sony PlayStation Spielkonsole (SCPH-5001), mit einem DualShock Gamecontroller und Speicherkarte angezeigt. Dieses ist die JPG-Version. English: A Sony PlayStation (SCPH-5001), shown with a DualShock controller and Memory Card. This is the JPG version. Українська: Sony PlayStation (SCPH-5001), показана з контролером DualShock і картою пам'яті. Це JPG-версія.
context_page_description: Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft is an action-adventure video game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released for the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows platforms in 1998. Tomb Raider III is the third title in the Tomb Raider series and a sequel to Tomb Raider II. The story of the game follows archaeologist-adventurer Lara Croft as she embarks upon a quest to recover four pieces of a meteorite that are scattered across the world. To progress through the game, the player must complete a series of levels that involve solving puzzles, traverse dangerous locations, and defeating enemies.
  Tomb Raider III was built on an upgraded version of the Tomb Raider engine that was used by its predecessors. The engine offers better speed efficiency and new graphical features such as coloured lighting and triangular polygons, allowing developers to achieve greater detail and more complex geometry. The game was designed to be more in line with the puzzle-solving gameplay of the original Tomb Raider as opposed to the more shooting-oriented style of Tomb Raider II.
context_section_description: Tomb Raider III was developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive as a sequel to the 1997 title Tomb Raider II. Originally, Core Design envisioned Tomb Raider III as a "next generation" Tomb Raider game built on a new game engine with a new animation system. As artist Stuart Atkinson explained, the Tomb Raider team wanted at least two years to develop the game in order to genuinely advance the series, but the producers said that, as with Tomb Raider II, development would be completed in under a year because there was a strong consumer demand for it. For the original team, who had been living with the series' demanding development schedules for two consecutive years, "it was just too much", Atkinson said. As a result, a new team was brought together from other Core Design projects to build a Tomb Raider game for 1998, giving the original team more time to develop their next-generation project.
  Actual development on Tomb Raider III began in December 1997. At the time, lead programmer Martin Gibbins, who previously worked on the 1996 title Blam! Machinehead, was tweaking the old Tomb Raider engine to build a new game with a stronger emphasis on action and shooting. The new team considered Gibbins' additional work to the engine valuable and decided to use it as a basis for the 1998 Tomb Raider game, which was originally intended to be a spin-off called The Further Adventures of Lara Croft. However, as development progressed and more ideas were introduced, the company considered the number of changes enough to justify a complete sequel. The PlayStation served as the lead platform for the game, while the Microsoft Windows release is a conversion with slightly improved visuals. As a result, everything was built around the capabilities of the PlayStation hardware, with 16-bit palettes and high-resolution graphics, as opposed to the 8-bit palettes and "pseudo medium" resolution of the earlier titles, Core Design CEO Jeremy Smith explained.
  The upgraded engine offered better speed efficiency and new graphical features. While both the original Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider II used a grid system where developers could build the levels with a set of blocks, Tomb Raider III's system incorporated triangular polygons, allowing developers to achieve greater detail and more complex architectural structures. The triangles also allowed developers to implement the game's quicksand and rippling water features. The dynamic lighting system was improved with coloured lighting and better water reflection, making Tomb Raider III more atmospheric than its predecessors. The team also implemented new weather effects such as rain, snow, and wind. The game features more particle effects, offering more realistic explosions and smoke. All the textures used in the game were drawn in true colour before being rendered by the graphics engine, resulting in a better output quality.
  Tomb Raider III was designed more in line with the puzzle-solving gameplay of the original Tomb Raider as opposed to the more shooting-oriented style of Tomb Raider II. The levels were designed to be less linear than before with the goal of giving players multiple routes to complete each one. The game's five locations were decided upon before the plot was conceived. According to producer Mike Schmitt, the team opted to "just take a globe, spin it, and see where it lands, and whether it's an interesting location or not." Once the setting had been decided upon, a storyline linking all the locations was written. Lara's range of abilities was expanded with moves such as the duck, crawl, dash, and "monkey swing". The 1995 film Desperado was an influence on Lara's gun play and new moves. Developers initially considered the possibility of implementing hand-to-hand combat, but the idea was rejected because it would have required giving enemies new combat animations.
  A specialist was hired to enhance the game's artificial intelligence and give enemies more lifelike behaviour. In previous Tomb Raider games, enemies would simply run at Lara and attack immediately, whereas in Tomb R
caption: Unlike its predecessors, Tomb Raider III was primarily developed for the PlayStation console.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "SONY DSC", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSLR-A700", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:11:07 16:14:04", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "798", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3071", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "16", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:11:07 12:18:03", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:11:07 12:18:03", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "995723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "8", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "187/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "3/10", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Flash", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "75", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4140", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1900", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "112", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Hard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}