God of War Director Joins Tomb Raider Team

[Marshall Honorof]

God of War Director Joins Tomb Raider Team

Cory Barlog, who helped weave three tales with Kratos, will now get a chance to work on another gaming icon: Lara Croft.

After you've murdered the gods, what's left to do? For Cory Barlog, director and storywriter for multiple God of War games, the answer is pretty simple: Hunt treasure with a sassy British archeologist. Barlog has kept busy as an independent agent since leaving Sony, but soon, he'll have a studio to call home once again. Crystal Dynamics, a division of Square Enix, has taken Barlog under its wing to potentially assist with the next entry in Tomb Raider, as well as an unannounced new IP.

"Cory's heritage in building industry-defining action adventure titles, together with our focus on delivering quality character-driven blockbuster entertainment, makes Cory a tremendously exciting addition to the team," explains Darrell Gallagher, studio head at Crystal Dynamics. While Gallagher does not detail Barlog's exact duties, he states that the studio's teams will "deliver against upcoming projects and future IP."

Whether Barlog finds himself working on the Tomb Raider reboot [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105937-New-Tomb-Raider-Raider-Reboot-Details-Emerge] or the new IP - or both - is anyone's guess, but he seems like the right man for the job. While God of War and Tomb Raider are fairly different series, they have both been seminal examples of action-adventure gaming in the past. Both Kratos and Lara Croft are strong characters who are instantly familiar to gamers, and fairly recognizable for the general public.

Previously, Barlog served as the writer and director for God of War II, the creative director for Chains of Olympus, and the story creator for Ghost of Sparta. Will the action-adventure skills he put to use for Sony transfer neatly to Crystal Dynamics? If not, at least he presumably has the requisite chain-blade skills to deal with unruly fans.

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[BehattedWanderer]

Ah. That finally answered my question. So, of the five directors of the God of War series, he oversaw the two weakest titles? Though, in fairness, he also apparently created the story for arguably the best story title among the five. So...hopefully he stays on the story side of things with Tomb Raider, and does something fitting with Lara.

Though, if the plot focuses around rescuing an angry, abandoned family member, I'm gonna call shenanigans.

 

[jurnag12]

Somehow I can't just help noticing that if I had had that guy's last name, I'd have switched the middle 2 letters around ages ago.
"So, what's your name?"
"Cory Balrog"

 

[Soviet Heavy]

So can we expect Lara Croft to turn into the largest Ham in gaming history? Because in God of War 2, Kratos had only one volume level, BRIAN BLESSED LOUD!!!!!!

 

[Roserari]

If that guy is responsible for turning Kratos in to an assclown, then he must stay the hell awaaaaaay from my beloved Tomb Raider.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Ah. That finally answered my question. So, of the five directors of the God of War series, he oversaw the two weakest titles? Though, in fairness, he also apparently created the story for arguably the best story title among the five. So...hopefully he stays on the story side of things with Tomb Raider, and does something fitting with Lara.

Though, if the plot focuses around rescuing an angry, abandoned family member, I'm gonna call shenanigans.

He's also the one who created the strongest GoW in terms of gameplay. Say what you will about the story of GoW2 and how it turned Kratos into a childish asshole, it had the most fantastic gameplay of the whole series. Same goes for the enemy variety and the environments.

 

[michael87cn]

Oh dear, this could get violent. Heh heh!

I can see it now, Tomb Raider on steroids.

Though to be fair, I don't actually think he'll badly influence the game.

 

[Canadish]

Well...he WAS in charge when Kratos turned into parody of himself...

Draw your own conclusions.
I weep for Lara.
(Saying that, I actually think the new game looks great.)

Are we allowed to even criticize developers anymore? Or are we still paranoid about hurting someone's feelings?

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Now I'm just imagining the next Tomb raider will be Kratos running around in a brown wig and a pointy bra, going to extremely important archaeological sites and laying waste to them all.

Actually that sounds awesome, please make that game instead.

 

[Lunar Templar]

meh

not like tomb raider can't get any worse at this point

 

[mixadj]

Somehow I can't just help noticing that if I had had that guy's last name, I'd have switched the middle 2 letters around ages ago.
"So, what's your name?"
"Cory Balrog"

Thank you I'm not the only one...

 

[Waaghpowa]

So can we expect Lara Croft to turn into the largest Ham in gaming history? Because in God of War 2, Kratos had only one volume level, BRIAN BLESSED LOUD!!!!!!

This is what I was thinking, minus the Brian Blessed part, which made me laugh.

I guess we can expect to fight hordes of enemies and lots of quick time events then?

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Ah. That finally answered my question. So, of the five directors of the God of War series, he oversaw the two weakest titles? Though, in fairness, he also apparently created the story for arguably the best story title among the five. So...hopefully he stays on the story side of things with Tomb Raider, and does something fitting with Lara.

Though, if the plot focuses around rescuing an angry, abandoned family member, I'm gonna call shenanigans.

He's also the one who created the strongest GoW in terms of gameplay. Say what you will about the story of GoW2 and how it turned Kratos into a childish asshole, it had the most fantastic gameplay of the whole series. Same goes for the enemy variety and the environments.

Heh. Enemy variety, in God of War? Lawls. They had almost the same enemy set from game to game. Unless you mean boss characters/creatures? In which case...hard to say? It's not like each game doesn't pull a handful of awesome mythic monsters for your deconstructive merriment. The Hydra and Scyla fights were better than the Colossus. Hercules was better than Theseus.

Even the movements--they were never as tight and fluid as they were in three or Ghost of Sparta.

 

[antipunt]

QTEs. Probably guaranteed eh?

 

[StriderShinryu]

This seems fairly late in the process to be bringing someone new into the TR reboot development. Maybe it wasn't going as well as it seemed to be.. or maybe he'll have little to nothing at all to do with the new TR game.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Well at the very least we can expect Lara to get a decent sex scene again.
<youtube=Dpel4g9eeWY>

Somehow I can't just help noticing that if I had had that guy's last name, I'd have switched the middle 2 letters around ages ago.
"So, what's your name?"
"Cory Balrog"

The fact that he didn't makes me question his judgement far more than what he did with God of War II.

Never figured out what the hell was the deal with Kurtis anyway. I mean, yeah, I got the backstory and everything, but I would have prefered if it was established that he died and not left to assumption. I hated that guy.

And no, I will not spoiler that because if you've played Angel of Darkness, you already know about it, and if you haven't odds are you aren't going to pick it up anytime soon.

 

[Woodsey]

Ah. That finally answered my question. So, of the five directors of the God of War series, he oversaw the two weakest titles? Though, in fairness, he also apparently created the story for arguably the best story title among the five. So...hopefully he stays on the story side of things with Tomb Raider, and does something fitting with Lara.

Though, if the plot focuses around rescuing an angry, abandoned family member, I'm gonna call shenanigans.

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Seems unlikely he'd go to Tomb Raider as a writer considering how long they've been working on it (and I'm pretty sure it's scheduled for release this year too).

Seems more likely he'd be working on an unannounced project.

Well...he WAS in charge when Kratos turned into parody of himself...

Draw your own conclusions.
I weep for Lara.
(Saying that, I actually think the new game looks great.)

Are we allowed to even criticize developers anymore? Or are we still paranoid about hurting someone's feelings?

There's a pretty large difference between criticising someone and what you're most likely referring to.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

So Tomb Raider reboot IS going to be a Quicktime Event Fest now, for sure!!! frakk