Mirror's Edge Writer Penning Tomb Raider Reboot

[kitsuta]

Mirror's Edge Writer Penning Tomb Raider Reboot

Lead writer Rhianna Pratchett has been with the project since its "early inception."

The new Tomb Raider reboot has been in some hot water [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118203-Tomb-Raider-Dev-Rape-is-Not-in-Our-Vocabulary] lately. Things were said, fans were upset, said things were retracted - it was all a bit messy. In the wake of all that, some fans may be wondering how developer Crystal Dynamics will be treating the well-known and cherished protagonist Lara Croft. Now fans can get a better idea of who exactly will be controlling Croft's narrative fate; The studio has announced that Mirror's Edge writer Rhianna Pratchett is the lead writer for the game.

Pratchett - daughter of award-winning Discworld novelist Sir Terry Pratchett - has apparently been with the game "from its early inception," according to studio head Darrell Gallagher. He praised Pratchett's contributions to the game thus far, saying she "has brought a unique perspective to the project" and "a depth and credibility to Lara." Pratchett herself is a fan of the franchise, having grown up playing as Croft, and she described her role as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." She further stated that one of her goals for the project was "exploring how to make such an iconic character meaningful and relatable for gamers today."

Besides first-person platformer Mirror's Edge, Pratchett's writing credits includes several titles in the Overlord franchise, Heavenly Sword, and some contributions to Ubisoft's Prince of Persia. She was twice-nominated for Best Video Game Script in the 2008 Writer's Guild of Great Britain Awards, once for Heavenly Sword and once for the original Overlord. We'll see if her credentials will translate into a top-notch narrative for Tomb Raider when it comes out on March 5, 2013.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-12-mirrors-edge-writer-rhianna-pratchett-announced-as-tomb-raider-lead-writer]

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[Gabanuka]

Lets hope her father was a strong influence on her. If so then we have nothing to worry about.

 

[-Drifter-]

I feel a bit conflicted. Mirror's Edge's story (wow that sounds awkward) was a load of bland garbage, but I actually quite enjoyed Heavenly Sword. Or at least I enjoyed the narrative.

 

[Diana Kingston-Gabai]

I adored her work on the "Overlord" games, so this might actually get me on board...

 

[carnege4]

As long as they don't put some important thing in the DLC's, (Like they did with the Underwolrd DLC ONLY FOR XBOX, where they killed her archenemy) i'll be fine with the game.

 

[Suicidejim]

Lets hope her father was a strong influence on her. If so then we have nothing to worry about.

Although now I have a mental image of a Discworld-style Tomb Raider. It would certainly be . . . interesting.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Eh, Mirror's Edge didn't have that great of a story to me, so this is nothing that I am excited about.

 

[Owlslayer]

I loved Mirror`s Edge, tho to be honest: i did not love it because of the story.
But still, I´ve been really looking forward to this Tomb Raider game, it looks really interesting, a new take on the series.
And what are the odds that she was the daughter of the writer? I found that to be pretty cool, loved the Discworld books.
So, in conclusion: I´m a bit more interested in the game than before.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

in that case I expect another tepid narrative considering that ME, HS, Prince of Persia, and Overlord didn't exactly light the world on fire for their stories. Sorry Ms. Pratchett, but you ain't your dad in terms of writing talent.

 

[m19]

She was brought on late to Mirror's Edge and a lot of stuff never made it to the final games. Heavenly Sword is a better example of her writing.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Not that I doubted Crystal Dynamic ability to create decent stories to begin with (though one might argue that Legacy of Kain is mostly convoluted drivel), but I think this only strenghtens my belief that the story will be bearable at least and at best, hopefully, great. If nothing else it tells us that the character of Lara Croft is in the hands of a writer that is known for writing good female characters.

 

[Pyrian]

The Mirror's Edge writing strikes me as making the best of a bad situation. I couldn't follow it the first time I played through; there was just too much time between cutscenes, since I played it over many months. When I play it through in under two hours, it holds together a lot better.

But there's still some hilarious oddities, most notably the boat. Why is the assassin on the boat? They even kind of lampshade it in the stowaway scene: "What's on this boat, anyway?" "I dunno." I think they were sending a shipment of exploding barrels to Half-Life 3. Faith is therefore why there is no Half-Life 3.

 

[BrotherRool]

This makes me even more excited

in that case I expect another tepid narrative considering that ME, HS, Prince of Persia, and Overlord didn't exactly light the world on fire for their stories. Sorry Ms. Pratchett, but you ain't your dad in terms of writing talent.

Saying that, I've only ever heard good things about Heavenly Swords story, it was light in it's own way and no-one ever actually bought HS so there was never mass hysteria for it, but some of the people who have place it well as a good solid piece of work. It was a short launch hack'n'slash so it was never going to be MGS or FFX but it did it's job and did it much better than normal.

And there really is no reason to play Overlord apart from it's story. Do people really check it out for it's gameplay value? But again it's just meant to be light comedy, not setting the world on fire.

The only thing is, apart from some parts of HS, none of those were the serious character based stories that Tomb Raider is aiming to be, so it's a bit of an unknown how this is going to turn out. This is definitely a much bigger job than's been required of her before

At the very least, we know this is a person who takes enough care with what they're doing to suggest the biggest fears of some of the games critics are hopefully unfounded. At the very least Rhianna Pratchett isn't a mysognistic hack with a white knight complex

 

[Coreless]

I really like Mirror's Edge myself, I thought it had a lot of style and did exactly what is needed to to make it work well. The fact that I have gone back for multiple playthroughs and enjoyed it every time means she did something right in my book. if you were expecting some mind blowing writing with such a game I'd say your expectations are a little extreme. Haven't played any of the other games she has contributed to but I'm willing to give her a chance, perhaps this game will be the one were she finds huge success.

 

[DementedSheep]

ME and Overlord didn?t strike me as examples of great writing and POP was ok. I have heard good things about HS but I?ve never played it.

 

[weirdee]

let's just wait for this one game, and then judge her forever on it like the crazy people we are

 

[Arkley]

I take this as good news. Overlord was witty and clever, Prince of Persia's dialogue was good enough (though the story itself was pretty standard) and Heavenly Sword was very well written all 'round, save for one or two awkward lines of dialogue. Mirror's Edge was at least serviceable, and when that's the worst thing you can say of a writer, things aren't looking so bleak.

Ms. Pratchett is certainly not her father, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she is good.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

ME and Overlord didn?t strike me as examples of great writing and POP was ok. I have heard good things about HS but I?ve never played it.

HS isn't all that great; it's completely paint by numbers in terms of arcs and competence and is something you'll quickly forget about.