20 Years Celebration Spotlight: Tomb Raider Chronicles

As announced a while ago, ROTTR Web will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Lara Croft and Tomb Raider by (among other things) walking down the Tomb Raider memory lane with you! In the spotlight today: Tomb Raider Chronicles!

Introduction:
The fith video game in the Tomb Raider series, Chronicles, is a direct sequel to Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation. The game was released in 2000 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Dreamcast and Mac OS and again developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It sold around 1,5 million copies worldwide.
The game starts just a few days after the events of The Last Revelation, after Lara was entombed in the Temple of Horus and presumed dead. A memorial service is held for Lara and after that three of her closest friends, Winston Smith, Father Patrick Dunstan and Charles Kane, remember her greatest adventures. The first adventure is set in Rome, the second shows Lara on her hunt for the Spear of Destiny. The third adventure is set in Lara’s childhood on Black Isle of Ireland and the fourth and final expedition shows Lara infiltrating a high-tech complex owned by none other than Werner von Croy, looking for the Iris artefact.

Music:
The Tomb Raider Chronicles soundtrack was composed by Peter Connelly. Feel free to listen to the full OST below!

Did you know..? Trivia Facts:
– Chronicles marks the first appearance of Zip.
– The last Tomb Raider game made for Playstation 1 and Sega Dreamcast.
– If you collect all 36 golden roses then you unlock special features on this game.
– This is the first Tomb Raider game in which Winston Smith has a speaking role.
– This game explains how Lara got The Eye of Iris artefact.
– The regions around the world Lara explores are: Rome, Italy, Russia, Ireland, and New York City, USA.
– The Spear of Destiny is one of the few artifacts in the Tomb Raider series to be based on Christian beliefs.
– During the Russia base opening scene Charles Kane told Lara that the base she’s about to sneak into is called The Zapadnaya Litsa port. Which is a real life Russian submarine base located on the Kola Peninsula, near the border of Finland, above the Arctic Circle on the Barents Sea.
– Although the game does not specify the location of the final level, it clearly indicates that VCI skyscraper is located in New York City since the World Trade Center can be seen in the background scenery, looking out through the windows.
– The soda vending machine in the 13th Floor level says “Fizwiz Cola” with 25 cents marked on the corner.
– The dragon that the hangman refers to is a Nidhogg (“tearer of corpses”), which is a serpent that gnaws the roots of Yggdrasil the World Tree in Norse mythology.

HD Conceptual Artworks:


In-Game Screenshots (PC):


Fan Art:

go_back_to_your_slumberings__by_nijuuhachi-d6n2teh
Fan art by nijuuhachi
lara_croft___catsuit_by_zwusel-d8g3g1i
Fan art by zwusel
tomb_raider_chronicles__ocean_depths_of_russia_by_doppel_zgz-d5dqyio
Fan art by doppeL-zgz
tr_chronicles_papercraft_1_by_ninjatoespapercraft
Fan art/papercraft by ninjatoespapercraft

 

sources&further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Raider_Chronicles
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275734/trivia

One thought on “20 Years Celebration Spotlight: Tomb Raider Chronicles

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.