Format: PS2
Release: 2003
Publisher: Eidos
Developer: Core Design

The stress fractures were clear a long time before Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness was released. In May 2002 at the E3 conference in LA, Eidos showcased ‘playable’ levels of the game which were little more than short animation demos. For a game due out ‘imminently’, it appeared woefully incomplete.

Fast forward to Sony’s PlayStation Experience at Earl’s Court in September the same year and the public was able to see the next-gen Lara for the first time. Able to play the opening level – set in a Parisian backstreet – the disappointment at Lara’s clumsy negotiation of a dumpster followed by some awkward ladder climbing was tangible. “We spent an inordinate amount of time on the animation of Lara and designed the controls around the animation instead of designing the animation around the controls,” explained Jeremy Heath-Smith, Core Design’s co-founder, shortly after the game was released.

“We got wrapped up in that whole beautiful big animation experience. I don’t know if we ever would have understood what we got wrong with the animation until the game was out. We could have easily used another two or three months. We could have used another year.”

Significantly, Heath-Smith had to present the game at a buyers’ conference several months before the game was released. It was an agonising experience both for the man himself and those attending. ”It was the worst opening level to any game,” an anonymous source tells Edge. “I had to sit through Jeremy Heath-Smith cursing through it while attempting to get Lara on top of a bin. It was unusual behaviour at a buyers’ conference to say the least.”

But this is the end of the story; its beginning is equally gruesome. By all accounts, The Angel Of Darkness was in trouble from the very start. A new team was assigned to the next-gen Lara game while the experienced Tomb Raider stalwarts continued to plug away at Tomb Raider: Chronicles, the last of Eidos’ annual Tomb Raider hits on PS1.After completing Chronicles at the back end of 2000, lead programmer Richard Morton moved over to Angel Of Darkness, and he was shocked at what he found. “The tech had to be completely rewritten from PS1 to PS2 and scrapped again when the Chronicles team started on the game,” he explains. “We lost the first year due to Chronicles and only had the basic story, character models and concept art.”

It’s a classic tale of hubris, with Core’s senior management boasting of innovative features to the press while the artists and programmers tried to keep up with the grand design. “The phrase ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ springs to mind,” continues Morton. “This, coupled with the management trying to cram every new game idea into the design – stealth from Metal Gear, character interaction from Shenmue, upgradeable attributes from RPG games, and so on. Instead of letting the team make a really great Tomb Raider game.”

Early reports also hinted at an epic storyline spanning several games, or episodic content depending on how effusive Core’s management were feeling when they spoke to the press. Charged with outlining this vision was a fresh-faced writer, Murti Schofield: “The Tomb Raider games were in a rut and needed fresh thought and direction. Would I be interested in coming over to Derby and doing a pitch? Would I! I was determined to make the most of this opportunity to pack in as much of my own thematic obsessions as I could get away with and still have it work effectively in a gaming situation.

“Obscure references were dropped in everywhere, in names, as locations, as clues. Background histories of characters were chronicled to depths that gave me intense satisfaction as a writer even though I knew only the tip of these biographical icebergs would ever show in the game.”

Core was keen not just to give Lara’s first PS2 outing a dark mood but also set it in contemporary locations. “By December of 2000 the bulk of the story, establishing scenes and supporting concepts were in place and documented,” recalls Schofield. “I would say the main skeleton of 90 to 95 per cent of what we finally used was there. Then there were changes throughout the next two-and-a-bit years right up until the last possible minute but the infrastructure of the story, as it now exists in the finished game, was there.”

While Angel Of Darkness’ plot is still the subject of much fan activity, the decision to set it in contemporary locations backfired dramatically. Even lukewarm reviews pointed out how little classic tomb raiding made it into the final cut. With the first third of the game set in unpopulated Parisian streets, the Louvre, a discotheque and the city’s sewers, it couldn’t have felt less like an adventure. While later levels in a sanatorium and at an archeological dig were better, few players bothered to get there.

“It was only when we’d been in development for a while that we realised the world wasn’t ready for episodic games,” adds Morton. “We decided to concentrate on the first part as one boxed game, but even this proved too big a task for us with the time we had. Originally The Angel Of Darkness had four distinct locations: Paris, Castle Kriegler in Germany, Prague and Cappadocia in Turkey. We decided to cut to two, Paris and Prague, leaving Castle Kriegler in Germany and Cappadocia in Turkey as the two main locations to a proposed sequel, The Lost Dominion.” Practically cutting the game in half midway through its development had a deleterious effect on the team’s morale and the end product felt disjointed. Players complained that plot inconsistencies, characters, clues and levels felt tagged on or made no sense in the overarching plot.

Fortunately, one of the game’s crowning achievements, its orchestral score, was not affected by the cuts. “These changes took place after we recorded the music and fortunately it didn’t have any negative impact on what we did,” explains sound designer Peter Connelly. “Our music still worked within each of the game’s locations. If the storyline had been completely changed – with a positive plot throughout – we would’ve been screwed, but we were confident this was never going to happen.” Although Core was one of the first companies to receive PS2 dev kits, locking down code proved problematic.

“The other main reason for the delay in my opinion was the tech side of things,” explains Morton. “The PS2 hardware was still proving tricky to optimise and get the best results out of it. We were designing and building levels and characters without any real restriction on polygon budgets or memory limits, which obviously came back to bite us in the arse. Levels were shrunk and characters were dropped.”

Many of the press-friendly features brainstormed into the original design were also curtailed. Lara’s ‘RPG’ skill power-ups felt tagged on, and her stealth moves appeared limp next to those of Sam Fisher or Solid Snake. Indeed, Core planned to spawn a new franchise out of Lara’s new sidekick, Kurtis Trent, but many of his abilities ended up in the bin.

“There was a lot of material that got cut and changed; the whole process was one of slash and patch, right up to the latest possible moments before release,” recalls Schofield. “There were things that got left so late that their final omission left the game badly crippled, and I mourn them. One example was the range of hero abilities planned for Kurtis. He ended up as such a thin, emasculated version of the character we planned in the early stages of development that I could have wept. I may actually have done so.”

The story that emerges from Angel Of Darkness’ ashes is a bleak one, with members of Core’s staff leaving due to the constant changes in direction and an upper management unwilling to listen. “We weren’t able to fully control the game as a team and there were far too many chiefs,” concludes Morton. “As a result, the game lost direction. It was also technically a nightmare with some editors only coming online in the last eight months of development. We didn’t have full character control in until a year before the game’s completion – we’d been in development for ages before then.”

The game that eventually emerged was beset by bugs and felt disjointed in the extreme. The situation wasn’t helped by Eidos facing financial troubles. An ex-Eidos employee tells us that by March 2003 the game had already been submitted eight times to Sony and was eventually rushed out to hit the April 1 accounting deadline. Core wanted more time to polish the game, but another delay could have tipped the publisher over the edge.

Schofield’s sentiments on the experience mirror those of many ex-Core employees: “Angel Of Darkness played like a dog and did not get good reviews. I moved on to other things, scarred and wiser, determined to follow my own path.”

The post Making Of: Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (Edge Magazine 2011) appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

 I am giving away a number of cards signed by Jonell Elliott and/or Murti Schofield, Tomb Raider: The Myth of El Hawa posters and Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony Posters.

The offer is open to everyone who bought / will buy me a Ko‑fi in 2023. The offer is valid until the stock is gone.

I will aim to include at least one signed item in your envelope.

CLAIM HERE (Ko-fi login required, post visible to supporters only) or Support me on Ko-fi.

The post Signed Tomb Raider cards. Lara’s Birthday Gift to my sponsors. appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

As you know, I have been working to create an animated short film showing the events between Tomb Raider 4 and The Angel of Darkness. This will finally explain what happened to Lara before the events in Paris. The story is being created by Murti Schofield, the writer for the Angel of Darkness.

Jonell Elliott will be back to voice Lara and it will be done in a similar style to my Lara’s diary video I did with Shelley Blond:

Murti finished the script and it is now with Adayka for drawings and Jonell for voiceover. I am starting working on animation real soon too.

I will be live-streaming some of the work in progress processes on my discord in VIP section so if you’re a Ko‑fi supporter let me know and I’ll add you

A few facts about it. The film should be about 10-13 minutes long.

There are two scripts actually:

-shorter version that we are animating

-longer version that will be released after the film for those looking to read and get more details.

We have a poster for the whole project and a final title!

Tomb Raider: The Myth of El Hawa

Adayka is doing some incredible artwork carefully guided by Murti’s notes and his insight on how he sees stuff!

I now have set a new funding goal on Ko‑fi for a 2nd PC that would be used solely for streaming and rendering projects. This will unload my main PC so I could for example continue doing other editing work whilst the second workstation is rendering. I’ve done some research on prices etc.

Thank you all so much for your continued support. This has helped me so much with website costs, software costs and even improvement for my mental health (with new ebike).

I’m off next week for as it’s my birthday on the 27th. I plan to spend it working on the El Hawa project and hopefully stream Tomb Raider: Chronicles on my birthday with Core Design team members. Give me a follow so you don’t miss it if it happens:

Twitch.tv/tomb_of_ash

The post Tomb Raider: The myth of El Hawa (starring Jonell Elliott as Lara Croft) appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

BEST ANIMATION BEST SHORT FILM - Echonation Audio and Film Festival - 2022

BEST ANIMATION BEST SHORT FILM - Echonation Audio and Film Festival - 2022

Naples Film Awards Tomb Raider the myth of El Hawa

Naples Film Awards Tomb Raider the myth of El Hawa

Athens international monthly art film festival tomb raider the myth of el hawa

Athens international monthly art film festival tomb raider the myth of el hawa

Related Content

Media

The post Tomb Raider: The myth of El Hawa (starring Jonell Elliott as Lara Croft) appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

Pictured Jonnell Elliott – the voice of Lara, Joss Ackland – the voice of Eckhardt, Murti Schofield – the writer of the Angel of Darkness, and Eric Loren – the voice of Kurtis Trent and Jason Isaacs

Photos were taken by Phil Morris, who was a studio producer and did casting and audio editing. His company, AllintheGame Ltd (1998- 2006) produced voices for many games companies.

The post Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness Voice Over Recording Session photos appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

The shop has closed down quite a while back. To ensure all the creative assets are preserved and accessible to those who missed out on the Dark Angel Symphony we archived all the digital assets in one place for you.

This drop includes:

• FLAC (lossless) and MP3 (lossy) Tomb Raider 4-6 Remastered OST
• FLAC (lossless) and MP3 (lossy) Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony
• Kurtis Trent Journal
• Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony Sibelius MIDI
• Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony Sheet music
• Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness Sheet music
• Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness MIDI files
• Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness 5.1 Surround DVD* 
• Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness Master CD (the actual orchestral recording from Abbey Road in 2002).

*The easiest way to see and listen to content on 5.1 DVD is to download VLC, download the “The angel of Darkness 5.1 surround ost” archive (links below) and extract it. Launch VLC, click MEDIA = > Open Folder. Navigate to where you extracted the surround ost archive.

If you like what we do, please consider supporting us on Ko-fi.

DOWNLOAD

Archive.org (slow)

Ko-fi (fast) 

The post Preserving Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony. OST, sheetmusic, midi and more! appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

Download

Original description:

The creative genius of writer Murti Schofield combines with the fan-driven passion of the Dark Angel Symphony team to bring you a unique artefact: Kurtis”Demon Hunter” Trent’s personal journal!

Currently specially discounted and available in a variety of bundles, this A5-sized, 32-page journal has been entirely handwritten by Murti Schofield IN CHARACTER as Kurtis Trent – Lara’s mysterious ally from The Angel of Darkness and last of the Lux Veritatis order. Each page is packed with all-new, original sketches, maps, character profiles, Lux Veritatis lore, and personal musings that chart Kurtis’ journey across the globe as he tracks the bloody trail of “The Monstrum”, aka Eckhart, leader of the shadowy Cabal. It also contains pages “inherited” from Kurtis’ father, Konstantin Heissturm.

The journal is available as a digital download and as a physical object of movie-prop quality, bound in real leather and scuffed/aged to reflect the hazardous lifestyle of its owner!

Here’s what the author says about the journal:

Throughout his wide ranging travels, Kurtis has always, like any true rock n’ roll adventurer, kept a journal – a field record of the challenges he has tackled, the wildly diverse locations he has travelled in, the enigmas he has solved (or tried to), and the characters he has encountered, fought, or put down. These ragged and beaten-up journals record key information from many of Kurtis’ travels and adventures.

The Journal is not a narrative. It is not even chronological. It does not explain things or tell a story, except by inference.

Instead, Kurtis’ scribbled notes, sketches and observations cover an eclectic range of extraordinary subjects. It is an apparently disorganised accumulation of aides memoire and cryptic musings on what they might possibly mean. To the unaccustomed eye, it may appear as a jumble of unconnected images and data that only highlight questions rather than provide answers. But there most definitely is order… of a kind.

Sometimes there are entries lifted or copied from his father Konstantin’s inherited journal, or even, on occasion, from his grandfather Gerhardt’s journal.

The journals themselves are battered and scuffed with pasted-in maps, illustrations, scraps of vellum, sketches, hand-drawn schematics, wax rubbings, pencilled images, codes, glyphs, photos, symbols, cuttings, tracings, and all the untidy jottings of many years’ investigations and study.

The wrap-around leather cord loops through a silver concho disc and carries a small replica of a Baetyl training stone carved from bone. The disk is a keepsake from tribal Navajo links on his mother’s side. The Baetyl is a token from his early Lux Veritatis training days.

Of course, the Journal will only contain notes on items up to and immediately prior to events in the AOD timeline.

Many of the story elements touched on in the Journal are dealt with more fully in documents and articles dealing with the massive amount of background detail to AoD, and will be available online by the time the K Journals are on release.

The journal explores:

1) Eckhardt: jottings on the origins of the Black Alchemist, his work, his cruelly misjudged 500+-year-long incarceration, his release from the Cell of Pain in 1945 by Allied bombing, his aims, abilities, etc. All this background was part of Kurtis’ early LV training years. No source could possibly list everything about Eckhardt, but there is a lot of detail that K remembers or has access to.

2) Eckhardt’s early writings, gleaned from Lux Veritatis archives.

3) Some musings on the origins, nature, and possible locations of the Obscura Etchings and Paintings – or as much as anyone knows apart from Eckhardt himself.

4) Kurtis’ grandfather, Gerhardt, left notes detailing his obsession with John Dee – the Elizabethan alchemist and mystic. Gerhardt was convinced that the location of Dee’s true resting place, his Catafalque, was the location of one of the Obscura Paintings. Dee’s body, did not lie at Mortlake by the Thames, but had been spirited away by Edward Kelley and devotees of the art of Alchemy from the court of Rudolph II. It was taken to a secret vault beneath Kutna Hora Ossuar, 80km east of Prague.

5) The Dee Hexaglyph was supposedly a cast-brass symbol on Dee’s catafalque in that vault. Kurtis later combined a version of this ‘glyph’ and the reoccurring Crâne Hurlant (or Screaming Skull of the Legionnaires) into a T-shirt design seen in AOD. You may have noticed it around.

6) The three Periapt Shards: Kurtis inherited two of these along with the Chirugai after Konstantin was murdered, and he is well aware of how vital all three Shards are if the Black Alchemist is ever to be put down for good.

7) Alchemy, Prima Materia and the processes of transmutation of self and substances; e.g. Solve et coagula, key data where Eckhardt is concerned.

8) The Sanglyph or Bloodsign. There are only hints and guesses regarding this darkest and most closely guarded of Eckhardt’s secrets. Even the members of the Cabal aren’t informed of the nature, potency, and true purpose of this artefact.

9) The Glove: likewise, little is know by the Lux Veritatis or anyone else apart from Eckhardt (and of course Karel). The Manus Diabolus.

10) The Cabal of Five Alchemists. Brief details of all individuals making up the current Cabal; their backgrounds, origins, traits, specialities, weaknesses, etc.

11) The Strahov: sketched schematics of the security layout, including the possible lower levels where an ancient LV vault holds out against all attempts at penetration by Eckhardt and the Cabal. Possibly, it may house the third and final Periapt?

12) The Nephilim: Watchers, Grigori, Enlumened, Gibborim, Peripherati, Bene Elim, Malek, Peri, Hiphil, Elioud. Kurtis has jotted brief notes on the origins, legends, mythic references, possible locations of the Sleepers or Cubiculim Nephili, Enochian references, etc.

13) Vault of the Seven Sleepers or Sarcophagi: possible locations of the remaining Nephilim Sleepers, although information on these are sketchy at best.

14) The Korumal Erebedi or Eternal Guardians, were a prehistoric Order of protectors for the Nephilim Sleepers. The Cubiculim Nephili casks were hidden at various secret locations over a wide area. The KE were constantly under attack by Lux Veritatis forces hell-bent on destroying all trace of the Nephilim race and those allied or loyal to them.

15) Oblique references to Kurtis’ Navajo origins, including the Amerindian-style glyphs of his given tribal name Chicawa, Bearer of Weapons.

16) Files on incidental characters featured or glimpsed in AoD, including some English adventuress, L. Croft, whose trail keeps crossing his own lines of enquiry and is somehow linked to individuals involved in the Obscura Paintings… and other related matters.

17) Kurtis’ time in the Legion is referred to several times; his Demon Hunter, Chaseur de Démon days, Legionary mottoes, enrolment, name change, and so on.

18) In the Interpol Wanted Poster for Emmet Brough, the Assassin (AKA The Pinkerton), several other events in his past – and possible connection to Kurtis – are briefly mentioned. These events will be expanded on in greater detail in documents available on a website at the time of the Journal’s release, for those interested enough to delve deeper…

19) Hints on the relevance of various scientific anomalies or ‘lost’ secrets from history, which either impinge on Lux Veritatis secrets or Eckhardt’s master plan for reviving the lost race of Nephilim.

20) The Dark 21ème Arrondissment of Paris Noire, a subterranean level of the ancient city – the Domaine Souterrain, La Citadelle des Ténèbres

Mouvant. This is a parallel world of shadow secrets, including a hidden LV vault. There are numerous LV chambers containing records that the Lux Order would rather remain hidden. The LV has shameful moments in its past, like any organisation.

21) The search for various Lux Veritatis secret vaults has been on Kurtis’ agenda for several years. These vaults contain a horde of artefacts, arcane secrets, libraries, stores of artwork, trophies and the elusive Trancing Rooms or Bloodline Rooms, which are basically LV healing chambers. Kurtis has always been reluctant to record much detail of his findings on this topic – they are too sensitive for any journal which, after all, could fall into the wrong hands.

22) There are several such LV Vaults across Europe, Russia, the Americas – everywhere, in fact – although the locations of most have been lost since the passing of the last true LV Adept, Konstantin Heissturm. For example, there was rumoured to be a Bloodline Room, or Trancing Room, beneath Schloss Kriegler. So, too, the The Vault of Trophies below the Strahov complex is an ancient LV stronghold containing many items of arcane power and importance.

23) Baetyl training stones/knife weapons/arrowhead artefacts are a key part of LV initiate training. Their relationship to other ferrilium ‘sky iron’ LV weaponry, such as the Chirugai, is greatly expanded upon in documents and articles that will be available online by the time the K Journals are released.

24) The secret subterranean city of Cennet and Sentinel Stones set up by the Korumal Erebedi, that guard their entrances and passageways.

25) The recent bizarre outbreak of Monstrum killings in Paris is touched on, and there are musings on the bizarre nature of the killings. Kurtis knows the perpetrator is Eckhardt and that he is ‘harvesting’ elements required to fulfil his grotesque ritual of completion for the Nephilim revival.

26) At the opening of AoD, Kurtis has been tracking the transportation of a massive stone sarcophagus from Cappadocia to the Strahov in Prague, which he has already reconnoitred.

27) His investigations have brought Kurtis to Paris, where he has worked the streets and knows the major players who Lara also runs into when she surfaces in the city. Freelancing for Gunderson’s Agency under an assumed name, K has been monitoring the Cabal activities and gets wind that something is going down in the Louvre when Agency forces are despatched to ‘collect’ a certain painting.

28) And so the two adventurers cross paths for the second time (the first being in Café Metro where K is following a lead)…

Kurtis’ life trajectory has been one of intensive training in the occult, followed by rebellion, adventure and, in the days leading up to the AOD timeline, a mission of vengeance. During his rebellious phase, he chose to exclude himself from the main areas of conflict between the Lux Veritatis and the Cabal, preferring to carve his own path through life. However, when his father was treacherously murdered, he determined to track down those responsible – in particular, the insane Black Alchemist, Pieter van Eckhardt. One way to bring this monstrous entity to retribution will be to gather all three of the Periapt Shards.

Even before taking on the mantle of dark avenger, Kurtis’ natural inclination towards extreme activities of any kind had led him to countless bizarre and exotic locations. He has worked as a freelance enforcer, problem solver, blade-for-hire, strong arm, minder, mercenary, security agent, and explorer in hot spots all around the world from North Africa to Turkey, The States and all over the European continent.

It is worth noting that, as evidenced from his Demon Hunter days in the Foreign Legion, the arcane and sinister Shadow World never truly left him alone. His LV upbringing and inherited bloodline ensured that, whatever he did, the bizarre would constantly erupt into his life. It is all recorded in his scuffed journal!

Promo images:

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????Download 4 epic Tomb Raider music albums NOW ???? http://ow.ly/KnJb50xWWur

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