In the face of falling sales, Eidos is looking at yet another reinvention of Lara Croft in a bid to rekindle the popularity of the Tomb Raider franchise. According to reports, sales of Tomb Raider: Underworld have fallen some 500,000 copies short of predictions, and Eidos is naturally placing the blame squarely on Lara … or at least her designers.
“We need to look at everything, as we develop the next game. Look at how Batman changed successfully, from the rather sad character of the Michael Keaton era to the noir style of The Dark Knight,” claims Robert Brent, Eidos’ chief financial adviser.
In order to do this, Eidos is considering a more “female-friendly” approach to the company’s most popular series, and may well reinvent everything about it from the way it looks to the way it plays. At this rate, one can reasonably expect Eidos to publish Lara Unleashed, where the Tomb Raider star periodically turns into a werewolf with stretchy arms.
Will a complete series reboot help the ailing franchise? Hasn’t Eidos tried something like this before, with less than stellar results? It always seems to me that once a series enters the “reboot” phase, its survival is pretty much a coin toss. A breath of fresh air could certainly help, but Eidos should probably take a look at a little spiky blue guy to make sure they don’t screw it up.
