We named the dog Indiana.
Some things just never truly come together in the game development world. But 2021 has started off with a bang in that regard. And joining Magic Castle right at the beginning of the year is Core Design’s cancelled PSP game Tomb Raider 10th Anniversary Edition.
According to Core Design’s studio manager Gavin Rummery, the game was almost finished back when they were working on it in 2006. But the project was canned in favor of Crystal Dynamics’ 2007 Tomb Raider: Anniversary. CreDesign attempted to avoid the sunk cost of their previous development by reskinning the game into an Indiana Jones game, but the deal for that also fell through. Core Design closed its doors in 2010, and Tomb Raider 10th Anniversary Edition became a Holy Grail for fans (see, see I’m bringing it all together!).
Well, flash forward to now, and a collection of assets for the game appeared online, and have been added to The Internet Archive. It’s possible to now play an alpha build of the game, though it does take a few extra steps, as detailed here, on the Tomb of Ash site.
Granted, there’s no enemies, and the areas,while finished, really don’t have much “life” in them (or at least, not what you’d expect from a finished game), but it’s still pretty neat to see what could have been. There are only three locations; Peru, Greece, Egypt and Croft Manor.
The people hosting the build attempted to reach out to the rights holders several times, but got no response. Even then, it probably won’t be a problem. The Internet Archive has a DMCA exemption for vintage software, which is good ’cause some of this stuff would just molder away in tiny personal collections otherwise.
Source: PC Gamer
About Author
