Architecture of Tomb Raider

Image from Cweiske.de

The advancement of gaming console technologies and improvement of graphics lead to bigger action-adventure games with bigger worlds and bigger graphics. And one of those games that used the advancement of the technologies of its time was the release of Action-Adventure-Shooter-Puzzle game called Tomb Raider in 1996 by PlayStation console. And indeed this game presented a next level type of interaction with its environment that included known and made up landmarks. Tomb Raider encouraged the ability to freely explore the worlds within it in three dimensions, and to complete certain tasks using the digital world, such as climbing, jumping, sliding, swimming, crawling and swaying. One could truly immerse into the story and the world offered by the game and even feel the dangers, excitement and difficulties of each level. The multiple series that followed ever since continued to use latest advancements in console technology and computer graphics to offer more realistic worlds, more interactivity, better stories, more puzzles, more landmarks and more adventures. Even though stories and some of the worlds were fictional, nonetheless they were based on real landmarks and there was some history lessons in the game. Tomb Raider was one of the fist games that allowed to explore and learn about true historical sites and stories without leaving the comforts of a home.

Image from Ar12gaming.com

More information about the game series can be found here:

History of Tomb Raider by Rick Marshall (March, 2013) Digital Trends
20 Years on, Tomb Raider Story by Wesley Yin-Poole (October, 2016) EuroGamer.net