It’s hard not to look at Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider reboot and think “UNCHARTED”. Naughty Dog’s flagship action adventure franchise has rewritten the rule book and as such, stands as the defining example of it’s genre. Everyone and everything lives in Uncharted’s shadow, and that’s something that Crystal Dynamics want to step out of. Tomb Raider is not Uncharted. It’s a different experience entirely.

Crystal Dynamics chief Darell Gallagher speaking during a Square Enix interivew at E3, explained why both games stand alone and should be judged seperately.

“Well, naturally, they’re action-adventure, OK, so there’s going to be some comparison. I don’t think we can get away with that. And there are certain things the Uncharted series has done, which is borrowed heavily from Tomb Raiders [of] old. So, again, there’s gonna be some crossover. That said, I think when we show the game as a whole—when you get to experience it, start to finish—we believe there’s a lot of differences between the two.”

“I guess the comparison I can make is, you can have two summer blockbusters, and they can be big action things, with two different actors and things like tone and mood and story separate the two very differently. So, our tone is very different. Our storyline, our narrative. Our lead character is very different.”

“And deeper than that, in terms of the gameplay, we have a resourcefulness to Lara, right, that you start seeing in some of the demos we’ve given, which I think is again a different thing to Uncharted. Also, our game structure. I think we have some wider areas. I think our hubs, which we’ve not necessarily shown yet. I think they’re a really big differentiator. Our ability to re-traverse. The ability system on the island. Hunting. The ability to go and take deer and other animals on the island.”

“I think there’s a lot of small differences that actually make the two products sort of stand apart when you actually experience them in full. So, there’s not just like one big thing, right. It’s not like you look at a summer blockbuster, and this is one big thing and a movie is different because of that. A lot of small pieces add up to something different.”

Tomb Raider drops March 5th next year for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.

Thanks to Siliconera.