Eidos to redesign Lara Croft

Tomb Raider has been one of the cornerstone franchises for Eidos for a while now, so the disappointing sales for the game and the falling share prices that came as a result have been analysed in some serious detail by the company bigwigs lately. The conclusion they've come to? That it would be best to totally redesign Lara Croft as a character,

Speaking to The Times, Eidos CFO Robert Brent admitted that sales for Tomb Raider: Underworld had been below expectations and that the company was now looking at redesigning the Tomb Raider franchise.

"We need to look at everything, as we develop the next game," Brent said. "Look at how Batman changed succesfully, from the rather sad character of the Michael Keaton era to the noir style of The Dark Knight."

Existing fans however might be a little disappointed if this redesign interferes with the current approach of the game as handled by Crystal Dynamics - and while the game may have undersold in Eidos' eye, Underworld still shipped a good two million copies.

Crystal Dynamics were handed the development responsibilities for Lara a few years ago, turning out the brief but well-receivedTomb Raider: Legend as a first effort. Since then Crystal has gone on to remake the first game, Anniversary, and finish the story it started with Legend in Underworld.

The question is then, is another redesign entirely what Lara needs as the character has already moved from buxom stereotype to driven archaeologist in recent memory courtesy of Crystal Dynamics? Is Eidos going to force us to sit through another Angel of Darkness-style failure?

For our part, we think it's perhaps time that Lara took a long deserved rest before bursting back on to computer screens and TVs with a radical new facelift - but if the reason you didn't buy Underworld is because you couldn't stand the current fact of the series then let us know in the forums.