Core Design’s Japanese publisher wanted Lara Croft’s model to be changed “to appeal more to a Japanese audience”

Tomb Raider co-creator Paul Douglas has revealed Core Design was asked by its Japanese publisher to modify Lara Croft’s original character model over fears the western character design wouldn’t “go down well” in Japan.

In conversation on X and BlueSky, Douglas revealed both he and co-creator and designer Toby Gard were pressured to change Croft’s appearance “quite late in Tomb Raider’s development,” with publisher Victor Interactive Software even “fax[ing] over some of their designs.”

“Victor wanted us to change in-game Lara to appeal more to a Japanese audience,” Douglas explained, and expanded on the “Manga style” request.

“Huge eyes/head etc. They faxed through examples really late in dev. Toby Gard really didn’t want to alter Lara. As a compromise, all that was changed was the manuals [and] guide. Not sure who did that render or illustrations.

“I think they just assumed altering all the models would only take a few days of work. It was early days of 3D… It started out as a request to change all the in-game and cutscene models. Then just in-game. Then just Lara. Then just Lara’s head…”

“So they faxed over some of their own designs – that we didn’t implement,” he added.