I know. I’m really late to the party. But I have a good excuse! My dedication to updating gameinformer.com with quality Tomb Raider content has kept me away from my blog!! That’s an adequate reason. Right?

…Right?!?

If you are one of five internet-savvy people who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, I’m referring to our recently announced January cover – Tomb Raider. Just Tomb Raider. Crystal Dynamics has chosen to reboot the franchise with an entirely new Lara Croft, and I was lucky enough to write the 10-page world exclusive story.

If you know me on a personal level, I will answer your preliminary string of questions. Yes, this was a dream come true. Yes, this was an out-of-body experience. No, when I was a young teen playing Tomb Raider for the first time, I never would have guessed that years later I would have the massive responsibility of debuting a new Tomb Raider to the world. I’ve often credited Lara Croft as my catalyst into the gaming culture, and as such was simultaneously terrified and thrilled by this opportunity.

It all started several months back when Crystal pitched the cover to us. I made sure to sit in on the meeting, and when we decided to run with the cover, was quite vocal about wanting to write it. I loved the experience of writing the Portal reveal, and was itching for another opportunity to take on a big feature. They guys at the office teased me a bit – pretending that there was someone else they planned on giving the cover to. I may have quit on the spot if that was the case.

Hanging out with Karl Stewart and Kyle Spechel of Crystal Dynamics, Sonia Im of Square Enix, and Matt Miller of GI after the initial TR pitch. They took the picture at my desk because of all the Tomb Raider goodies in the background!

I knew a bit about the intended direction for the game going into our official coverage, but my first stop actually wasn’t Crystal Dynamics HQ in San Francisco. I ended up in Tokyo, surprisingly, where I met with the folks at Square Enix’s CG studio Visualworks. I won’t go into the specifics of the trip, but I can say that Visualworks has opened its doors to Crystal Dynamics and will be lending a hand with more than just the cover image.  I’ll get to share some video from my trip at a later date!

Visiting Square Enix Japan with Karl Stewart and Visualworks leads Kazuyuki Ikumori and Takeshi Nozue.

A few weeks after returning to the states, Matt Miller and I made our way to San Francisco to check out the game in action. The tour of Crystal Dynamics was fantastic – all the Tomb Raider art on the wall, merchandise in display shelves, and life-size Lara statues made me giddy. After the tour we settled in for a sizable demo, lengthy Q&A sessions, and interviews with all the key staff. It was an extremely busy and informative day.

I returned to Minnesota on a Friday and immediately set to work – writing straight through Saturday and Sunday so I could get eyes on a draft of the piece on Monday morning. Distilling all the information presented to ten pages was extremely difficult and a sizable chunk was left on the cutting room floor. The pressure balance Crystal Dynamics’ message with the information fans would want to know was also intense. Not to mention I wanted to excite gamers who left Lara behind long ago. Despite the difficulty of the piece, I am more proud of this feature than anything else I’ve ever written.

Sitting on all this information for nearly two months almost made me crazy. I saw the Tomb Raider rumors swirling around and wanted to join in on forum speculation. The wait made the reveal last week that much more satisfying, however. You can check out our phenomenal cover, with two different type treatments below. Or you can check out the full images here.

This whole journey hasn’t only been fun and challenging from writing standpoint. I took point on all the design work for ancillary online content through the month of December. Designing the hub was the biggest task. It may look a bit barren at the moment, but when all the planned content goes live you’ll see what I was going for.

The response to the reboot has been very positive, as has the feedback I’ve gotten about the piece. I hope I did Lara justice, and that my excitement over this very ambitious new direction for the Tomb Raider franchise is apparent. We’ll have to wait to see how the game evolves over time, but Lara Croft seems to be in very good hands.

Click the banner below to visit the hub.

Also, as a quick side note, this issue and this feature marks the first time that I’ve used my new name in a professional capacity. From now on I’m going by Meagan Marie, which is my first and middle name. VanBurkleo was always a bit hard to pronounce, and after the divorce I decided that I wanted a name that is entirely my own. I’ll update this site at some point with a new URL, but I’ve got too much on my plate at the moment to give it the time it requires!

I hope you enjoyed the cover story as much as I did writing it!

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