Tomb Raider (1996 video game)
The front of the Derby Studios building where Core Design worked on the game was later used as the front of Croft Manor. It is Core's contention that the company was struggling somewhat with 32-bit development at that time. The first glints of the game were seen on Sega Saturn development kits. However, Gard stated that though Core and Sega had a deal for "Tomb Raider" to be a timed exclusive for the Saturn, the game was developed simultaneously for the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation. Following the release of the Saturn version, a number of bugs were discovered that affected both versions of the game; because of the timed exclusivity, the development team fixed these bugs for the PlayStation version. While the series would see four more instalments on the original PlayStation, no additional "Tomb Raider" games were released for the Saturn. Additional Sega ports were released on the Dreamcast.
Tomb Raider
The original "Tomb Raider" theme was composed by Nathan McCree. He created the original theme music after having discussions with Gard about the character of Lara Croft. Having decided to use Classical English music as an inspiration, he decided to create something simple for the theme song. Its simplicity made rearrangements and orchestrations easy. For his work on the first three "Tomb Raider" games, he was given fairly minimal briefs, and for "Tomb Raider III" he was working on the game as a freelancer as he had left the company. For "The Last Revelation", Peter Connelly replaced Nathan McCree as the main composer, using McCree's music as a basis for his work. He composed the opening theme for "The Last Revelation", saying that the opening melody came to him out of the blue, and added Egyptian motifs to fit in with the game's setting. "Chronicles" was originally going to have a sizeable original opening theme, but due to time constraints the majority of it ended up being discarded, much to Connelly's later regret. Only the opening segment survived. The music for "Angel of Darkness", composed by Connelly and Martin Iveson, was the one element of production that did not encounter problems, as recording was finished before the major content cuts happened. Scored using a full orchestra as opposed to the synthesised instruments of previous titles, it was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.