A meteorite is drifting through space, heading for Earth.
On the surface at a dense jungle teeming with wildlife, there is sudden unrest and unease amongst the creatures. The meteorite is getting close. Now a ball of fire it hurtles through the Earth's atmosphere at a frightening speed. When
it hits the jungle there is a humongous explosion. Trees are incinerated and animals attempt to flee. The entire area is devastated.
Millions of years later the same landscape has changed, now covered in snow. Humans have called it Antarctica. Currently, a research project is underway.
At the site, Dr. Mark Willard of Rock Technology (or RX-Tech for short) is heading back to his tent, speaking into a radio.
WILLARD: "I've been yellin' myself hoarse into this radio everyday. It's just the weather dumps on us frequently here. An' maybe my transmission doesn't get through. I don't know!"
MAN ON RADIO: "I can't understand one word of what you say, Willard!"
WILLARD: "It's all going swell, sir!"
Outside the tent, the drilling machine has become jammed beneath the snow.
BILLY: "Get the bit up! Get it out!"
The worker at the helm of the machine is unable to shift the drill. A distracted Willard comes out of the tent.
WILLARD: "Turn it off! Off! Hey! Switch it off!"
The drive belt of the machine snaps and is flung off, nearly catching Billy's face. Willard is exasperated.
WILLARD: "Dah!"
Later, the researchers have managed to get the drill back up and put a sensor device into the hole. Billy examines the readout on a device and shows it to Willard. It is an unknown material. They don't quite know what to make of it.
Then another researcher arrives on a snowmobile.
SNOWMOBILER: "Think you better come and check out site two."
Willard gets onto the snowmobile. A red indicator is flashing on Billy's device, suggesting solid rock.
BILLY: "What about this?"
WILLARD: "Blow through it."
The snowmobile sets off for site two.
WILLARD: "Found more meteorite?"
SNOWMOBILER: "Hah! No, somethin' a little more younger than that."
They arrive at site two to find statues like those seen at Easter Island.
WILLARD: "No!"
Willard reaches for his radio.
WILLARD: "Billy! I don't want you to set that explosive. Do you ye hear me? I do not want ye to set that explosive!"
His call goes unheard as Billy hits the detonator, sending debris everywhere.
WILLARD: "Wretched pyros!"
Fortunately however, the explosion has revealed further statues and the wooden cross indicating the grave of one of Charles Darwin's sailors, Paul Caulfield.
WILLARD: "This place's had a busy history."
CUTSCENE 01
Lara comes upon a seemingly empty campsite. A voice coming in on a nearby radio attracts Lara's attention.
WILLARD: "Tech four to five. Do you read me, Tech five? Tony ye loon I know you're there..."
There is a jubilant cry from one of the tents as the radio cuts out.
TONY: "Woohoo!"
LARA: "Hello? Hello?"
Tony emerges from a tent, flustered.
TONY: "What!? What do you want from me now!"
LARA: "Nothing that taxing. Are you alright?"
Tony clutches his head as if about to explode.
TONY: "If you'd all stop I might be just fine. Just one hundred percent. Just... aargh!"
Lara glances about at her surroundings.
LARA: "If you'd all stop? Who are you talking about?"
TONY: "All you, hundreds of you. Talking and chattering and breaking my brain up."
LARA: "Well, I'm not quite sure where you're coming from, but I just want to know about the Infada artefact. In the temple up there."
TONY: "Voodoo magic an' all huh? Don't touch the stuff myself."
LARA: "It's not voodoo. Look, is there anyone else here with you?"
Tony begins to collect his equipment and packages it into a box.
TONY: "Yeah, Randy and Rory... peeesh."
LARA: "Randy and Rory? Where? What are you all doing here?"
TONY: "Well, they're stayin' put. In that temple. I told 'em not to, warned 'em first. Not doing much now I doubt, under half a ton of mudslide. Me? I'm leavin'. Next bus out. This jungle has rooted enough rot into me. I'd offer the same advice to you but you don't seem the type to take it to care if I said you're gonna die in there.
He walks to the edge of a ledge and laughs maniacally to himself.
TONY: "Yeah, die!"
Tony jumps off, leaving Lara behind to head in the opposite direction towards the Temple of Shiva.
CUTSCENE 02
Having found Randy and Rory dead with no sign of the Infada Stone, Lara finds her way out of the Temple of Shiva, sliding down a slope where she emerges on a cliff overlooking the banks of the River Ganges. She spies Tony drifting past on a wooden raft, arms folded across his chest. She opens fire on the researcher.
Alerted by her presence, Tony laughs and raises his arms as if invoking an unseen power. The Infada Stone is embedded into the centre of his chest.
The ground suddenly begins to shake and Lara is forced to jump off of the cliff as the pillars behind her collapse. By the time she has avoided being squashed by them, Lara gets up to see Tony drifting out of sight.
Lara is about to give chase when her attention is caught by something behind a waterfall. A green camoflauge-patterned quad bike. She runs towards it.
FMV 02 - SAILORS
After dispatching Tony and retrieving the Infada Stone, Lara exits the caves of Kaliya to find herself back at the banks of the river Ganges. A voice calls out to her from the river.
WILLARD: "Hey!"
Lara turns to the source of the voice. It is Dr. Willard travelling on a boat. Lara climbs aboard as the boat slows.
WILLARD: "I don't want to be misrepresented by that retarded researcher you've just been with, er..."
LARA: "Lara."
Willard invites Lara to sit down with him.
WILLARD: "I'm Doctor Willard. I'd come to converse with Tony myself, but I saw you doing a rather more creditable job, I think. Indeed, I'm inspired. I'd like to offer ye other work."
LARA: "What? Shoot the breeze with some of your other boys? No thanks."
WILLARD: "Fortunately, they were the only lab rats we let loose into the field. Naw, my request is for three other artefacts like this."
LARA: "The Infada tribe only had one artefact of this type. It's unique. Anyway, what would your interest in it be?"
Willard gets up and produces a pen-shaped sensor device. He hovers it over the Infada Stone.
WILLARD: "I'll show ye. It's not from India. Rather, an island near Antarctica. It is in fact meteorite rock that has been fashioned and used by Polynesians who were once settled there many many years ago."
LARA: "So how did it end up here?"
WILLARD: "Formed from the planets, sculpted by Polynesians, distributed by goons. Our excavations and investigations have led us to this. A sailor's diary from his voyage on Charles Darwin's expedition on the HMS Beagle."
Lara picks up the diary and begins reading one of the entries.
LARA: "August fourteenth, eighteen thirty four. This voyage is..."
Lara's voice changes into that of the writer, Stephen Barr, and a flashback sequence begins where Stephen is writing in his diary on the deck of the Beagle.
STEPHEN: "...getting too boring for me to continue with this journal. Me adventures at sea are an embarrassment. The only tales I'll 'ave to tell are hours of bird watchin', pickin' and pressin' flowers, followin' them blasphemous ideas
of the guv'nah, Darwin. But this don't even concern me now. I jus' want food. Somethin' more than vegetable broth in me. Today, we five 'ave made a pact. The only sampling we're gonna be doing is for meat... pure, solid, blood-rich
meat."
Stephen collects his gun and joins the other sailors on a small boat. They head for a nearby Antarctic island. At the island, sailor Smythe spots footprints heading into a cave. There is nothing of interest at the entrance save for
some old carvings on the walls.
SMYTHE: "The snow's run out. The tracks 'ave gone."
HENDERSON: "Jus' keep goin'. We're on it's trail."
The sailors continue onwards across an ice bridge before arriving in a vast cavern, tall statues flanking every corner. Henderson spots something in the ground.
HENDERSON: "There's something here!"
Sailor Paul Caulfield also spies something in the ground.
PAUL: "Look, another one! Whaddya reckon they're worth then?"
Stephen however is more interested in the footprints and discovers that they head off to exactly where Paul is standing. He rejoins the others to find Paul gloating at him.
PAUL: "Too late, there's only four. None for you."
A shadow appears above Paul on a ledge.
STEPHEN: "Paul..."
PAUL: "Wha?"
It is too late. The wolf dives for Paul, bringing him to the ground. Henderson, Smythe and Jonson flee as the wolf gnaws at Paul's neck. Stephen fires a shot at the animal, forcing it to flee.
SMYTHE: "C'mon Stephen!"
Stephen picks up Paul's wounded body and begins carrying him back to where the others are waiting at the bridge. The wolf however returns and licks the patch of blood that Paul left behind. It then begins pursuit.
HENDERSON: "Stephen, leg it! Quick!"
SMYTHE: "Faster! C'mon!"
As Stephen and Paul arrive on the bridge, the added weight of the wolf forces the bridge to collapse. The slab Stephen and Paul are standing on is sent hurtling down a slope and into the tunnels below. The wolf attempts to dive for them
but is impaled by a stalagmite. Down below, the slab is thrust through a wall and the sailors find themselves out in the open once more. Paul however did not survive the experience. Later, the other sailors dig a grave for Paul and
erect a wooden cross.
HENDERSON: "Nobody better say nothing about this to the guv'nah, else we'll be back having to hunt down that creature for his samples. Paul fell down a crevasse, okay?"
SMYTHE: "Okay Stephen?"
STEPHEN: "Amen."
Back in the present, Willard finishes telling Lara about Stephen.
WILLARD: "Stephen was to be the only survivor of the four. When he arrived back in London, he superstitiously sold off his artefact havin' seen his pals murdered or killed with their's... one here in India, one in the South Pacific and
one in Nevada. The places where I'd like ye to go."
Lara closes the diary and offers it back to Willard, smiling in anticipation of her further adventures.
LARA: "Sounds good to me."
CUTSCENE 03
Lara has sped the stolen quad bike over a slope, launching it over the tall electrified fence. However, the back tires are caught by the bent upper section of the fence, causing the vehicle to flip. Lara cries out as she is flung from her seat and down onto the ground below. She is rendered unconscious.
Two observing military policemen arrive and take up Lara's body between them.
MP #1: "You crazy geek freak. What kind of stunt was that to pull? Let's take her in."
MP #2: "She don't look much like one of them. Maybe she's a eco-terrorist or somethin'."
MP #1: "And they wear hot pants, huh?"
The policemen carry Lara away to a high security compound.
CUTSCENE 04
Breaking out of her imprisonment at the high security compound, Lara finds her way to a warehouse. The open rear of a delivery truck catches her attention.
Distracted by the sound of movement from behind her, Lara dashes into the truck and hides amongst the boxes. From her hiding place she can see two men closing the doors of the truck, sealing Lara inside. She can hear them speaking.
WORKER: "All righty!"
DRIVER: "Okay, see ya."
The engine starts up and the truck drives away. After an initial bumpy departure, Lara discovers a can of soda. Taking a seat on top of a box, she takes a sip from it and relaxes.
CUTSCENE 05
Lara climbs up into a tree shack, discovering a bandaged up military man who is missing one half of his left leg. He is swatting flies with a piece of rolled up paper.
LARA: "Not interrupting am I?"
COMMANDER: "Not bleedin' are yer? Not about to use this place as a dunny?"
LARA: "No and no."
COMMANDER: "Good. Good. Just don't want any fly-carrying visitors in here."
He indicates his left leg.
LARA: "Right. I understand. What happened?"
COMMANDER: "Woke up in the jungle with one of those little blokes snacking on my leg, didn't I?"
LARA: "A tribesman? It isn't usual for them to eat right off the bone like that."
COMMANDER: "Well it was dark an' I never got the bugger so I can't be sure. Somethin' spooky is in that jungle. Our air-carrier crashed up in the mountains. Every night some of my men would vanish without a trace. Others fled in fear, then this happened. So I brought the men down to shore for safety only for us all to be captured by this greedy mob. Some sort of sacrifice to their god who lives up in the hills. Though it seems I've not been invited to the barbie."
LARA: "Maybe your the dessert. Ripe flesh can be a bit of a delicacy around here."
COMMANDER: "For real?"
Outside, they can hear the sound of the tribesmen beating their drums.
LARA: "Listen, we'd better get you out of here. Do you know how the tribe cross the swamp down there? Which stones they tread on?"
COMMANDER: "Yeah, but I'm stayin' put. With this wound, I'd be like a fill-up station to every diseased bug in the bush. I'd rather be the main course at the real feast. Hey, if y'see any of my men alive in there, direct them to the north shore will yer? Away from here."
LARA: "Of course."
CUTSCENE 06
Lara enters a worshipping chamber. At the far end the wall is engraved with pictures telling the story of the arrival of the HMS Beagle in Kuru many years ago. Before Lara can examine the entire engraving she is startled by the cry of a tribesman who appears beside her.
TRIBESMAN: "Hoombada. Hoombada. Is well fa you me fasting dis day. You make plenty good flesh-pot."
LARA: "You forget. I might be quite hungry myself. Famished actually."
TRIBESMAN: "Uah!"
LARA: "Why did your ancestors flee from Antarctica so suddenly?"
TRIBESMAN: "Koma-Koma, bad place. Plenty flesh, but fa da price of evil. Da sixth leader, Mauki wa born widout face. Terrible storms. Men afraid. Ran! Set curse of Mauki on da land. No one go there now."
LARA: "You still worship it?"
TRIBESMAN: "White fella later com here wit magic Koma-Koma stone. Inna day we celebrate the death of heem. Da feast of Smythe."
LARA: "One of Darwin's sailors. Poor fool. Where is the stone now?"
The tribesman is chanting and ignores Lara for a moment as she prepares to leave.
TRIBESMAN: "He lucky fella dat keel you. A plenty Mary like you."
LARA: "I'll be sure to point that out to him."
Lara leaves the chamber.
CUTSCENE 07
On the rooftops, Lara is headed for St. Paul's Cathedral when she is shot at several times by somebody on the cathedral itself. Drawing her pistols, Lara returns fire and dashes for the cathedral, dodging more bullets as she goes. When the man with the gun flees, Lara slides down a sloped roof adjacent to the cathedral. Jumping out from her position, Lara fires again, forcing the man to drop his weapon. Lara gestures him to come forward but he instead attempts to grab his rifle. As he bends over, Lara delivers kick to his gut but he grabs her leg, bringing them both to the floor. With the man now on top of her, Lara simply points a pistol at his chin.
LARA: "Who are you working for?"
JOHN: "What?"
LARA: "You heard me."
JOHN: "I didn't, honest! What did you say?"
Lara puts John in a choke hold.
LARA: "I said, 'who employs you?'"
JOHN: "Aaah! Miss Sophia Leigh!"
Lara then flips John off of her and quickly gets to her feet.
LARA: "Who's she? What does she do?"
JOHN: "I dunno! Really, I don't! I just shoot people for her!"
LARA: "A commendable work ethic, I guess."
JOHN: "Yeah, I put me hours into it. As me father did and his father did before."
LARA: "Just how old is this Miss Leigh?"
JOHN: "I dunno. Late twenties. Early thirties."
LARA: "Right."
As Lara turns away for a split-second, John grabs his rifle and gets to his feet.
JOHN: "Yeah! For some people, like yourself, we get a special bonus."
LARA: "I'm flattered."
JOHN: "I mean, I could even be retiring from you."
LARA: "Then you might like to mind... the bell!"
From behind John, the swinging bell of St. Paul's swings right into his back, propelling him up into the air and out of Lara's way.
LARA: "Happy retirement."
Lara slides down into the shaft directly beneath the bell.
CUTSCENE 08
From a narrow shaft, Lara falls face down onto the floor of a dimly lit room. When she recovers she looks up to find one of the members of the Damned gang standing over her. He roughly pulls her up and drags her to the gang leader, Robert Smith. The leader sits on what passes for a throne, the back end of a car propped up by a couple bricks.
BOB: "So, you must be after Miss Leigh then?"
LARA: "Business, not pleasure."
BOB: "Though obviously not for revenge, mon. You hardly got the face for that."
LARA: "And you have?"
BOB: "Hrumf! How moronic a question is that, eh? I don even have a face, mon! Came down heah looking for work, and what do I get, eh? Miss Leigh's cosmetic company and her lab assistant job. No experience necessary. Good wage. Accomodation wid it. Aye, locked in a floation tank for days on end in some fetid syrup. And when we come out -cos lots of it was applied, like- no face, or flesh, mon! And a bootin' down the waste disposal chute heah. Presumed dead!"
LARA: "Some kind of failed experiment then?"
BOB: "Oh, tah very much! But aye, and for added insult, when I tried to take me own life, ah found dat it jus didn't work."
LARA: "You mean Sophia's testing some kind of immortality power? Along with her own brand of face-lift."
BOB: "Oy aye, mon! Everlasting beauty. She's obviously not fully worked it out yet. She takes the best results for herself. See, I don care what your business wit her is. You can't be any more shiftless than she is. So I'm goin out 'o me way ta help you. That is, after you done somethin' for us here like."
LARA: "Very generous of you. What do you want?"
BOB: "A bottle of that mummy preservation stuff. From the Natural History Museum."
LARA: "Embalming fluid?"
BOB: "Aye, for rottin' flesh you canna whack it, mon! The museum's pretty interesting I'm told. You'll like it."
The leader begins to walk away.
LARA: "So why don't you go yourself?"
BOB: "One of them Egyptian lassies there is a bit pissed off like that she didn't get immortality the way she wanted it and seein' as we'd done better than her in that department, I didn't care to imagine what curse we could get given any worse than we got already like. You'll be fine though, pet. You die easy."
LARA: "Thanks."
CUTSCENE 09
Lara has finally found her way up to Sophia Leigh's office. Sophia is seated at her desk.
SOPHIA: "Ah, Miss Croft! I take it you're ready to sign on."
LARA: "To what?"
Sophia rises from her chair.
SOPHIA: "Well, my books. You see, with your lifestyle, you'd be the perfect campaign for my products. Just think, you wouldn't be needing those unsightly weapons anymore."
LARA: "No, but I'd probably have an unsightly face judging by your past experiments."
SOPHIA: "My what?"
LARA: "Oh yes, they're all still alive. Very much so, in fact. All I want is the artefact."
Lara makes to grab the Eye of Isis which is mounted onto a sceptre but Sophia takes it and makes for the door leading outside.
SOPHIA: "Right! In your next life."
Lara draws her pistols.
LARA: "We'll see."
FMV 03 - CRASH
In Antarctica, Lara is now sitting comfortably as a passenger onboard a helicopter, heading for Dr. Willard and the RX-Tech base.
PILOT: "This is ??? to base. Come in, base. Come in, base. Dead air, ma'am. Gotta get down. This is too much."
The wind is getting stronger. Before the pilot can safely land the helicopter, it is shaken violently from side to side.
PILOT: "Hold on back there!"
Lara is forced to move before she falls out of the open door. The helicopter bangs into a cliff and drops down onto the icy surface. The pilot screams.
PILOT: "Whoo. Huh. Ha, ha. Ah, that was hairy."
Having been tossed to the floor, Lara shoves a container off of her and gets to her feet. But the danger isn't over yet. The helicopter begins to slide on top of the rapidly breaking sheet of ice. Lara quickly dives out of the helicopter, landing on her back as the ice breaks away completely and engulfs the entire helicopter with the pilot still inside.
CUTSCENE 10
In his hut, Dr. Willard is comfortably enjoying a bowl of tomato soup when Lara enters with a satchel containing the artefacts.
WILLARD: "Hi! Come in. Make yourself at home. I won't be a minute."
LARA: "At home?! I just met a man who may as well be Brundlefly."
WILLARD: "Fascinating, isn't it?"
LARA: "He was your own employee!"
WILLARD: "He was a molecular biologist. He would have been intrigued with himself. Thanks to this material, his hock genes were multiplied. Do that, and the complexities of our bodies increase beyond our comprehension. But this is just a fringe of its possibilities we're seeing here. My partner's exposure came from material impregnated into the meteorite crater. The real capacities lie in its core. With these artefacts you're so attached to, will let me access."
LARA: "But you've no control over this!"
WILLARD: "This is not just about avidly spawning mutants. It's an entirely natural acceleration of evolution. A real live laboratory of spurred on life."
LARA: "Not everyone here wants to be guinea pigs. Multi-appendaged or not!"
WILLARD: "Well now... that's unfortunate. It's been hit and miss here for too long. Now the timing's spot on, I can't leave it. The Polynesians fled in their ignorance, Darwin's half-wit sailors the same. Ironically making Darwin himself miss this angle in evolution. But now I'm here. I have the access, the knowledge, the artefacts."
Lara draws her pistols.
LARA: "Yes, but you bumped into me in India and sent me to find them for you, bringing me here, listening to this gibberish. Your perception of good timing is... bad!"
WILLARD: "I don't know about that!"
Suddenly, Willard upturns the table he's sat at, throwing Lara and the contents to the floor. He retrieves the satchel and takes a coat from a hanger before going outside. Recovering, Lara gets up and cautiously peeks outdoors, narrowly missing two bullets from Willard's pistol. Willard moves on with Lara in hot pursuit. He produces a remote control and hits a button. A lift from the mine shaft below appears in front of him. Lara's shots go astray as Willard somersaults into the elevator. Pressing the button again, the lift begins to descend. Just in time, Lara jumps down into the shaft and lands on top of the lift.
CUTSCENE 11
Lara races through the cold stone corridors of the lost city of Tinnos, determined to find Willard before he utilises the combined power of the meteorite artefacts. In the meteorite cavern, Dr. Willard is putting the final artefact in place. When this happens, the entire cavern begins to shake. Echoing from all around, a myriad of familiar voices fade in and out of existence. As Lara arrives on the edge of a platform, she loses her footing and falls harshly to the floor below. As she gets up, she can see Willard stood before the hole in the centre of the cavern, arms spread wide. From the hole, a huge meteorite emerges and ascends to the top of the cavern, suspended in midair as if by magic. Willard lowers his arms and glances back at Lara. Unconcerned, he straightens and allows himself to fall into the hole. Cupping her hands to her mouth, Lara is shocked at how far Willard is prepared to go with his ambitions. She rushes to the edge of the hole but nothing of Willard is there to be seen. As Lara turns her back to collect the artefacts, a hideous creature emerges from the hole. An enormous spider-like monster, it is Willard transformed. He lets out an unearthly snarl as he sets his sights on Lara.
FMV 04 - END
After defeating the evolved Dr. Willard and climbing out of the meteorite cavern, Lara has fought her way down to a helicopter landing pad. However, upon opening the door to the cockpit, a calm pilot smiles at Lara. This she returns before whipping out a pistol and shooting him head-on. Lara then takes control of the vehicle and begins making her escape. She has not gone unnoticed. A missile-clad turret targets her helicopter and fires off a rocket, narrowly missing and instead explodes upon impacting the side of a mountain. Another helicopter gives chase, its rapid bullets spraying the tail-end of Lara's helicopter. Quickly she disappears into a short valley. When her pursuer arrives there is nothing to be seen. Suddenly Lara lets loose a spray of bullets from her own helicopter and her enemy's own explodes. Her way clear, Lara heads back through the valley and out of sight.
CREDITS
Programmers
Richard Flower
Martin Gibbins
Chris Coupe
AI Programming
Tom Scutt
Level Designers
Peter Duncan
Andy Sandham
Richard Morton
Jamie Morton
Animators
Phil Chapman
Jerr O'Carroll
Darren Wakeman
Additional Artwork
Matt Charlesworth
Mark Hazelton
FMV Sequences
Peter Barnard
David Reading
Music
Nathan McCree
Sound Effects
Martin Iveson
Additional Sound Effects
Matthew Kemp
Peter Connelly
Script
Vicky Arnold
Special Thanks
Judith Gibbins
Jurjen Katsman
Game Testers
Darren Price
Hayos Fatunmbi
Tiziano Cirillo
David Ward
Paul Field
Steve Wakeman
Producer
Troy Horton
Executive Producers
Jeremy H. Smith
Adrian Smith
English Voice Actors
Lara Croft / Sophia Leigh - Judith Gibbins
Bob - Simon Greenall
Winston - Nathan McCree
French Voice Actors
Lara Croft - Françoise Cadol
Sophia Leigh - Céline Monsarrat
Willard - Bernard Bollet
Tony - Cyrille Artaux