Japanese publisher wanted to redesign Tomb Raider's Lara Croft with manga-style giant eyes

Tomb Raider co-founder Paul Douglas revealed that Core Design was asked to redesign the original Lara Croft model at the request of the Japanese publisher, who worried that the Western character design wouldn't resonate with Japanese audiences.

On social media Douglas shared that he and co-founder and designer Toby Gard faced pressure to alter Croft's appearance at a fairly late stage of development. Publisher Victor Interactive Software even sent their design proposals via fax.

Douglas explained:

Victor wanted us to change the in-game Lara to make her more appealing to Japanese audiences.

The designer described the request as manga-style – featuring giant eyes and head.

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 & 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...