According to Westlake, the game is now at first playable status.
“[Tomb Raider Chronicles] has been a very smooth development, especially with Westlake’s prior experience with the Tomb Raider series. There is no announced ship date yet,” said Westlake.
Westlake has previously converted the other major installments in the series on behalf of Mac game publisher Aspyr Media. Aspyr announced that it would bring Tomb Raider Chronicles to the Mac this past October, at its AspyrWorld media event in Austin, Texas. This is the first time that Westlake has commented on the development status of Tomb Raider Chronicles since then.
Tomb Raider Chronicles was originally developed by Core Design and licensed from PC publisher Eidos Interactive. Already available for Windows-based PCs, the Sega Dreamcast and Sony PlayStation game consoles, Tomb Raider Chronicles reveals four previously untold adventures featuring Lara Croft. Croft travels on a German U-boat, through the ruins of ancient Rome, and to a high-tech city in search of four ancient artifacts.
The PC version of the game includes a level editor, to enable players to make more challenges for Lara Croft themselves. Level editors for popular games are scant on the Mac — most game developers and level designers depend on PCs to craft their products, and the labor involved to make such tools Mac-compatible usually isn’t cost-effective. Mac gamers have been understandably curious to see if this feature makes it to their platform. Alas, Westlake doesn’t have a direct answer yet, but they’re clearly aware of how important it is to some players.
“… the status of a Mac port of the TR editor is still undecided. We are waiting for source code for the PC editor from Eidos to review. Needless to say, Westlake and Aspyr understand how popular the editor would be, and we’re planning to do everything possible to try to get it on the Mac,” said Westlake.
We’ll bring you more details as they become available.