Health System Explained (By Eric Lindstrom)

Friday 25 June 2010


Tomb Raider: Underworld is in submission! For those who don't know, that means we have submitted final code for approval. Once granted, we're done!
If you don't believe it, take this as proof. I immediately fell ill and have been home sick for over two weeks. First time I've been sick in five years, because this is the first time I could afford to be. A body knows things like this.
I'm in the UK for the official press launch, but because of lead times I don't think anyone will see the results of that right away. So for now, I'll answer a question a lot of people have been asking for a long time: how will the health System work?
You arrive at each new location with full health and no health packs. Each location has health packs you can find -- ancient remedies still lying around (that your mother would never approve of you consuming) or first aid packs in the few places where people are nearby. If you get extremely hurt and don't use a health pack, however, Lara regenerates health slowly on her own till she reaches around 25%. It's frustrating to be so close to death if you have no health packs such that even a stumble can kill you, so in line with What Could Lara Do, if she's strong enough to run and jump, she's strong enough not to die upon stumbling.


Hidden in each location is a hard-to-find Relic. Finding one extends your total health bar by about 17%. Finding all six in the game doubles Lara's max health. Health is displayed in the upper left corner in two ways. A silhouette of Lara is filled with color: green is perfectly health, with yellow, orange, and red for increasing injury. For people who don't perceive color variation well, there is also a vertical bar alongside that shows Lara's health. When you find Relics and increase Lara's total health, a second vertical bar is added and instead of green meaning full health, Lara goes farther into the rainbow toward blue.



There you go. I'll come back in the weeks ahead and answer other questions I've been holding back on till we finished the game.
Cheers,
Eric

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