Eidos looking to reinvent Lara Croft (again)

Forget that Lady Croft's reinvention -- by the recently downsized Crystal Dynamics -- in Tomb Raider: Legend brought new life to a franchise that was on life support, Eidos wants to do another makeover of the heroine after "disappointing" Underworld sales of only 1.5 million units in the six weeks following the game's release. Eidos expected the latest Croft adventure to hit 2 million sales during this brutal holiday season.

Speaking with The Times, Eidos CFO Robert Brent says they need to look at everything when developing the next Tomb Raider title. He uses Batman as an example of a "sad character" from the Burton films, who became more "noir" in The Dark Knight. This would be a good time to note that Croft tried going "darker" before; it was called Angel of Darkness.

Eidos would also like to make Lara more female-friendly, which is understandable -- a good first step might be showing her eyes on the box art. It's worth pointing out that Eidos is apparently using Legend's 3 million sales to gauge its disappointment with Underworld. Key difference: Legend released with breathing room in April of 2006, not in the war zone of 2008's climax.