Last August, we posted the “raid-worthy remains” of Team Lara’s canned open-world, city-raider project known only as “Downfall.” From the looks of things back then, the whole point of the game was to explore modern day ruins, presumably after an apocalypse event; not much was detailed beyond that.
Today, however, we introduce you to another raiding-savvy explorer in the form of Downfall’s likely main chap. It appears Lara wasn’t the only one with a penchant for ruins at Redwood HQ.
Raid through »
New hire at CD likely to set your TR9 expectations higher, too
When we learned that Rogelio Olguin has just joined Crystal Dynamics as environment artist, we immediately did some digging into his past projects to see what he can bring to the next pillar release — and now we post back with much enthusiasm, anticipating even more beautiful tombs and crypts and long-lost Edens to raid come release day of the next Tomb Raider.
Prior to the studio-hop, Olguin was 3D generalist at 4mm Games where he worked on upcoming title Def Jam Rapstar. In 2003, he was level designer at Epic Games where he contributed to the development of Unreal Tournament 4. But really, neither of those speak well enough of what he can do as an environment artist. Pictures and moving images do.
As such, here’s a jump to his portfolio page featuring an extensive gallery of his 3D work, level designs and 2D concepts. He also has a blog that features some of his works in progress. Or — you know what? — just hit play and watch the video we posted above. And granted you’re awed by it, you can visit his Vimeo page to see more video demos of his off-office projects.
And now you know why our expectations for Tomb Raider 9 are a little higher now. More talented artists, more reason to expect better of Lara, yes?
