Core Design

The story of Core Design begins in the 1980s in Derby, England, back when making video games meant working with computers that would probably lose a speed contest against a determined pocket calculator. The team was small, curious, and stubborn enough to believe that spending entire days programming tiny sprites was a perfectly reasonable career choice. In its early years the company produced games for systems like the Amiga and Atari ST with the typical energy of British studios of the era: plenty of ideas, limited resources, and enthusiasm strong enough to overlook the occasional bug.

Then came the moment when someone decided it would be a good idea to build a three-dimensional adventure starring an athletic archaeologist with a fondness for ancient ruins, improbable jumps, and a pair of pistols. The result was Tomb Raider, and suddenly the studio went from respected developer to accidental pop-culture factory. Lara Croft became one of the most recognizable figures in gaming during the 1990s, while the people in the office were likely still wondering how they had gone from coding games for home computers to managing a worldwide phenomenon.

Of course, the life of a game studio rarely stays calm for long. As the years passed, the pressure to produce bigger and more spectacular sequels began to resemble a creative marathon. Eventually Core Design handed the series to other developers, and the studio itself went through mergers and transformations. Still, its legacy remains one of those classic stories in gaming history: a modest team, modest machines, and one character who somehow ended up becoming immortal.