Release dates slipped further and further down the calendar until the team received orders to start cutting gameplay. Core moved the second and fourth locations, Castle Kriegler in Germany and Cappadocia in Turkey, to Angel’s proposed sequel, The Lost Dominion. Kurtis’ hero skill tree, most of his levels, and the franchise planned around him were scrapped. Only his weird Krull-like weapon remained. The expansive feature set went in, each in a highly abbreviated form. Character animations took priority over character controls, leading to the memorable sight of Jeremy Heath-Smith cursing at his own game while attempting to demo a simple first-level game mechanic at a buyers’ conference, just a few months before its release. He simply could not get Lara to climb on top of a garbage bin. Nobody else had any trouble trashing her.
Core knew it wasn’t ready, but Eidos pushed Angel of Darkness out the door in time to reach stores before Angelina Jolie’s much-anticipated sequel, Cradle of Life, opened in theaters. Not the wisest of choices, as it turned out.
During another falling out with Von Croy, Lara (alive again without explanation) witnessed his murder and found herself framed for it. Tracking the real killer through Paris and Prague put her on the trail of immortal alchemist Pieter Van Eckhardt and his Cabal cult’s plan to revive the Nephilim, hybrid offspring of humans and fallen angels. She also struck up a flirtatious rivalry – then partnership – with Kurtis Trent, sole survivor of a group dedicated to stopping Eckhardt.
Players enjoyed the music and the story… when they could follow it. All the cuts opened up continuity holes nobody had time to plug. Entire areas made no sense. Lara spent most of the game skulking around a strangely deserted Paris and its strangely vacant nightclubs. Deeply frustrating controls didn’t help. RPG elements felt tacked-on, and branching dialogue trees rarely affected the story, making them pointless. Worse, the game went Gold loaded with glitches and bugs. Paramount Pictures blamed the game’s dismal press for Cradle of Life barely grossing half its budget domestically – a fifth what the first film raked in – killing not only a planned third film, but a Halle Berry vehicle based on her Bond Girl character from Die Another Day. Female-lead action, a sub-genre Tomb Raider popularized, now translated to box office poison.
Blame for Angel of Darkness went around in circles. Key members of Core’s team, people who’d been there from the beginning, left or were fired. Heath-Smith resigned less than a month after the game’s release.
Ultimately, Eidos succeeded where Core failed. This time, Lara Croft was dead for real.
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