Efter de senaste veckornas bråk och diskussion om Tomb Raider efter Crystal Dynamics-medarbetaren Ron Rosenbergs uttalanden om det våldtäktsförsök Lara Croft utsätts för i spelet har nu även utvecklarens global brand director Karl Stewart valt att kasta sig in i debatten. Han säger i en intervju med Kotaku:
"We have a female character that we're very proud and very honored to be able to have in our game and build a story around. And by giving her motivation to become the stronger action-adventure hero and the girl that's willing to fight to stay alive and move forward throughout the game, we use that device and that intimidation to make her stronger.", säger Stewart.
Han fortsätter sitt resonemang: "To make her feel empowered and to take her beyond that breaking point where she realizes the severity of the situation and she's willing to fight to stay alive."
På frågan om inte våldtäkt är ett ämne som borde vara tabu i spel svarar Stewart: "That is a hard subject because I believe and the studio believes that it is a subject that we see played out in many ways through movies and TV shows and I think in our medium we are trying to bring an immersive narrative to which- in all the research and all the work that we do in building the story and building this game, we take it to many different places. And this isn't something that's uncommon in story narrative."
Stewart avrundar sitt resonemang: "And what we're trying to do is in a way, as you know, raise the bar of story-telling- how Lara Croft how that plays out how you interpret it... as you play the game out for yourself, as you review the game and try to answer how you felt from that input, we're trying to raise the bar in immersive storytelling through the video game. So I'm being careful in that we're not choosing to say "this is a word we want to be associated with that," that is not the case."
