The Making of Tomb Raider 1997-2000: Daryl Baxter Chronicles Core Design's Pivotal Era

Daryl Baxter’s The Making of Tomb Raider 1997-2000 is the latest deep-dive into one of the most consequential stretches in the Tomb Raider saga. Published by Pen & Sword Books and available for pre-order from the publisher’s store, Amazon, and Waterstones, the new volume follows Baxter’s 2021 title The Making of Tomb Raider and covers development stories from Tomb Raider III through Tomb Raider: Chronicles, including expansions for the original trilogy and the franchise’s first Game Boy entry. The book is built on fresh interviews with former Core Design staff and other contributors who worked on the series during the late 1990s. Baxter includes exclusive on-set and behind-the-scenes photos from Tomb Raider’s commercial peak and documents cut content and cancelled projects. Among the verified details are mentions of a cancelled multiplayer mode, trimmed levels, and a planned fourth expansion pack that never reached release. Baxter told readers the project was a major undertaking, describing the new volume as the most challenging book he has completed but emphasizing that the work was rewarding. He noted that multiple former team members agreed to speak on record for the first time about how those titles were made, and he underscored that the finished manuscript—roughly 90,000 words—contains no AI-generated text. The narrative also examines internal changes at Core Design. Baxter outlines how a new internal team took over the series during this period and how the pressure of an annual release cadence strained staff resources. Former developers recounted that the relentless schedule took a heavy toll and pushed some team members close to their limits. Pen & Sword and Baxter commissioned Ukrainian artist Inna Vjuzhanina to design the cover; the publisher says Vjuzhanina was selected after organizers discovered her work via The Dark Angel Kickstarter project that revisited Peter Connelly’s soundtracks for The Last Revelation, Chronicles, and The Angel of Darkness. The Making of Tomb Raider 1997-2000 is priced at £35 and is scheduled for release on October 30, 2026. Baxter will appear at TR30 in Derby on October 24, 2026, to discuss the book ahead of its wider release. The first volume of Baxter’s series is currently on sale from Pen & Sword for £12.50. While the book focuses on late-90s development on platforms including the Game Boy era, it will be of interest to fans of Tomb Raider across modern platforms from classic hardware to the Nintendo Switch and beyond.