Behind Murti Schofield's Angel of Darkness - 20 Years of Tomb Raider AOD 

The best script of all time in the Tomb Raider franchise. He deserves all the thanks and prestige from the Tomb Raider community. Thank you! ❤⭐❤

I still find myself in awe at the sheer amount of lore and references that this game contains. Murti Schofield is truly inspiring.

I love how he wanted to respect what core had created asked for all the material on her so he could be faithful to their Lara... Crystal seriously missed that entirely.

I want nothing more than a full remake of this game that is willing to expand the game and this brilliant story.

Angel of Darkness deserves another chance because it wasn't finished when it was released.

This interview is very important, in my eyes, because hearing Murti talk about what went in creating the story for AOD shows you that writing such a captivating story doesn't happen overnight. It requires extensive research, passion derived from your own interests, hard work, time and dedication. Murti has knowledge of visiting historic locations before the internet was a thing and before those places became tourist spots (traps) where everyone’s just seeing other people as walking wallets. He has that genuine experience of human connection and discovering something for the first time through hard work. Along with that, the amount of books and media that have influenced his own work is astonishing and we could all learn from it by taking a moment to stop and take in an art piece we like for more than 3 seconds. I believe all this can be felt in AOD’s story as it asks you to dig deeper in order to connect all of the dots and it’s what kept us all involved through all these years. The biggest quality of AOD is its honesty.

You can just feel when someone puts time and effort into his work. He said he read Tolkien and that's a good example for it. When you read it, it just feels authentic. Even though you don't necessarily know that he worked a lot on his world building. You just feel there is more to it. I think it's the same when you play AOD. He deserves a TR game or other video game tbh. Or a TR themed book.

Honestly, AOD holds so much substance and gravity to it that I don't see why CD and Amazon don't take advantage of that with Lara going forward. She has has the ability to unify all the timelines perfectly, with an incredibly unique story and narrative unlike any other. If only they'd just (pun intended) dig a little deeper into Tomb Raider's past they'd discover they have a treasure trove right under their noses!

I wish the people working on the franchise would take a few pages from the old games, and how Lara’s story is one for the ages.

This whole classic Tomb Raider renaissance still feels like a fever dream to me - so much content everywhere, with a lot of the people involved with the making of the games taking part in the process as well! I must say Chris that even in the esteemed company of all of the amazing guests you've had in your podcast, Murti really shined like a diamond in this one! You could really hear his bubbling enthusiasm for the game and the lore he created. I feel like he could've gone on and on about it without any problem! Great episode.

I wish we had more Tomb Raider games like _The Angel of Darkness_ , helmed by a genius writer and lore master such as Murti Schofield! I can listen to this man for hours and it never gets boring - he's incredibly creative and imaginative. Thanks Chris & Murti for this very interesting interview!

The Angel of Darkness really is a gift that keeps on giving 😀 Fantastic podcast Chris and Murti! This was really great to listen to

It was really nice to hear Murti's thought process on the story and history behind the characters and places. I'm glad that the stories are still being told even if we'll never get a game continuation. At least the documents and scripts weren't lost to time.

I’ll forever love this game, the atmosphere, soundtrack, characters and the story are all fantastic!

Brilliant interview, Chris! My heart is very full after listening to this 💓

Thanks so much for having Murti on the podcast! I always loved Angel of Darkness back in 2003 but I only first beat it in 2007 as I forgot Lara could climb around corners on ladders, meaning I didn’t beat Le Serpent Rouge until then as I was stuck on the first lighting rig (D’oh!). Glad I stuck around to beat it and it’s become of my top video games let alone Tomb Raider games ever since. The Restoration mods, Myth of El Hawa & Jenni’s book & audiobook make it even better. The archive is a lot of fun to read and learn about both the game & its world plus a little of the real life inspiration too as Murti talked about here: back in either 2021 or 2022 when it was new and again the past few months, I started reading it one afternoon and emerged from my room some time later to find the authorities had declared me legally dead. I’ve also just this Saturday night began reading the printout of Path of the Black Alchemist I got for Christmas or my birthday. So far I’ve got to Rouzic’s office in the Strahov. After all these years, 21 of playing the game, 17 of actually beating it, I got choked up just thinking about it. Psyched to read more of Murti’s site especially the AOD3 stuff once I get through POTBA. I also recommended the site to two of my Japanese friends who are big Tomb Raider fans, Miania12 (different name on Twitter as she got locked out of her account with that name) & Akira.

I should have been making notes because there's so much to comment on! Ahh so exciting! I'd love to hear more about Kurtis' younger years! And what is the AoD surprise later this year? I guess this isn't an AoD month but an AoD year then :D And... Janice! Her backstory is so awesome, seeing it in a video format would be amazing! Honestly she deserves a TV miniseries though. And Kurtis met Putai... well, that's something to remember for my future fanfics, I've had them meet for the first time post-AoD... oh well :D And it's so great to hear Chingacha Red Hand mentioned, I hope more people will know about him now that Murti name-dropped Kurtis' half-brother on your podcast :) Aaand The Cleaner being already hurt by Kurtis by the time Lara fights him has been a great source of amusement for me for some time, so again it's great that more people might learn of it now :D Kurtis really has a bad luck finishing off his opponents :P Oh! And Kurtis' song! Sung by Eric! Holy crap yes! Also hearing all the inspiration behind AoD is so cool, and I love that Murti gets inspiration from his dreams sometimes because I do too. Brains can make up some really interesting stuff when we sleep. Oh and the Black Legion was mentioned! It's so good to hear some of the specific things they did in the Order! Also damn, I wonder if they lasted to present day, can you imagine them going after anything un-christian in the 20th century? (Or even 21st century, if there are some still alive in hiding... maybe too hurt to help in the War, and when they're recuperated enough the War is already over, now what do they do? Who do they fight? The neo-pagans?) Thank you so much Chris for the interview, and thank you so much Murti as well for sharing your thoughts, ideas and inspiration with us

Thanks so much Chris for keeping TRAOD alive 😊and big thanks to Murti for bringing us this fascinating story!

This has got me even more excited for Tomb Raider: Path of the black alchemis!

Wow Chris, this was an amazing interview!! Thank you so much! Murti is such an amazing person and an incredible writer :D and I'm so grateful that you just made AoD month even better!!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️

Finally got round to listening to this. Thanks so much for putting it together, Murti is such a good guy and I could listen to him forever! 🥹

The mind of this man... amazing. Why dosen't Crystal hire this man to help with TR12? God knows they need it.

This has been one of the most interesting episodes so far. Thank you! I love the fact that he made a point of understanding the character first and reading all the existing bio, etc.

This video is a gem. Despite the games flaws this is still my favorite tomb raider game due to the amazing story and ambience. ❤

Always wanted to know about the plot of AoD, how it was written. The script of AoD is still the best for me. So much details and storylines. This game is like wonderful adventure, detective and fantasy film with nice heroes. And there could be romantic line with Lara and Kurtis. The writer seems to be a very intelligent man like great fantasy writers and film directors.

Excellent interview and excellent way to celebrate 20 yeras of AOD! It's always nice listening to the great minds behind TR games.

This is AMAZING. Thank you so much for this.

The man, the legend!

Thanks alot Chris for sharing this woderful discussion with the wonderful Murti schofiels ,I really enjoyed it💓 And I would love to see an Aod CD drama done by the original V. Actors coming out oneday😋where characters have random conversation and corky dialogues,especially Lara &Kurtis 😂

Loved this interview

It's both fascinating and saddening to hear about all the "what could & should have been" contents.. Some really cool ideas & concepts there, IMHO.

I wonder how different AOD would be if we had started with Lara arrested in Paris off the bat.

what a wonderful job u r doing chris. love TR, love TRAOD and cant get enough of your content and your contributions to the TR community.

That was a fascinating watch! Thanks guys!

I always love Murti Schofield tomb raider tiddbits. I love how organized it is.

This was very interesting. Great job. Thank you for doing this.

I can just thank you again for your effort you put into your videos, always cool to see how you invite guests who did work for the tomb raider seried :) Murti Schoefild thanks for making this video with Chris, I did learn a lot of one of my favorite tomb raider games through this video! Even if I struggle a little bit with my english skills here and there xD Interessting that he read a lot of dark stories, you can tell he worked hard for the story! I can imagine that it was not easy to make the right backgroundstory and disign for the nephilim. And it shows how close engels, demons and humans can be in stories. Alchemy is truly an interessting theme! A lot of our medicine and chemie/physic knowledge would not be the same without people who did work on experiments and worked on the alchemy concept. In castlevania amd harry potter is it a big part for the story, too and I love those elements (or in fullmetal alchemist, but this is a lot differently from Aods way to show this science [with some magic elements xD]) Lara and Kurtis have maybe super genes? Hmm I mean Kurtis has telepatic powers and no human in tomb raider can do laras feats of jumps in the classic timeline xD.. for me she could be a descendant of thihocan or qualopec.. but thats on a different paper 🤔 As a german, a level in germany would have been amazing. I guess in a what if sequel lara could have visit germany, maybe some hidden british Castle or a turkey tomb and so on...headcinema is on xD...I really need to read the novelisation, thanks again for your advertising abou this :) What an incredible video, thank you both so much! Hearing the effort this man puted in this Lore, I'm again a little bit angry, that the Developer had never time to finish the game X.x The teaser for the big aod event in the end of the year, damn...I'm curious! I can only imagine how funny a talk between Lara and Kurtis could be a few days later after Eckhardt and Karels downfall

Thank you so much Murti for putting in a videogame the truth about what's going on in the world,lux veritatis and shadow war are the fiction but the cabal is very real and well that's their name We hope that this wonderful story embracer will give a opportunity Kurtis need to come back also Karel the must intriguing and fascinating villain out there

how much i would have like for the nephilim to be the same race as the atlanteans were and have lara traveling to capadoccia only to discover its some sort of remnant like the pyramid in TR1 was. The parallels were there. I hope CD does touch up on those stories and make the upcoming games related to TRAOD and TRLAU.

So looking forward to tomb raider 3 first time play through with your husband! Is it starting around August again?

where do ifind a vector image of Kurtis' shirt logo?, i love it!