Speaking to Pratchett, I get the impression she's glad she got the chance to right some of the narrative wrongs of Tomb Raider with Rise. And from a production point of view, she, along with the rest of the narrative team, tried their best to identify story issues as early as possible, avoiding troublesome eleventh hour changes.
But, by doing so, new problems presented themselves.
"That did mean as writers and narrative designers that we were in constant headwinds of feedback all the time," Pratchett says, "from the team, Microsoft, Square Enix, external contractors, internal playtesters, external playtesters. It was very very full-on.
"That was very hard to deal with, because you're constantly reiterating all the time, and obviously different people have different tastes and different levels of power, and you've got to react to everything, and you're trying to keep everyone happy and also deliver on your creative vision. It's what I imagine working on a big budget studio picture is like. It's a bit like writing a script with the entire audience behind you, watching you and giving comments.
"But it did help us identify potential problems, like problems with the ending or those moments where narrative and gameplay really clash a lot earlier on, so that meant we could finesse those problems more and smooth out the edges."
One of the issues I had with the Tomb Raider reboot was I felt it struggled to marry the fact Lara - via the player - breezily murders hundreds of people, with the suggestion she's simply an adventurous student who up until the events of the game had never killed anyone before. It's a different problem to the Nathan Drake mass murderer issue that has dogged the Uncharted series, but it's along the same lines.
Pratchett calls this the "biggest challenge" she faced writing Lara Croft. "Uncharted has made Drake more lighthearted about it," she says. "With Lara, we wanted to make her care a little bit and be a bit more human in her reactions, but ultimately realise this is what she's got to do to survive and just get on with it."
Rise, as you'd expect, dealt with this issue more smoothly because the experience of the first game meant her ability to kill was more believable.
"By the time Rise comes along, she's ready to meet fire with fire," Pratchett says. "She knows what she's doing, and she almost enters a mode to deal with it. This isn't her first rodeo."
Some, however, struggled to get on with this new, modern Lara in either game. Critics say Pratchett and Crystal Dynamics veered too far from the Lara of old, the Lara envisioned by Core Design's enigmatic Toby Gard, into "grim-dark" territory.
"There is a tonal difference," Pratchett admits. "Crystal is very keen not to do the quippy one-liner Lara that characterised classic Lara. There's a part of me that misses that. I know there are players who miss that. From a writer's point of view, it's fun to write that kind of character.
"But quippyness and the devil-may-care attitude suggests confidence and resilience Lara doesn't have yet, so it didn't feel in-line with her character to be that confident and that quippy. Crystal just didn't want the same tone to the character. That wasn't my decision, but I had to write to their vision, and I completely understand that. It's a darker game."
Still, Pratchett insists the two Laras - old-school Lara and modern day Lara - have much in common. Similarities are there, but they're easy to miss, she says, because the new Lara isn't so big on jokes.
"The bravery, the resourcefulness, the tenacity, everything you associate with classic Lara, is all there in new Lara," Pratchett says, "it's just rewound to the point where it's bubbling to the surface and being tested.
"She doesn't act as the wealthy playgirl, jet-setting around the world, and then having all the guns and gadgets to deal with things. She's different in that regard. She's more interested in archaeology for the secrets and mysteries it involves, whereas the previous Lara was in it for the sport.
"I know gritty, darker games have become very popular in the last five or so years. I don't think it's absolutely necessary, but I can completely see why Crystal wanted to take a different path with depicting Lara and her character than had been done before.
"Otherwise, why bother with a reboot, really?"
