Weeks ago, Tomb Raider's executive producer Ron Rosenberg described Lara Croft's ordeal at the hands of her kidnappers an attempted rape.
"She is literally turned into a cornered animal," he said. "It's a huge step in her evolution: she's forced to either fight back or die."
The interview was recorded by Kotaku's Jason Schreier, in reference to a scene previewed at E3. Lara Croft is bound, and we see a guy put his face to her neck as he runs his hands over her body. Although Lara Croft manages to put up a struggle, there's no illusion with what he wants to do.
Now, Eidos's Ian Livingstone is calling Schreier's interview a "misinterpretation" and the threat one that's been blown out of proportion—or "spun out of control by the media."
"There was never any intention to present rape as part of the game," said Ian Livingstone in a new interview with Kotaku Australia. "There’s a moment, which was referenced to, where she’s under threat, but she deals with that threat in a very quick and decisive way!"
"So there was never, ever any intention by Crystal Dynamics to imply rape, I think that got misinterpreted during an interview and then that got spun out of control by media."
Perhaps the game's producer Ron Rosenberg may have been a little too hasty in his description of Lara Croft's ordeal, but the resulting blowback is hardly the fault of the press.