Core Design

Lara Croft, Core's most famous creation.

Derby-based Core Design was a developer of videogames, operating from 1988 to 2006. It's best known for creating the best-selling Tomb Raider series.

Core Design was established in 1988 with a budget of £16,000 and eight employees: Chris Shrigley, Andy Green, Rob Toone, Simon Phipps, Dave Pridmore, Jeremy Smith, Greg Holmes and T. Lloyd.

One of its first hits was Rick Dangerous, as 2D platform game released in 1989. The game was clearly inspired by the Indiana Jones movies, with Rick jumping spike-filled pits and dodging rolling boulders. Rick Dangerous 2 followed, along with Chuck Rock, a similar 2D platform game set in a cartoon-styled prehistoric world.

Core created games for a wide-range of computers and consoles, including the Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Sega Megadrive and Super Nintendo.

In 1994 the company was acquired by the CenterGold group, which in turn was acquired by Eidos Interactive two years later. During this period of change Core developed Tomb Raider, a 3D action adventure game for PC and consoles. It was released in November 1996 to great critical and commercial success, and spawned many sequels and spin-offs.

Eidos transferred development of the Tomb Raider series to a US-based studio following the release of the sixth Tomb Raider game, Angel of Darkness. Core concentrated on new projects, but in May 2006 was sold to Oxford-based developer Rebellion.

At the time of the sale Core was based at Derby’s Pride Park business estate.

Pages linking here

Tomb Raider – The classic video-game created in Derby

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