Tomb Raider controversy update

Tomb Raider has been getting the wrong sort of press in recent weeks, after the controversy surrounding Crystal Dynamics' Ron Rosenberg's recent comments pushed their game to the forefront of debate surrounding violence in video games.

Rosenberg originally told Kotaku: "And then what happens is her best friend gets kidnapped, she gets taken prisoner by scavengers on the island. They try to rape her, and..."

In a more recent interview with Kotaku, Crystal Dynamics global brand director, Karl Stewart, weighed in with his opinion on the matter, clearly hoping to clarify the studio's position on the issue:

"We have a female character that we're very proud and very honored to be able to have in our game and build a story around. And by giving her motivation to become the stronger action-adventure hero and the girl that's willing to fight to stay alive and move forward throughout the game, we use that device and that intimidation to make her stronger."

"To make her feel empowered and to take her beyond that breaking point where she realizes the severity of the situation and she's willing to fight to stay alive."

When asked whether rape and sexual assault were subjects too taboo for video games, Stewart said:

"That is a hard subject because I believe and the studio believes that it is a subject that we see played out in many ways through movies and TV shows and I think in our medium we are trying to bring an immersive narrative to which- in all the research and all the work that we do in building the story and building this game, we take it to many different places. And this isn't something that's uncommon in story narrative."

"And what we're trying to do is in a way, as you know, raise the bar of story-telling- how Lara Croft how that plays out how you interpret it... as you play the game out for yourself, as you review the game and try to answer how you felt from that input, we're trying to raise the bar in immersive storytelling through the video game. So I'm being careful in that we're not choosing to say "this is a word we want to be associated with that," that is not the case."

The furore surrounding Rosenberg's comments came hot on the heels of the controversy regarding a recent Hitman trailer, during which 47 takes down a team of leather-clad nun/assassins.