The Making of Tomb Raider: 1997-2000 - Cover Revealed and Pre-Orders are live
A day I've waited almost three years for.
Today (June 24) marks the launch of pre-orders for The Making of Tomb Raider: 1997-2000, the follow-up to 2021's The Making of Tomb Raider. In addition, it also marks the reveal of its front cover, made by the incredibly talented artist Inna Vjuzhanina.
It feels very strange to be typing this, I must admit, but also with a sense that it's nice to finally reveal the front cover, having had it as my iPhone's lock screen since February. From starting work on the book in October 2023 to finishing it in October 2025, it's taken a while to get here, but it's been worth it in so many ways.
With Radio Times Gaming kindly publishing a news post about the book today, I wanted to explain further into the front cover, as well as pre-orders for The Making of Tomb Raider: 1997-2000.
I've known of Inna Vjuzhanina's work for a long while. Having watched The Dark Angel's Kickstarter campaigns, I was taken aback by how good the artwork was. However, the short timeframe in making the first book meant that a front cover was essentially made in two weeks.
So, when the book was being translated into other languages, there was an opportunity to create a new front cover. This is where Vjuzhanina came in, and I was amazed by what she had created. When I was deep into interviews for The Making of Tomb Raider: 1997-2000 in 2023, I knew I wanted her to create the front cover for this one.
Vjuzhanina has kindly published a post on her Patreon page about the making of the front cover. An excerpt of it is below:
Making the front cover for Book 1 was one of my most beloved projects to work on. So I was absolutely thrilled when Daryl approached me again saying that there's a Book 2 in the making. Of course I said yes on the spot.
Having been told of what The Making of Tomb Raider: 1997-2000 was about, the idea was to feature Lara as the center star (obviously) and have all the key artifacts from the era included into the composition- my favourite kind of project.
The post even features the initial concepts of the front cover - be sure to sign up, and you'll be able to see how the whole process came to be.
As you can see, there are several artifacts around Lara, with her pose harkening back to a scene from one of the games. The location where she is also hints towards another scene from another title. Essentially, the front cover gives the reader what the book will be about, but not completely.
I absolutely love the cover. Not only does it feature the book's narrative in several ways, but it also harkens back to both covers of the first book. Working with Vjuzhanina to get across my initial idea of a fractured Egyptian wall with the artifacts as hieroglyphics was a pleasure. Incredibly, we seemed to fall on the same ideas very early on, and in mere weeks, we had the cover that you'll be seeing everywhere later this year.
With TR30, the yearly Tomb Raider convention being held at Derby QUAD on October 24, there will be plenty of books available to be signed by me and many of the Core Design team. In addition, I'll be interviewed by journalist Laura Griffiths on how the book came to be.
Over the next few months, I'll be writing more about The Making of Tomb Raider: 1997-2000 - how parts of it came to be, the transcribing process, and other aspects. You may even hear me on some podcasts in the near future, as well as others mentioning the book. But right now, it feels fantastic to have the book out there, ready to pre-order, with an incredible cover to boot.
It's been a long, challenging road since starting the project in 2023, but it's been all kinds of worth it. Most of all, I'm incredibly thankful to everyone who gave up their time to speak to me for it. This book is to help tell their story, as a record of how these games came to be, and the difficulties they faced along the way.
