M-rated Tomb Raider a possibility?

Eidos recently laid off 30 employees at Crystal Dynamics, including Tomb Raider: Underworld creative director Eric Lindstrom. Understandably bitter about Eidos' cost-cutting, Lindstrom is now answering fan questions on a popular Tomb Raider fan forum, giving an intriguing and frank insight into the development process (including details Eidos probably didn't want publicized).

One of the more interesting factoids to emerge from Lindstrom's open Q & A session is that Crystal Dynamics was held back by Eidos from making Underworld an M-rated title. "I wanted to do things that a Teen rating prevented," explained Lindstrom, "but I also wanted it to get the players the first unrated games, did. In the end it didn't matter because publishing wanted it to be Teen."

So far, the Tomb Raider franchise has contained only Teen-rated games, but was a Mature title still a possibility? Says Lindstrom: "The managers who said it had to be Teen left some time ago, so maybe that could change sometime." We assume such a game would either include more violence, or, as some sites have been quick to suggest, a more risqué depiction of Lara.

Though something evidently has to change after Underworld's disappointing sales, does anybody else find such a prospect depressing? We'd prefer it if Eidos concentrated on shipping games that, y'know, functioned correctly. Also, while we're discussing Underworld, we figured this would be an appropriate place to mention the Zero Punctuation review, which just popped up in our RSS feeds -- catch the video after the jump!

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Source: Lindstrom speaks out [Via MTV Multiplayer]
Source: Zero Punctuation covers Underworld