Tomb Raider III Used Portal Tricks to Build Its Oversized UFO

The seemingly small UFO in Tomb Raider III hides an interior far larger than its exterior, a design trick that developer Core Design achieved through creative use of the game's room and portal systems. Richard Morton, a level designer on the 1998 adventure game, has explained how the unusual structure emerged during development and how science fiction influenced the Area 51 sequence.

The UFO appears near the end of the Nevada section, where protagonist Lara Croft must retrieve an artifact. Players navigate the surrounding Area 51 complex, activate switches, collect keys and encounter a rocket launch before gaining access to the alien craft.

Morton worked on the South Pacific levels and parts of Nevada, where development had initially been started by Neal Boyd before he moved to Project Eden. Andy Sandham also helped complete Area 51, while Morton designed the UFO section itself.

"Area 51 was a bit of a team effort," Morton said. "The part where the rocket launches, Neal did a lot of that stuff. So much of that level is his work, as well as some of the other routes.

Andy Sandham helped in finishing off that level, too. And then the bit with the UFO, that was mine."

The alien setting reflected the science fiction that was popular during the late 1990s. Television series The X-Files and the film Independence Day influenced the team's approach to Area 51, including scenes depicting aliens on operating tables.

"We knew Area 51 had to have aliens in it in some form. And we did put some down on operating tables – we were all influenced by films and shows like 'The X-Files' and 'Independence Day', which were around at the time of TR3."

Morton's breakthrough came while experimenting with how rooms could connect in ways that appeared to defy the game's physical layout. His initial concept involved placing a narrow room between other spaces and linking it to a separate room visible only through an opening. The arrangement created an interior space surrounded by eight rooms.

"I was working quite late one evening, and it wasn't a UFO to start with. I was working on the level and suddenly wondered what would happen if I had three rooms next to each other, with the room in the middle that was only the width of the portal," Morton explained. "Then I’d link that to a separate room that was only visible inside the portal.

I then somehow managed to build this impossible room that was surrounded by eight rooms – the only way I could get it to work. And it did, but it worked horizontally – it was just like Valve's 'Portal', but nine years before."

The concept initially raised technical concerns because the game's enemies relied on navigation systems that could not readily account for rooms connected through the unusual arrangement. Tom Scutt, an artificial intelligence programmer brought onto the team to improve enemy behavior, tested the idea with Morton.

"Tom loved it, but I think he started doing some tests around it – this was just a portal in a room to see if it could be used. Soon after, he explained to me that enemies wouldn't work with it without being heavily reworked, because of how the navigation worked with the enemies," Morton said. "So if Lara went through a portal to 'another world', for example, the enemies wouldn't know; they'd just stay in the same room. So all in all, they basically said that they loved it, but you can't do it - and yet I kept trying."

Morton subsequently adapted the technique to the UFO model already positioned in a hangar within Area 51. Instead of expanding the craft's visible exterior, he built a vertical route that connected its small outer structure to a much larger interior.

"The next night, I decided to build a UFO, which we'd already built within the level in this rough shape in one of the hangars at the end of the level."

The solution used a ladder leading upward through the model, which occupied only three by three blocks and contained a one-block opening. By applying the room-connection technique vertically, Morton made the interior accessible despite the craft's limited exterior dimensions.

"I built a ladder going up from the entrance, which went straight up through the tiny UFO model, which was only three by three blocks, with a one-block hole going up into it. So I remade the same trick from the night before, only vertically, and it worked!"

The team then adjusted enemy behavior to preserve the illusion. Enemies needed to appear inside the UFO when Lara entered and stop pursuing her through the craft's interior once she left, preventing attacks from breaking the intended effect.

"Once you got inside the UFO, I think we had to do a tiny bit of fiddling around, just to make the enemies warp inside the UFO. But they'd only try to attack you when you were in the UFO. I think we triggered them once you got in there and de-triggered them once you came out, just to stop them from firing at you when you weren't in there, just to keep that illusion of this TARDIS UFO going."

Programmer Martin Gibbins, who had previously warned that the UFO concept could disrupt the game, ultimately recognized the technical achievement behind the design. Morton developed the idea, but its implementation depended on the portal system created by Gavin Rummery.

"Despite the UFO being Richard's idea, that was a testament to Gavin Rummery's ridiculous portal system. It had a single-block doorway into what was effectively"