20 Years Of Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider and Lara Croft are inseparable concepts. In 1996, it was the perfect combination of boundary-pushing game design and an iconic, kick-ass heroine that helped create what would go on to be not just one of the industry’s biggest ever series, but a character who smashed through the mainstream barriers to be accepted by nongamers. So it seems unthinkable that Lara Croft almost never existed.

“Tomb Raider’s protagonist started off as a man named Fletcher Christian,” explains Crystal Dynamics’ senior community manager Meagan Marie, who’s busy putting the finishing touches to a 20 Years Of Tomb Raider book due out in October. “He was reimagined as Laura Cruz, a South American archaeologist and mercenary inspired by Tank Girl and Neneh Cherry. Eventually, Core Design decided to make her a hometown heroine – a quintessentially British character. She was renamed Lara Croft, given a privileged upbringing, a great education and a manor.”

The man responsible for her birth, Toby Gard, didn’t stick around for the long haul and parted ways with developer Core Design after the first game’s release. He wouldn’t return to the franchise until 2006’s Tomb Raider: Legend, but that intervening decade was anything but quiet.

Core Values

As Core Design got to grips with PlayStation and wrung more and more from the grey box, Tomb Raider games got bigger and more complex. But their rise in ambition was dwarfed by the rise of Lara herself as a new figurehead for gaming.

One of the biggest moments came in 1997, when Lara graced the cover of now-defunct fashion and culture magazine The Face – a magazine that typically put pop stars and models on its front. It would be the start of a mainstream assault that saw Lara become the face of Lucozade in a series of TV adverts, and a series of models become the face of Lara in a long campaign by publisher Eidos to bring the archaeologist to life.

Hollywood played its part in that aim, too. Angelina Jolie fronted two films, the first of which starred her father, Jon Voight, who played Lara’s dad, Lord Richard Croft (renamed from the original timeline’s Lord Henshingly Croft). A third movie is due in 2018, with Oscar winner Alicia Vikander now playing the lead.

And Lara’s voice? When talking classic Croft vocal chords, most people think of Keeley Hawes, but the famous Brit only became the voice of Lara in 2006. Prior to Tomb Raider: Legend, Shelley Blond (TR1), Judith Gibbins (TRII, TRIII), and Jonell Elliott (TRIV-TR:TAOD) provided the audio.

Tomb Raider: Underworld featured motioncaptured animations for the first time, with gymnast Heidi Moneymaker making Lara’s moves come to life. Fast-forward to the present day and Lara’s now fully performance captured, with Camilla Luddington providing her voice and moves for Tomb Raider (2013) and sequel Rise Of The Tomb Raider.

Spin-off games throughout the years have seen Lara explore platforms far and wide, including Game Boy Color, Nokia’s N-Gage phone and even interactive discs to be played on bog-standard DVD players. But two in particular have made significant marks on PlayStation: isometric, twin-stick co-op games Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light and Lara Croft And The Temple Of Osiris. Both were developed by mainline studio Crystal Dynamics, and the first was originally prototyped as a side-scroller before the team settled on the isometric viewpoint.

She’s bagged multiple Guinness World Records and, in 2010, residents of Derby even voted to name a new ring road after her (unlike the doomed support for the RRS Boaty McBoatface earlier this year, the public got its way and Lara Croft Way was born), but two moments in Tomb Raider history stand out above all others.

Firstly, the switch in developer from Core Design to Crystal Dynamics in 2003 in the wake of The Angel Of Darkness’ poor reception would forever alter the course of Croft. And secondly, that studio’s daring decision to start the legend all over again with 2013’s reboot has fundamentally changed what Tomb Raider is and will be.

Rising Up

Twenty years on, Lara Croft not only endures, but thrives. “The blend of an engaging and everevolving character, top-tier storytelling, and cutting-edge technology has kept Tomb Raider on top,” says Marie of Lara’s lifespan, “as has the support of her diehard fans. Tomb Raider delivers a promise of discovery, told across a spectacular global stage. It offers an opportunity to see the world we know, and ones we never could have imagined, alongside a courageous, intelligent and extraordinary leading lady.”

So, over the next 24 pages, we embark on a spot of tomb raiding of our own: digging deeper into the ten core Tomb Raider games from PlayStation’s history, and then looking to the future, with a worldfirst play of Rise Of The Tomb Raider on PS4…

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