Since 1996, Tomb Raider has been one of the highest-selling and most enduring video game titles.
The original game was one of the pioneers of 3D technology in the industry and its lead character, Lara Croft, remains to be the most iconic female hero in video games.
Lara Croft Origins
The character was created by Toby Gard while he was working for British game developers Core Design who were owned by Eidos Interactive. Lara Croft was originally meant to be a man but it was deemed that the character was too similar to Indiana Jones so changes were made.
Lara is an archaeologist; the plot of the game involves Lara finding three Scion artifacts. Gameplay focuses on puzzle-solving and exploring while combining those elements with action. A 3D action-adventure game on the level of this game was unprecedented and it took a toll on the six-person development team.
Tomb Raider was released throughout late 1996 on PC, PlayStation, and the Sega Saturn. It was an early game for the fifth generation of consoles. Sega had previously developed hardware for disc-based games as opposed to cartridges. However, success was not found until PlayStation was released in 1995. And Lara Croft was a major part of that.
Tomb Raider, along with Super Mario 64 for Nintendo, changed the way people play games on home consoles. Earlier games were two-dimensional side-scrolling adventures for the most part. This new technology gave players control of the camera and a world that could be explored. These developments are still the foundations for modern gaming.
Lara Croft's Popularity
When asked why Lara Croft captured the zeitgeist the way she did in the 1990s, Gard told the Guardian, "She had a real difference to the game characters of the time. Compared to the burly men shooting guns she had a real appeal. She was mysterious and had a danger about her; this gave her a real difference to other female characters that were basically sex objects...I was also very keen to get Lara to animate properly, which no one else at the time was doing. This made her move slowly but look realistic which helped players empathize with her."
Tomb Raider sold over seven million copies worldwide at the time making it one of the highest-selling titles and certainly the largest of PlayStation's early library. The character of Lara Croft became a celebrity of sorts. She appeared in mainstream commercials and on magazine covers. Lara entered mainstream culture in a way video game characters hadn't before. Through Lara, games became a more accepted part of pop culture.
Sequels
Four sequels were released from 1997-2000. For five years straight, there was a new Tomb Raider game. Tomb Raider II and Tomb Raider III were PlayStation exclusives. The initial sequels received generally favorable reviews.
The fifth game, Tomb Raider Chronicles, was not received positively upon release in 2000. It is one of the worst-selling games of the series and was criticized for not growing with the times. The team at Core Design was incredibly fatigued by this point having made these games so quickly which shows in the resulting game.
At the same time, a new team was developing a new game. Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness was released in 2003 on PC and PlayStation 2. The game was heavily criticized for its poor controls and bugs. It is generally considered to be the worst of the main series and one of the worst video game sequels. This was the last game that Core Design worked on. Eidos took development to Crystal Dynamics.
The new team released a trilogy of games between 2006 and 2008 all of which were seen as a return to form for the series.
Reboot
In 2009, Eidos was bought by Square Enix with Crystal Dynamics still serving as the development team. It was decided to explore Lara's origins and to really examine who the character is. The lead writer of the reboot Rhianna Pratchett told Polygon, "We took what people think of as Lara Croft - her traits like bravery, resourcefulness, resilience, independence, strength, etc. - and we rewound those traits until they were just below the surface. Because you don't actually just pop out being a badass with all those traits in place. There is no bravery without fear. We wanted to show where that came from and how it involved."
The story involved Lara being stranded on an island forced to deal with the people already trapped there. The game was released in 2013 and received critical acclaim. As of March 2017, it has sold 11 million copies making it the highest title in the series. Two sequels, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, were released in 2015 and 2018 respectively.
Tomb Raider on the Big Screen
Lara Croft's popularity is so immense that feature film adaptations were inevitable. The first film, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, was released in 2001 directed by Simon West and starring Angelina Jolie as the titular character. Despite poor reviews, the film earned $275 million dollars at the box office and Jolie became synonymous with the character. Jolie reprised the role in a sequel, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider-The Cradle of Life which was directed by Jan de Bont. The film was slightly better reviewed but still mostly negative. And it only grossed $156 million; Paramount blamed the financial disappointment on the critical failure of Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness.
In 2018, a reboot titled Tomb Raider was released directed by Roar Uthaug and starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft. The movie was based on the 2013 game. It received mixed reviews but made over $275 million outgrossing both of the previous films.
A sequel starring Vikander and directed by Ben Wheatley is slated for release on March 19, 2021. Nothing has been officially announced in terms of a new game but it is likely that Square Enix will want a new one once the next generation of consoles hit the market.