3 Ways Tomb Raider Saved Itself From Itself

Experimenting with Lara Croft

The Tomb Raider series isn’t exactly known for startling innovation. Back in the day, it did pretty well in providing fun platforming and a new (at the time) approach to cinematic experiences. It definitely worked in the PS1 era, but not so much after that, when other series began doing Lara Croft’s thing, but in bigger and better ways. The time eventually came to mix things up without betraying the franchise’s core, and in doing so, Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics gave their titular heroine new life before the reboot.

2010 saw the release of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, a smaller scale isometric digital title. Taking the action adventure franchise and turning it into an arcade-style game was a bold move, and the perfect merging of her gameplay into a new genre (plus the surprisingly fun addition of co-op) made for one of the sleeper hits of 2010. Thankfully, the experimentation didn’t stop there; not only did the game receive a sequel two years ago, but we also saw Lara Croft: Relic Run and watched the success of Hitman Go prove to work in the Lara Croft universe as well. In an age where old strategies are the safest option, the Tomb Raider series has been quietly taking steps to make sure it stretches beyond more of the same.

This extends to the rebooted franchise as well, which deviated to a more survival-oriented route. Lara is nothing if not capable, and both her 2013 reboot and last year’s Rise have shown her tenaciousness and versatility, in more ways than one. Given that her big competition is Uncharted, it was a wise move for Crystal Dynamics to differentiate her by sticking her in a sole location with the single goal of not dying.

A More Human Tomb Raider

Back when she first debuted in 1996, Lara Croft was both famous and infamous for her appearance, both in and out of the games. It was very much reflective of the time — creator Toby Gard straight up admitted that the 1996 Lara was meant to counter stereotypical female characters of the time, which were mostly just damsels in distress. Her later sequels didn’t do a good job of getting her character right, though, and thus came the time to reinvent.

With both reboots came the switch to make Lara a more relatable and fallible character. The days where she could pull off death defying stunts with nary a scratch on her were gone, and for most, it was a welcome change. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s largely invincible, but the problem is that if they don’t feel like they’re in any real danger, then why should the player? The 2013 reboot took this approach to its logical conclusion, framing Lara as a fresh eyed college student marooned on an island with nothing but her wits to guide her. She’s always in danger, either from the wild animals or the feral men on the island of Yamatai. Perhaps the best sign of her growth is about halfway during the game when an enemy is surprised that she’s still alive and she coldly replies, “Yes, I’m still alive.”

Shifting the series from straight action adventure over to survival is a subtle way of getting it across that this is a different Lara.When she’s not getting torn up through the ringer, she’s setting up camp (that also function as save points), wherein she opens up her inner thoughts on the big story events. It’s a nice way of opening her up emotionally and getting into her head space in a way different from trippy nightmare sequences or flashback segments.

Rebooting

The ratio of good to bad reboots is mostly edging towards the latter, so much so that when news of one emerges, the first reactions are dread and exhaustion. It comes as no surprise that people would feel that way about Tomb Raider as well, especially given that she already had gone through a reboot not too many years earlier. Also not helping was the fact that for a series about raiding tombs, first glances of this new title were decidedly not about that, and seemed geared more towards Uncharted territory.

Even though Lara isn’t cracking off jokes a mile a minute, she does share Nathan Drake’s penchant for bad luck. As much as it can sometimes border on overkill, especially in her death animations, it underlines what makes her strong in the first place. Sometimes when life is kicking the crap out of you, you have to keep on trucking, even if that means pulling out the spear you impaled yourself on.