Overview
Tomb Raider is an action adventure game which first started in 1993 by Core Design leading to the first game of the series being released in 1996 on the DOS, Sega Saturn and PlayStation. The player portrays a British female called Lara Croft in which she is an archaeologist who goes on adventures in search of ancient artifacts and relics. The original Tomb Raider got re-released as a special gold edition in which it was re-issued for Windows and the Macintosh for the first time. Lara is an Orphan losing both of her parents in different occasions.
Her mother died when she was very young in a plane crash, in the game ‘Legend’ you see that both Lara and her Mother survive the crash but then later her mother had disappeared and was never found (Explained more in Tomb Raider: Legend) but in the comics, Lara had lost both of her parents in a Crash and in the films there was no mention of her Mother or the plane crash. In the games Lara’s father was killed by Jacqueline Natla. Natla is a character that made a couple of appearances within the game series but in the film series, it was said that Lara’s father was murdered by the illuminate.
In the rebooted game of the series ‘Tomb Raider’ which was released in 2013 by Square Enix and developed by Crystal Dynamics. The target audience for the reboot was for anybody really whether they have played any of the original games, for old school Tomb Raider I loved this game as it tells the story of Lara when she’s younger and with it being a start of a new series, its much easier for new players to get into ‘Tomb Raider’ as they won’t need to play the old games to understand whats going on.
This game follows the story of a much younger Lara who is an archaeologist and starts her adventure as she sets of for an expedition on ‘The Endurance’ hoping to find ‘Yamatai’ The ship is hit a storm and had left all the survivors stranded on the island with no way off, Lara discovers some secrets about Yamatai and what is going on there. Throughout the game you see Lara develop as a person going from being very vulnerable to having to fight for her life and kill to save her friends and to find a way of the island.
The Games
There were many Tomb Raider games:
Tomb Raider (1996)
Tomb Raider II (1997)
Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft (1998)
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (1999)
Tomb Raider: Chronicles (1999)
Tomb Raider (2000)
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword (2001)
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Prophecy (2002)
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (2003)
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend (2006)
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary (2007)
Tomb Raider: Underworld (2008)
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (2010)
Tomb Raider (2013)
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition (2014)
Lara Croft: Reflections (2013)
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris (Release date to be confirmed)
Tomb Raider: The Rise of the Tomb Raider (Released towards the end of 2015)
There have been 2 games that have been cancelled from the series at some point. There was a game that was in development (Before Angle of Darkness was released) but due to the bad reviews of Angel of Darkness and low sales the game ‘The Lost Domination’ was cancelled which was going to be a sequel to Angel of Darkness.
Another game that was cancelled was a Tomb Raider anniversary edition which was being developed by Core and had been cancelled because the Tomb Raider franchise had been transferred to Crystal Dynamics (still currently developing games for this franchise).
Other media to the franchise
Now lets talk about the Tomb Raider Films. There have been two Tomb Raider films to date featuring Lara, both of which star Angelina Jolie. The first film ‘Lara Croft: Tomb Raider’ was released in 2001 which was an adventure in which it related to the game series. In the first film Lara has an adventure in which she needs to get hold of a very dangerous artifact (Triangle of Light) to stop bad people from getting hold it and using it. This first film in the Tomb Raider film series received more negative reviews from critics than good.
This film debuted $48.2 Million which makes the fourth-highest debut of 2001 and giving Paramount its second best debut but besides the bad reviews, this film series is the second most successful game adaption to date and is currently being beaten by ‘Prince of Persia’ . The sequel to the first film ‘Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life’ was released into cinema’s in 2003 gaining better reviews than the first film. This film follows the journey of Lara who tries to find ‘Pandora’s Box’ which is said to contain the most deadly disease in the whole world and she must find it before the enemy finds it.
In 2011 GK Films had gotten the film rights to the Tomb Raider film series and is planned to be a reboot of the tomb raider series, adapting to the reboot of the game series (Developed by Crystal Dynamics) and following the story of the younger Lara and how she becomes who she is like the films. Now in 2014 it has in fact been confirmed that we will be getting another Tomb Raider film, but we wont be hearing any details about that for quite a while, because it’s in very early stages. I’m looking forward to finding out who is going to be the actress as Lara, since the film series reboot will be focused on the younger Lara then I don’t think that Angelina Jolie will get the role due to the fact of her already being the star of the older Tomb Raider.
Some think that Camilla Luddington may have the role but nothing has been confirmed just yet. I would personally like the role to go to Camilla as she did a brilliant job as being the voice of Lara in the games. Also to go along with the games, there has been a reboot of the comic series which started retailing in March 2014. The comic series continues off from where the game in 2013 ended.
The image above is Camila Luddington who voices Lara in the games.
