Thanks to the gaming space being decades old, there are many franchises that have existed for much of that period, and we get to honor them in various ways. To that end, there are also numerous iconic gaming characters that have withstood the test of time for one reason or another and are still honored by gamers, new and old, to this day. One of these characters is obviously Lara Croft, who has been one of the “leading ladies” of gaming since she debuted on the PS1 all the way back in 1996 via the first Tomb Raider title. To honor that, the PlayStation Blog has dropped a “series retrospective” talking about the many phases of Lara Croft’s gaming career.
They started with the first game, noting how it changed everything when she arrived:
“The result is a global and twisting trek across locations such as Greece, Egypt, and Atlantis, with what was then a revolutionary blend of 3D levels, gun-toting action, puzzle solving and acrobatic traversal. And who can forget that heart-stopping T-Rex encounter?”
They’re not wrong. As many have accurately noted, Lara’s first few adventures, which you can now play in remastered form, helped set a new style of platforming, shooting, and adventuring as a whole. Yet, after a series of titles, and after getting to the PS2 era, where Lara and her world got a series graphical overall, the series was rebooted for the first time via Tomb Raider: Legends:
“Rebooting the entire series and balancing Lara’s bold sense of adventure with a more grounded emotional core, Legends saw Ms Croft searching for the mythical sword Excalibur as a way to help find her missing mother.”
The irony of this was that the reboot happened in 2006 and lasted only a few games before another reboot came to pass in 2013, which redid Lara’s entire origin to help make her an even more “grounded” character:
“The series’ storytelling style took a more grounded and filmic focus with this second reboot of Lara’s adventures, tracking her development from a frightened young traveller to a steel nerved survivor. Stranded on a mysterious island off the coast of Japan, Lara has to find her friends and escape before the violent Solari Brotherhood cult murders them all.”
The gamble work and the next two games that arrived helped resolidify Lara as one of the true titans of the gaming space.
Yet, once again, it didn’t last too long, and now, the franchise’s future is a bit up for debate. Still, Lara’s lasted this long, so we think she can handle this new challenge.
