Tomb Raider Series - Lara Croft

Lara Croft

The central character in Tomb Raider is the English archaeologist Lara Croft, a female adventurer in search of ancient relics. Lara was created by one-time Core designer Toby Gard, with her character and backstory fleshed out by writer Vicky Arnold. She appears almost invariably with brown shorts, boots and small backpack, a dark green or blue sleeveless top, holsters on both sides of her hip for dual wielded pistols. Over the course of the series, her 3D model has undergone gradual graphical improvements, as well as enlarged (and later reduced) breast size.

Over the course of time, the Tomb Raider series' canon has undergone various changes or retcons. These changes correspond to the series entering a new medium, such as comic books or film, or being taken over by another game developer. For example, in the first Tomb Raider game manual, Lara Croft is said to have survived a plane crash in the Himalayas at the age of twenty one, and was later disowned by her parents, who are still living. However, in the comics, Lara lost both her parents and her fiancé in the crash. The films make no mention of a plane crash, Lara's mother died when she was too young to remember, and her father died under different circumstances. When development of Tomb Raider was transferred from Core Design to Crystal Dynamics, Lara's biography, was that she and her mother survived a plane crash and later, her mother disappears in the site where they crashed (see Tomb Raider: Legend). She was then left to her father, who did not take part in the crash, and he was later killed by Jaqueline Natla, a recurring character in the series, leaving Lara an orphan. However, in the Lara Croft movie, Lara's father gets killed by the Illuminati (see Tomb Raider).

In addition to the voice actresses who have been responsible for Lara Croft's spoken dialogue during the games, a number of women have taken on the role of Lara for applications outside of the games themselves. Six different women have served as the official Lara Croft model for publicity purposes, including model Nell McAndrew, actress Rhona Mitra, and, most recently, gymnast Alison Carroll, who held the job until 2010. American film star Angelina Jolie portrayed Lara Croft in two feature-length Tomb Raider films, which together grossed nearly US$500 million worldwide, making her role as Lara the most well known and widely seen of any other.

Sixteen years after the release of the original game, Lara is still one of the most famous and recognizable video game characters in the history of the medium. The debate over whether she is an icon of female empowerment or a vessel for male titillation has existed for as long as she has, but the huge effect she has had on both gaming and popular culture in general cannot be denied.