Lara Croft & Tomb Raider Celebrate Their 30th Anniversary This October
Do you remember playing the games when you were a kid?
If you grew up in the 90s or early 2000s, you probably played, or at least remember hearing about, the early Tomb Raider games. The first one came out in 1996, and on October 25, the franchise will celebrate its 30th anniversary.
The first title in the franchise was developed by Core Design, a UK-based studio that, reportedly, had just six people working on the game from 1993 to 1996, and even with bigger games coming out at the time, Tomb Raider attracted a lot of attention.
The second game, Tomb Raider II: Starring Lara Croft, came out in 1997, and it was also very well received. Reportedly, it sold nearly 7 million copies. Check out some of the concept art of the game:
The franchise has 12 games in the mainline series, but there are also spin-offs and side games, and in 2027, it will release Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, which is a remake of the first game.
Tomb Raider has also been adapted into a film, and in 2019, Dark Horse Books, in collaboration with Square Enix, released the Tomb Raider Adult Coloring Book. It features 45 highly detailed black-and-white illustrations that were made by artists Randy Green, Phillip Sevy, Katie Swindlehurst, and Tholia, spanning Lara Croft's history across games, comics, and film.
Check out some of the pages that are in the coloring book:
Lara Croft changed the narrative around action-hero games. The genre was, at the time, overwhelmingly male-dominated, and her arrival as a protagonist shifted the conversation, proving that a game with a female lead could be a massive commercial and critical success.
Right now, Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog have been sharing a mini-doc series showing behind-the-scenes details about the creation process for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, which lets you see how far the game has come and how the process of creating a video game has changed in 30 years.