Tomb Raider: 10 Things Only Die-Hard Fans Know About The Games

Tomb Raider is one of the most successful gaming franchises ever, and only die-hard fans know these secrets about Lara Croft and her adventures.

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Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider games were part of the biggest gaming phenomenon of the ’90s, in which the action-adventure game blew away the competition by creating an iconic franchise still going strong today. Die-hard Tomb Raider fans who have been lucky enough to play all the games (17 titles and counting), attend conventions like E3, and pour over magazines and books devoted to the series, accumulating a wealth of knowledge to rival Lara’s library.

From specific cheat codes and information about Tomb Raider ambassadors to the exciting origins of how the first game came into being, Tomb Raider fans know the secrets of the series like no other gaming fan. If there are any new fans looking to find out more about the franchise, they’ll enjoy strapping on their thigh holsters and exploring the Tomb Raider secrets that only die-hard fans have uncovered.

10 It All Started With $16,000 From Jeremy Heath-Smith’s Grandma

Some of the greatest achievements come from humble beginnings, and while much has been made in the technological world of Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne, and Steve Wozniak building the first Apple computer in Jobs’ parent’s home in the ’70s, it’s notable that Tomb Raider was created just as sparsely by Jeremy Heath-Smith and a team of five others at Core Design.

As Smith explained in the book, The Making of Tomb Raider, “I borrowed sixteen thousand from my Grandma and Core Design began.” Much like Bungie with Halo, and Rock Star with Grand Theft Auto, it’s important to remember that much like the character of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider has always been a franchise with scrappy, innovative beginnings.

9 The Games Pioneered 3D Graphics

In 1996, 3D graphics were just beginning to take off in video games. The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles featured a small booth devoted to Tomb Raider in 1996, with just a single PC providing an opportunity for fans to experience and test the game.

As Mike Schmitt relates in The Making of Tomb Raider by Daryl Baxter, “that PC was using a 3DFX prototype graphics card and was showing off 3D graphics. It was one of the big hits of the show and sort of paved the way for accelerated graphics.” Many other games, from Tekken to Call of Duty, owe Tomb Raider for leading the charge in exceptional graphics for gaming.

8 Lara Was Live-Action Before The Movies

Prior to Angelina Jolie strapping on the thigh holsters in 2001 for Lara Croft Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, or Alicia Vikander putting her hair in the iconic braid for Tomb Raider, Lara stepped out of the games and into real-life at numerous conventions.

When portrayed by models like Lara Weller, Nell McAndrew, and Karima Adebibe, actors like Rhona Mitra (Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) and even UK celebrities like Katie Price, Lara Croft became more than brand ambassadors. These women made the famous gun-toting archaeologist real to fans and paved the way for the booth ambassadors everywhere (representing games like Halo, League of Legends, and World of Warcraft, as well as Lara Croft cosplayers).

7 A Gaming Icon On The Cover Of Non-Gaming Magazines

In the mid-’90s, very few video games featured female protagonists, making Lara Croft unique in a male-dominated field. Intelligent, strong, athletic, and independent, Lara was a character that both men and women loved to play, and her vibrant personality and attributes eventually made her into an icon that transcended the video game industry.

According to The Making of Tomb Raider, she was the first non-human person to be featured on The Face Magazine, England’s premier lifestyle magazine since 1980. Unlike other video game characters, Lara was completely in-situ with ’90s cultural phenomena: she used two guns like the heroes of Quentin Tarantino movies, she was posh and attractive in step with the “Cool Britannia” scene, and she was independent and outspoken enough to be a perfect representative of the Girl Power movement sweeping America.

6 She Underwent A Lot Of Changes From Tomb Raider To Tomb Raider II

Originally, the Tomb Raider games were going to star a male protagonist like the iconic Nathan Drake from Uncharted before the protagonist was turned into Lara Cruz, and finally Lara Croft. Even once her name was established, the first game still couldn’t get her signature style quite right.

In the first game, Lara can be seen with her brown hair in a bun rather than the braid she’s most often associated with. That’s because the game operated at 200 different animations rather than the 450 in Tomb Raider II, and one sacrifice that had to be made was animating her braid to move with each of her actions. Rather than have to animate each action, it’s appropriate that Core Design created a program to calculate the movement of the hair in different situations.

5 The Original Creator Walked Away From Millions

Toby Gard, long-attributed as the creative genius behind Lara Croft’s character, walked away from millions of dollars in royalties because of the way that she was marketed after the release of Tomb Raider. As the marketing ramped up for Tomb Raider II, Gard didn’t appreciate how sexualized the archaeologist was getting.

“What I objected to was the marketing which represented Lara in a way that was nothing like the character,” he explained to The Guardian. Fans were happy when Gard eventually returned to Tomb Raider: Underworld and Tomb Raider: Legend, which marked a new phase for the franchise and truly benefited from his unique perspective and guidance.

4 Her Appearance Was Rumored To Be From A Slip Of The Mouse

Lara’s appearance and proportions have been the subject of gossip ever since the first Tomb Raider game, some of which have been attributed to a “slip of the mouse” by creator Toby Gard, but speaking to Eurogamer in 2016 level designer Neal Boyd set the record straight.

“Toby developed the model to look like his drawings. I knew we’d get flak from people,” he explained. “But he wasn’t bothered about that. He was happy with the way she was…He always claims he slipped on the mouse and made the breasts bigger than he meant to, but how true that is I don’t know.” If Gard was honest about why he created Lara’s proportions to be so exaggerated, he might have felt it would hurt his ability to argue against her over-sexualization later.

3 Tomb Raider II Had A Cheat Code To Make Lara Explode

As if Lara didn’t already have enough going on battling skeletons or T- Rex’s, she also had to worry about players making her randomly explode. According to YouTube channel “Defunct Games”, pressing a complicated sequence of buttons would make her body parts scatter like Mrs. Potato Head.

The combo is as follows: Sidestep Left, then Right, then Left, then hold Walk and Step Forward, then press Backwards, then turn around 3 times in any direction, and finally Jump forward in the air pressing the Roll button. It’s a fun bit of humor from the game designers that adds an additional level of dark whimsy to the player experience.

2 A Fan-Made Cheat Code Made Lara Nude

Lara Croft was already known for wearing very little clothing when she first appeared as the protagonist of Tomb Raider in 1996, but according to the BBC a fan-made patch called “Nude Raider” infamously shorn Lara’s classic tan shorts and green tank top. Designed to be added to a PC copy of the game, it caused Lara to appear completely in the buff.

Core Design, the then developer of the first several Tomb Raider games, took legal action against anyone associated with the patch –which started to appear in screenshots on the internet– because any young gamer looking for information about the series might accidentally stumble across the pictures. While Lara has long been considered a sex symbol, she’s also a popular role model, and it’s not hard to see why Core Design (and now Crystal Dynamics) would take her reputation so seriously.

1 The Reboot Was Inspired By Batman Begins And Casino Royale

The reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise in 2013 meant an overhaul of the character of Lara Croft and her origin storyline. This was made possible by the reinvention of two canonical characters — Batman in 2005 with Batman Begins and James Bond with Casino Royale in 2006.

At a Bafta event in 2013, Co-Head of Crystal Dynamics Darrell Gallagher explained to The Guardian that because the two blockbusters had “iconic characters who had to be refreshed and modernized for a new generation” as well as “stories [that] were a reaffirmation to us,” the Tomb Raider series could be successfully reimagined into something grittier and more realistic than previous iterations.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/tomb-raider-games-interesting-facts-fans-know/