The 1996 Tomb Raider was pioneering in its difference 2013’s was stuck in the same out-dated mindsets. This is less of a legacy than a stagnation. And in this case it wasn’t only critics and concerned female players who were bringing it up – it was explicitly stated by executive producer Ron Rosenberg in an interview with Kotaku. It was the same concern that came up in 1996: aiming for protection over projection. But she spends much of the game injured, alone, and taking instructions from male characters via walkie-talkie. The 2013 Tomb Raider gave her character an update, shifting somewhat away from 1996’s sexualized Indiana Jones-alike to a more emotionally complex, somewhat better-dressed, and approaching a realistically proportioned woman. Plus non-sexualized women, and women of color, remain few and far between.Įven Lara herself has not broken free of these problems. While she has certainly been followed by a string of prominent gaming heroines, there has never been anything approaching parity with male numbers. Yet the issues brought up around her debut persist today in games and wider culture. Nonetheless, Lara was celebrated as a breakthrough by many and it was hoped that her success would lead to more female protagonists in games. They questioned this double standard when compared to male characters and the underlying assumption that it was straight men who would be playing the games. Critics asked who she was supposed to appeal to, and how, suggesting that her design was more likely to make male players want to protect her rather than identify with her. Originally Laura Cruz, she was changed to fit a British back story rather than a South American one, and her clothes and unlikely proportions quickly turned her into a sex symbol.
But her status as a pioneer for a new approach to female characters was quickly undermined. Lead designer Toby Gard created Lara to counter what he saw as the reductive common roles for women in games. Moreover, she’s a symbol of the fundamental and ongoing complexity of important topics like representation and sexualization. Lara’s been influential in many ways, but she’s unsurprisingly been a particular touchstone when it comes to discussions of women’s portrayal in games. Though not the first, she quickly became one of the best selling and most recognizable female video game protagonists, and remains so to this day. She was an archaeologist, an adventurer, a fighter, and, crucially, a woman.
Editor’s note: Join us over the next two weeks as we look back at the most outstanding and influential games of 1996.ġ996 brought us Tomb Raider, and with it came Lara Croft.
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