Hello, fellow adventurers! We need to discuss one of the most iconic personalities ever to emerge from the world of video games: Miss Lara Croft. More than just a digital rendering of run-of-the-mill wish fulfilment (despite her creators’ clear intent to do precisely that), Croft’s popularity has soared to heights that seem improbable for an odd fusion of British refinement and Indiana-Jones-style daring. Her digital self has appeared in every console generation since the mid-90s, which means that for many millennial players, even those pushing 30, Croft is not so much a novel presence as a familiar, even familial, fact of life.
It is important to comprehend the Tomb Raider Chronicles in the context of their time. Tomb Raider, the original, was released in 1996, during the same decade in which Sony’s first PlayStation console became the best-selling video game system in history. Tomb Raider, was a historic game, a game that introduced the world to the very iconic Lara Croft. Lara invariably sports an iconic item of clothing or two when she ventures out in public, the remains of this deceptively guileless outfit. And after one plays through TR in its entirety, it is easy to fall for Lara Croft as a character, precisely because of what a cardboard cutout (or three) would be in a second-rate revision of a first-rate game.
The first game’s success spawned not just one, but a series of sequels that raised the bar each time with more sophisticated, modern, and large-scale adventures featuring the feisty archaeologist. In Tomb Raider II: Dagger of Xian, Lara followed a largely Venetian and Tibetan path. Her third adventure, Tomb Raider: Adventures of Lara Croft, took this series to the next level by introducing new game mechanics. Thanks to these, the intractable puzzles were even more perplexing, and the journey to their solution even more fraught, as that entry offered up a series of literally life-or-death decisions for the player along the way.
The 2000 release of Tomb Raider Chronicles stood out for me as a fan of the series; it offered fresh gameplay, new story experiences, and a look at the familiar character of Lara Croft from the perspective of her best friends and confidants. But the really amazing thing about Tomb Raider Chronicles is that it provided a new look at Lara Croft by telling stories from her past.
This is a long look back that takes place in a series of four amazing stories. We long-time fans can appreciate the unique feel of each level. Chronicles, by moving through areas like Rome, a Russian submarine, and an Irish island, may also fill in a few gaps in our knowledge of series history.
Four separate episodes make up Tomb Raider Chronicles, each of which concentrates on a different adventure plucked from the life of Lara Croft. As tutorials for the uninitiated, the first few levels of each episode give players the chance to wield Lara’s varied abilities while introducing the kind of gameplay the series trades in. Once these GP “lessons” are dispensed with, the levels unfurl a series of challenges and changes in a way that you might think of as commonplace for a classic platformer, if that platformer weren’t so hell-bent on also simulating an open world and letting players live in it.
The premiere episode, The Streets of Rome, transported me to the always familiar, alluring world of ancient relics and secret riches. It offered everything I’d come to expect from the now-classic Tomb Raider formula, from harmless fauna slithering around crumbling statuary to the triumphant signaling of a hidden passageway located. Running amok through the cobbled streets of the Eternal City and, because this is a Tomb Raider game, through some stuffy catacombs to the tune of some ubiquitous guards’ boneheaded boasts, The Streets of Rome gives quite the opposite impression from the one director Brian Horton’s more alternative-fact-based prequel promised.
In this episode, the standout moment for me was when I found the hidden room full of ancient treasures. As I worked to overcome the obstacles, by solving a series of puzzles with my companion, I could not stop from feeling a rising sense of accomplishment and excitement. The moments submerged in complex problem-solving that led to the unearthing of an ever-increasing number of to-die-for ancient antiquities reminded me in a way that nearly left me light-headed why I was first drawn into playing the 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider series.
The second chapter, The Russian Base, establishes a much different tone for the character. As the name suggests, Lara must infiltrate and investigate the foreboding Soviet-era installation that serves as its backdrop. The actual story being told in the chapter isn’t particularly gripping, but the game does a fantastic job of conveying the unsettling atmosphere of the place, and this episode is a real showcase for the growing sense that the new developers have finally found their way with the series and started to sculpt Lara into their own image. At last, she’s becoming the action hero they’ve always said she was.
This episode had many enjoyable moments, but if I had to pick a favorite, it might be the warehouse. The warehouse was my ideal of the classic infiltrate-and-eliminate structure the show usually relies on, both because it was wonderfully spacious, the kind of place where you can take out one guard and then another, and they never see it coming and because it was extraordinarily well-lit for a nighttime sequence. Those two together made it feel the most like an old-fashioned 24 set piece (I say that with utmost, lip-biting respect for that show’s set piece maestros).
The Black Isle was the third episode of the show and took what felt like a turn toward the supernatural. We were on a haunted island off the coast of Ireland, and the whole thing dripped with folklore and mythology. The component parts of the episode built to an atmosphere and an overall feeling of dread and unease that struck me as a player. I found it by far the most uncomfortable because of the level of suspense of any previous Tomb Raider game. My best guesses are that the writers of the episode were going for the sense of “a long, thrilling buildup to this climax you never see coming.”
In my recollection, a singular incident is meeting a ghost in a deserted castle. While I was roaming the faintly glowing corridors and working out puzzles to get to the bottom of the castle’s history, I couldn’t shed the sensation that I was being observed. The event made good use of light and sound to tie together the supernatural ambiance and the sense of foreboding. I don’t think I was afraid, per se. Not like you’d get playing a horror game. But the finale of that sequence is one of the few that can get my heart rate up over time. Games: Generating Unease.
The last episode, The VCI Headquarters, returned the series to a modern urban backdrop. This episode was all about the high-tech security systems of the VCI building. It was about corporate espionage and a daring heist. It was the most modern, sleek, and seemingly futuristic of our settings. It seemed like such a fitting end to this series of games, which we were now portraying as “the good old days” of the late ’90s.
This episode is seared with the pursuit of high stakes through the fateful climax of a chase sequence across the skyscrapers towering over the city. Count me among the thrilled! As I played the game, leading the character of Lara Croft, spieling captures of the flagpole-to-flagpole heights of danger. I shared in the excitement of those moments when she was just evading the rooftop snipers or the security drones. These to me were the best payoffs for the long hours I had put in as a player.
Not only did Tomb Raider Chronicles provide insight into the past undertakings of Lara Croft, but it also cast a light on the development of the character and offered an almost poignant reminder of the many reasons fans fell for the character and the series in the first place. And the series, follow-ups, and other developments have hardly been stinting in giving cause to get attached.
Lara Croft’s visual design in the early 2000s games was a definite step up from her late 1990s appearances. Indeed, as the 2000s and 2010s have trucked on, she has undergone a kind of visual lighting study to what amounts to a sequence of different final models. No two games have allowed her to look precisely the same way, as they always bump up the level of detail from one game to the next in some way—the number of polygons, the lighting, shaders, shadows . . . It’s interesting to do a quick comparison now that we know what the different end points of that Improving Lara Croft’s visual design function look like, as that function evolved from the 1990s to the present day.
What stuck with me about Tomb Raider Chronicles was the extent of the detail from Lara’s seamless transitions to the wonderfully woven environments. The developers at Core Design really seemed to have worked overtime to put together a visually stunning and immersive game. The lighting effects were dramatic, and the texture work was really something. The game was yummy eye candy for anyone who had a decent graphics card in their personal computer. And for me, who played it on a PlayStation 2, it was even better; the game looked and performed really well for a console title of its time.
On top of her appearance, Lara’s character and backstory were both deepened in Tomb Raider Chronicles. The game let players catch more than a glimpse of who she was. The stories told by her nearest and dearest made it clear that she had always had the Lara Croft spirit, even before Tomb Raider I.” This selection of games portrayed her as more of a real character-type than an anime girl or action-figure-with-a-purpose. Because of the episodic format, TRC had more opportunities to do both deep-diving and skimming, deepening the player’s choice between choosing themselves or choosing her.
One part of Lara’s character that I found particularly meaningful was her embodying determination. She’s one of the few video game characters out there who doesn’t have superpowers. She has vulnerabilities, which she willingly embraces, that make her relatable. When you play as her, especially in situations that seem impossible to survive, and watch her endure, you can’t help but feel some of that moxie rubbing off on you. If you can make it as an ordinary sometimes death-prone human like Lara in a crazy-dangerous world, you can likely survive anything.
Also, Tomb Raider Chronicles emphasizes the influence of Lara’s undertakings on her surroundings. They do not just dissolve into frame; they have import—unlike the cool-looking diversions of, say, Charlie’s Angels (the movie), which stand for nothing and lead to nothing. In TRC, the appearance of each monster has meaning, and every secret uncovered exists for a reason. Even before Tomb Raider Chronicles, I always counted effects as a series. And now the new installment has shown me the action more sharply.
The game probed weighty ethical and moral problems that offered something quite distinct from the clear-cut action and adventure of earlier titles. And in doing so, it showed how much the series we once knew had grown up and changed. It spotlighted the diversification and complexity of the protagonist and her world, as well as the on-going tension between the two. Most of all, it spoke to the ability of Tomb Raider as an idea to adapt and innovate, to move with the times, and to not be tied to the past in an unfortunate way.
For many fans, including me, Tomb Raider Chronicles is extraordinary. Since its release, the game has only grown more beloved, with a current groundswell of fan-driven remakes. That’s not a guarantee of success. In fact, when I arranged a brief interview with Robert Wisnewecki, a large, interesting figure within Magnatek Interactive, and the man firmly in control of Dire Rage’s remake, it all felt pretty fateful. Robert was working on these new Tomb Raider remakes because Chronicles remains a game-changing experience… one that few (if any) could produce again.
Reminiscing my stint with Tomb Raider Chronicles makes me pretty wistful and almost overwhelmed by the sheer appreciation I feel for the game’s influence on my digital interactivity. It was a delightful period when I was stretched thin imaginatively and had a ‘siege mentality’ all because of one game. That’s the power of a well-crafted experience. Throughout my gaming life, Tomb Raider has popped up at just the right moments…
Years have furthered the evolution of the escapades of Lara Croft since the days yonder of Tomb Raider Chronicles. Ever malleable, the series has been formed and reformed again, almost like clay, in the hands of several imaginative teams. These have been the work of people with new ideas and concepts. The simplest was to go back to the character’s roots, when she was still a person—a recognizable woman in her bildungsroman. When assessing this era’s legacy, we can’t just look back; we have to look forward at what might follow and how it might follow faster and better but still somewhat unfazed. Tomb Raider (2013) is to the Croft character today what the 1982 Conan the Barbarian is to the Schwarzenegger persona.
As we look toward the future, we see that Lara Croft is going to be a big part of it. She’s influenced the course of video games and is the centerpiece of a multimillion-dollar franchise that extends well beyond the games to a range of other merchandising and media spins-offs, the most popular of which are the movies that started coming out in 2001. Of all the characters in video games, few are as beloved and enduring as Croft, who’s been our companion now through nine games in 15 years.
To sum up, Tomb Raider Chronicles is not just a simple story dump; it’s an effective way of framing the world of Lara Croft from a different perspective. This collectible release—and it is, indeed, a great collection, as evidenced by the design of the game box itself—shows how the “Tomb Raider” series delivers framing events, whether in the past or the present, and has done so for nearly 15 years. The stories are stand-alones; that’s why I have listed them as if with independent covers, etc. Each adventure holds its own secret, and there’s always something that’s on the move. Tomb Raider Chronicles is a great adventure, yet a very poignant part of the journey for fans of the character and her series.
