Happy Birthday, Lara Croft, Congrats on Being a Cultural Icon
So Tomb Raider is officially celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, a fact which is so weird we’re having trouble wrapping our minds around it. It hasn’t been that long since the franchise started, has it? Geez, where does the time go? The only thing that can comfort us as the hands of the clock continue to tick is the news that Tomb Raider is making this birthday a year-long extravaganza, complete with its very own webpage featuring all the polygon close-ups of Lara Croft you can ask for. One thing’s for sure: this will be a birthday bash to remember.
A lot of cool Tomb Raider stuff has already happened this year: the new movie got a director, Shadow of the Tomb Raider hit PS Plus, and–fittingly–a lost Tomb Raider game was discovered. However, there’s even more cool stuff on the horizon. The press release announces that: “Tomb Raider’s year-long celebration of its 25th anniversary will feature in-depth explorations of the major games released in the franchise, including nostalgic media deep from the archives, developer interviews, community activities, live playthroughs, and more. Over the coming months, developer Crystal Dynamics will re-visit the lineup of major Tomb Raider games, focusing on one game each month. Fans of Tomb Raider and Lara Croft can look forward to additional franchise announcements over the course of the year.”
Of course, that might not include a new game, but it is still pretty neat. They’re kicking things off in February where the series began, with the original Tomb Raider on Sega Saturn, MS-DOS, and PlayStation. Look forward to fanart, cosplay highlights, and Crystal Dynamics desperately trying to reconcile every Tomb Raider timeline. How are they going to combine the adventurer archeologist and the emotionally-damaged teenager with a bow? We don’t know, but we’re sure it can be done, and somebody somewhere has already written fanfiction about it.
Happy birthday, Lara. If that whole ‘reconciling the timelines’ thing doesn’t work out, at least you’ll always have crossovers.
What would you like to see from Tomb Raider this year? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.
