Crystal Dynamics is moving on from Lara Croft’s sappy origin story and prepping an all-new entry in the Tomb Raider series which will see the iconic heroine return to her more acrobatic origins. And this appears to be our very first look at the character, courtesy of a wallpaper secretly stashed on an all-new Tomb Raider website.
You need to register to unlock the artwork, which is said to unify the look of the original Lara and her rebooted alter-ego. She obviously looks a lot more grounded than the supermodel of the PS1 era, but she’s wearing her customary tank top and wielding her infamous twin-pistols, which is obviously reminiscent of her earlier adventures.
Obviously, this could just be a cool concept, so we’ll need to wait until the new game is formally unveiled before we get confirmation. Following an announcement in late 2022, Amazon Games will publish the next entry in the popular property, which is said to be the “biggest, most expansive Tomb Raider title to date”.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 114
I'm sorry, but that looks like a dude wearing makeup.
Looks good. Old Lara is back!
@Bentleyma Uhhhh, no.
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Seems like some of you should have gone to Specsavers.
No thanks. The three reboot games were amazing and she was finally portrayed correctly. Now were back to the vapid joke from before. I guess Crystal Dynamics really likes making games that fail now. And yes, it does look like she has male features.
@get2sammyb I would've said the same thing when I only saw the small image but when I enlarged it, I have to say I agree with him. It's the jaw and the brow, I think. Possibly the thick neck too. The shading around the mouth looks like a subtle 5 o'clock shadow too.
Didn't even know about this. Amazon games? Does this mean you need a subscription to play it? Prefer this design to the reboots, hope she gets the cool cat attitude back.
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As others have pointed out she looks horrible but I doubt this will be the finalized design.
Looks like the transvestigators are coming out of the incel cellar again. Someone go get the ax body spray and a blowtorch
enjoyed the reboot trilogy. it was a bit uneven in quality but a very solid effort nontheless. as for the new reboot... there is a lot of uncertainty in the air about this one. embracer group is hanging on by a thread and under the circumstances, could go bankrupt at any moment. amazon has absolutely nothing notable in the gaming space and has no business being the publisher. both of those companies teaming up for a new tomb raider game sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. won't be surprised if this game never sees the light of day, remains in development hell until it is forgotten or completely misses the mark.
The reboots were pretty bad overall, though I did have quite a bit of fun with 2013. Hoping they get the series back on track!
She looks quite cool in this artwork.
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Oh dear. Didn't take long at all for the "that's a man" crowd to show.
Not sure what to make of this really. I don’t hate it, but I don’t really like it either. I think I just need to see a gameplay trailer of this new Tomb Raider game. Whenever that will be.
@IndoorEnthusiast
These people think every woman looks like a blow up doll. Have they never seen a real woman before?
Pretty sure the Venn diagram of the 'that looks like a man' crowd on this thread and the 'I'm glad the Stellar Blade devs haven't gone all woke because I love big butts in ma gamez' commenters is basically one circle.
Here we go. This will be the comments section to follow today 🤣. Personally I really don't care so long as the games good.
I bet that pretty much every single person reading this right now who is attracted to women took a good long look at Cindy in Final Fantasy 15. Or Eva in Metal Gear Solid 3. Or Ashley in RE4. Or any other game where there is a blonde with big boobs.
I have no problem whatsoever with making women "realistic", but I am sick to death of this smug, superior, holier-than-thou attitude that comes with it when we all know that you are looking exactly where I'm looking. The only difference between us is that I am not ashamed to admit it.
Will this be crossgen-der?
Looks perfectly fine
Still wearing the stupid short. To protect her knees I guess.
Looks like they superimposed her 30year old face onto her 13 year old body. Its just not how Lara has looked since I first played Tomb Raider on my PS1.
Realistically to do what she does she'd have to be damn athletic and strong so perhaps the masculine build makes most sense. Maybe that's what they were going for...
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I wonder if the correlation between people who think she looks like a man and people who have never touched a woman is 100% or maybe just something like 99.7%.
@LifeGirl And yet yours is the most preachy post in here so far.
Again, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but what do people even want anymore with female characters?
People use to complain about reboot Lara's character design from Shadow, they've listened and gone back to her original design and people now have an issue with the very thing that they wanted in the first place 😂.
Don't really care what she looks like, get the gameplay done right and make it fun and make the story great, get that right and I'd even play as sloth from the goonies.
The basement dweller comments in here...step away from the 4chan.. anyway thoroughly enjoyed the reboots, interesting to see where they take the new game.
@Pat_trick Yup, definitely. If it were genuine then great, but it does have the whiff of flavour of the month about it.
@ChrisDeku Considering I'm married, probably 99.7%. It makes me wonder if people who jump to defend her horrible design have never seen or touched a woman.
@Bentleyma I was literally just gonna say why is her face looking so masculine!? 😮
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Holy moly. The immaturity (or ignorance) of the comment section here is astounding. Perhaps her face holding a somewhat aggressive expression, that of anger/force/revenge/mercilessness is what triggers your reductive understanding of femininity?
Questions to consider: 1: Does every woman look the same? no. 2: Is the game about how she looks? no.
For the sake of yourself + the women you may encounter in your life, please broaden your horizon for what is allowed to be 'womanly'. Seriously. For the sake of quality gaming, perhaps focus more on the content and experience of a game, rather than whether the character lives up the ridiculous beauty standards.
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@Dodoo check , check - https://www.tiktok.com/@missvanessavancartier/video/7276123663533935904
Markoooo
@4UDIOTAPE lol chill out mate it’s just an observation.
No obviously every woman doesn’t look the same that’s not what we’re discussing. We’re talking about Lara Croft who has looked a certain way for decades that is now sporting a look with more testosterone.
Why can’t we comment on it without being villainised?
She very clearly looks like a woman in this artwork. She's just not sexualized with large breasts.
That said, insinuating that people unhappy with the change are incels who've never felt the touch of a woman is a, frankly, incredibly lazy retort.
As a lifelong Tomb Raider player, I personally think it would be a shame to ditch the reboot trilogy Lara and start from scratch but would rather those be treated as prequels and that this is the person she has evolved into.
Couldn't give two ploppy poos what she looks like. There is no agenda. Who cares?
@Dodoo I think you underestimate the effects of such comments on a larger scale. It may seem like an aggressive comparison, but to me it's like being confronted with the toxicity of something and then responding with 'well, it was just a joke' or 'well, I would never say it in front of them' - usually used for topics of sexism or racism. This is a public forum and anyone can read these comments and be further (negatively) affected by the extreme pressure on (especially) women to live up to beauty standards, certain appropriate behaviour and so on. I'm not trying to villainize you, but to make you aware of how "your" comments can be read.
On the topic of Lara Croft; she's had multiple depictions over the decades, and it's not like she originally looked like a real human at all. Do you want realistic games? Do you want entertaining or interesting games? Do you play Tomb Raider just to look at Lara Croft?
Now, I understand the disappointment that people can feel when a memorable character looks different. One that springs to mind is how Ellie from TLoU looks quite different in the HBO series from the games. But to me, Lara here could absolutely be a modern version of 'the original Lara Croft' (which was basically a low-poly doll figure with pretty unrealistic proportions).
Comments section for this are a bin fire. Can't we all just enjoy the fact that we're hopefully getting a new TR game
It’s the faint stubble line on her face that is a bizarre design choice.
She looks like a woman, but she also looks like she could be a trans woman.
Wait isn't this the new Tomb Raider where the leaks said Lara Croft would be in a lesbain relationship, or am I tripping? If true, lol.
Anyway, in terms of looks, she looks fine to me, maybe not as attractive as the recent trilogy, but definitely not MJ or Aloy level of unattractiveness or should I more accurately say, forced unattractiveness.
You'll are overreacting saying she looks like a dude, she is at worst a 7 or 8 irl ,lol.
I've no issue with anything or anyone, but her face in this picture absolutely looks like a man's face (open the bigger version, it's way more clear there).
I think it's mainly the jawline that does it.
The main issue i think people have is that she really doesn't look like lara croft anymore, mainly because of the face (the rest of the style is pretty much lara croft).
It's nothing to do with 'transphobia' or whatever the ***** people are cooking up in the comments here. It's everything to do with changing how a gaming icon looks, for no reason at all.
Imagine suddenly having a pink mario without a mustache, a sonic who is now no longer a hedgehog, but a giraffe instead, etc. Noone likes this and everyone would be cool calling that out, but if you call out the changes on Lara Croft you're suddenly a 'woman hater' or whatever ridiculous term people come up with.
@Bentleyma What a way to out yourself for having never been near a woman. Ouch.
I think people are very confused these days on how to communicate without offending anyone.
When someone says that a woman looks to have masculine traits it is not necessarily a negative comment nor should it be. It could be a positive comment or neutral comment just as easily depending on the subjective opinion of observer. In exactly the same way to call a man feminine is historically considered negative but it doesn't need to be nor should it be. It should just as easily be neutral or positive depending on the tastes of the observer.
@rachetmarveTBH, her sexuality has never been discussed before and it would explain a lot. No problems with it here.
@BiosNova A what now?
Am I the only straight woman who actually likes playing as highly sexualized, cute and feminine characters? Like if given the choice between playing as a character that looks like me and a character who I wish I could look like, I would almost always choose the latter. I play games for the power fantasy/escapism, not realism and I honestly don't understand why people defend ugly character designs lol. But like I said in another comment, I doubt she'd look like this in the final product. I expect them to fix her face at the very least.
I'm absolutely in love with Lara's appearance in the last trilogy and especially Camilla Luddington's acting. Strong contender for the most beautiful female character in a videogame, ever, according to my tastes. Absolutely didn't need a change, particularly not to the clothes of 90s Lara.
Despite all that, this is just an artwork. We no nothing about how she will actually look in the game.
I won't be happy if they don't get Camilla Luddington back.
She put so much effort in to playing Lara for the reboot trilogy and did an amazing job.
I'm just happy to be getting more Lara in the future.
Also the macaws in the background...assuming therefore South America jungle setting once again?
I think she looks awesome personally. A natural progression from the reboot Lara into the more classic looking Lara. I'm a huge fan of both the classic and reboot Tomb Raider games so I'm very excited to see what CD has been cooking. Hopefully we see a trailer soon.
Also are we really going to have this debate on if every woman looks like a woman or not every time? Aren't we better than this? Lara looks cool. Eve looks cool. Just seems a bit silly to me personally.
@Matroska I think she looks like how an adventurer should look. Western games strive for realism whereas japanese games nowadays, yuffie being a prime example, aim for perfect models and are all minuscule. Yuffie looks like air could blow her away even though she's a ninja with a giant shuriken. Have to say I prefer western models nowadays
As if people are transvestigating Lara Croft in the comments 😭😂 touch as much grass as you can, I’m begging you!
I prefer the rebooted look to this, tbh.
This does look more consistent with her COD operator model so this is probably how she looks now:
https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/Lara_Croft
This news article has "the" comment section of this month.😏
As for Lara’s look here, it looks alright even with the allegedly "masculine" facial features. But since this is most likely concept promo art, if nothing else, I doubt we see much of it.
@Bentleyma watch it they might ban your account.
She may have undergone many boob reductions ops over the years and probably wears a sports bra these days, but she's still as hot as she ever was (and less likely to topple over).
I love a bit of hand-wringing in the morning...🍿🍿🍿
Crazy but I think this art design looks really good for Lara. And Eve looks good too. The duality of a man, I guess is what I should write.
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"Wielding her infamous twin pistols" we see you push square 🤣 thus fictional character looks great - incels can do one.
Rise of the Tomb Raider us still criminally underrated, if it weren't for UC4 it would be more widely regarded I think. Shadow seemed to improve further on things so I'm looking forward to what they come up with next.
Whys that dude dressed as lara croft?? The fixed pic beneath looks a million times better 🤣
Can someone post a side by side comparison between this and the reboot trilogy please
@Bentleyma eh ?
Unified ? I dont know what they're on about, am I being slow?
It could just be a bad angle… but I saw a post online referring to this as ‘Larry Croft’ and now I can’t unsee it 😂
Wasn't a fan of the reboots (barely a Tomb to raid) but the proper ones are back now so I'm set for a bit of Raiding.
She looks like a cross between proper Lara and reboot Lara so hopefully she'll gravitate towards the former. I think Hayley Atwell is doing the voice for the Netflix anime version. Perfect voice. Use Angelina Jolie as the template for what Lara looks like and job's done.
I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but the in the recesses of my mind I seem to recall that Feb 14th, Valentines Day, is Lara Croft’s birthday, so props for the unveiling of this on such an appropriate day! Happy Birthday Lara!
On subject, I like the artwork of the “new”/“old” style Lara. I can definitely see the inspiration from the original PS1 character design, not only in the iconic outfit, but the facial features do harbor back to what the OG face looked like, in a way, just modernized and up-res’ed.
Stumpy legs and a chiseled chin is a hard pass from me. Looks more like Lorenzo Croft, this must be intentional because even AI wouldn't draw a face like that.
Did anyone mention peach fuzz yet? I enjoy when people argue about peach fuzz. Can't wait for the full in-game graphical reveal with all that peach fuzz 😂😂😂
This comments section is a s*** show, and I love it 👏
She looks fairly normal..? Can’t believe they’re transvestigating Lara Croft now, thought the Taylor Swift stuff was bad enough.
@InsaneWade The outfit is a welcomed return, it's just that they gave her GigaChad's jawline in the process
Urgh, so another reboot? How many times now I wonder?
Was the 2013 reboot trilogy really that badly received? I didn't find the story in the second and the third game that engaging, but I found the gameplay in all three immense fun — much more puzzle-oriented than the Uncharted games.
@4UDIOTAPE fair enough, good explanation, we’ll leave it there.
Yes she looks like a man in that image but that's just concept art I doubt she will look exactly like this in the final game, Is not a big deal really.
@nessisonett Yes, normal is exactly what I thought too, until I saw people’s reactions and began to question my own sanity. Maybe it’s one of those Magic Eye pictures where if you casually glance at it, it’s an average drawing of Lara Croft, but if you stare at it cross eyed you see Gerard Butler in one of those totally non-homoerotic scenes from 300.
@Bentleyma are you not a fan of Larry Croft?
@LifeGirl "holier-than-thou attitude"
Honestly that's the feeling I get from most of your post, you're usually going "both sides are so dumb but I'm beyond such petty squabble I'm the bipartisan queen 😌" I say this respectfully of course!
She looks badass, as Lara should.
I think the look is fine. Her face has that more grizzled treasure hunter look to it.
Checks back in..
LOCK THE COMMENTS AND BURN THEM
@Tecinthebrain Yeah, in retrospect, I should have worded this better. My bad. As i say, i have no problem with a realistic take, but I refuse to believe that anyone actually wants Lara to look THIS masculine.
If anything, I would say that it is just as sexist to say that "realistic" equals "plain" or "flat".
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A lot of people saying she looks like a man. Look, I get she's not the stylised, ideal figure from the classics, but she's definitely not a man here.
It's giving transvestigators who "can always tell" but then get it wrong constantly. Taylor Swift is secretly trans guys trust me!
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Wow she actually looks interesting here. Might have to give the rebooted games a spin this year.
It's mostly fine. I'm gay and don't care about her sexiness factor, but I honestly don't like her hair in that one pic.
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@KundaliniRising333 Cool strawman that you just valiantly defeated there lol
Looks like a man. Developers just cannot seem to hit women's jawline/cheek bones in the 2020s. You can have strong female characters without giving them these masculine jawlines that makes it look like they have mumps.
Unfortunately, I no longer have faith in Crystal Dynamics. I’ll keep an open mind until I see more. I never preorder games anymore.
Modern Sensibilities, I guess. I still play all these games but I always roll my eyes when someone tells me the main character NEEDS to look realistic in a game where you shoot dinosaurs and mummies and all that.
New challenge for gamers to prove if they've ever felt the touch of a woman just dropped
@NonbinaryStarr Exactly
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@4UDIOTAPE unrealistic proportions? I take it you never watched Eurotrash then with Lola ?
@Bentleyma if that's a dude then i guess im gay.
It's so boring to hear from the self righteous that if you think Lara's face looks a bit masculine that they've never touched a woman.
What a lazy, smug attitude to have toward other people.
Lara was much prettier in the 2013-2018 trilogy.
I must be an incel! I got married and had two kids through immaculate conception.
@KundaliniRising333
"if a strong woman offends your fragile illusion of male superiority/conditioned stereotypical male identity, that's on you."
I see, so a strong woman to you must look masculine?
Femininity to you apparently is weak. You've exposed your underlying, subconscious sexism and you didn't even know it.
@GreatAuk cute, and nice try but no. I'm assuming that which is a threat to the masculinity of those making a big deal about nothing is due to Lara being a strong woman. Because you have to be an absolute moron to think that the artwork above has too masculine a jawline for a woman.
You call anyone critising your opinion as smug and self righteous, but somehow claiming a certain facial structure your perceive to exist somehow diminishes a woman's physical feminity is not?
It's a pretty logical assumption if you are getting upset over gaming protaganists features; that the ones making this an issue may have certain insecurities and a lack of real world perspective. Either that or they are so shallow that you get upset if women in video games do anything other than adhere to unrealistic juvenile fetishes.
So sorry Lara's shading and jaw are just too masculine for you. The art looks great, and I'm looking forward to a new tomb raider game. Hope you can move past this and have a good night.
@KundaliniRising333
I think some developers do it on purpose when they design any character with certain attributes. They like the controversy.
Funny enough I don't think anyone has a problem at all with Lara's physique. For some reason though her face seems somewhat masculine. Why do that?
Anyone who lives and breathes and walks around knows that the average woman's face is more feminine than this design. So it has nothing to do with juvenile fetishes to expect at least the average.
People are allowed to say the designers made a poor choice without being attacked and smeared with a bunch of lazy, insulting labels.
Lara looked great in the latest trilogy. I don't know why they needed to change anything. Again, that means the change was deliberate.
So people are allowed to comment on it.
Regarding people's insecurities, I don't see people complaining that male characters continue to be and remain apex male physiques and looks. You would think that would be major source of insecurity for players as they skew male.
Nathan Drake is a Chad for example. And that's fine! He should be! It's a game.
But wouldn't you make a comment if they redesigned him to be overweight, look like a slob and have a more feminine face? Wouldn't you be like wtf are they doing? I understand my example is extreme, but that is because it's just to illustrate my point.
I want my female characters to be feminine and my male characters to be masculine. Most of us agree.
@GreatAuk fair enough. Fair enough.
I've heard that she's gonna be voiced by Troy Baker.
I would be the first person to call out woke crap but I honestly don't see why people are complaining. I think she looks hot
I don’t mind this look. It’s a mix of old Lara with the newer trilogy Lara. I’m having a blast going through the remasters of 1-3, I’ll be looking forward to this new game as well.
I'm sorry, but that looks like a man's face on a woman's body while wearing makeup.
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I'm sure the final design will be fine. Culture war garbage and the far right extremism nonsense that pushes it non-stop, have really broken many people's brains. Christ...🤦♂️
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