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Tag: Lara Croft

  • How the New ‘Tomb Raider’ Games Want to Unite Lara’s Past and Future

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    After years of corporate shuffling and various adaptations getting announced and coming out, everyone’s favorite Tomb Raider, Lara Croft, is finally returning to video games with two titles. At last week’s Game Awards, Crystal Dynamics revealed Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis and Tomb Raider: Catalyst. The former is a remake (or “reimagining”) of the original 1996 game that saw a young Lara look for the Scion of Atlantis. It’s been re-released many times over the decades, and this new version, co-developed with Polish studio Flying Wild Hog, features modernized gameplay and graphics, along with “new surprises.”

    The day after the awards ceremony, Crystal studio head Scot Amos and game director Will Kerslake told press the chief aim with Legacy was to build it from the ground up and make the original game “feel like 1996, but play in 2026.” There was a lot of talk of “honoring” Lara’s debut, and not adding embellishments or divergences that fans would deem unnecessary. (Translation: it’s a single-player only game.)

    “The things you expect in a Tomb Raider game, the characters and creatures you expect [from the original], are in the trailer and will be in Legacy,” said the developers when asked of the game’s locations being in this new version. Likewise, the original game’s puzzles and hard segments will make a return, but like the new controls, those will meet the current generation of players where they’re at.

    Meanwhile, Catalyst puts Lara in Northern India after a cataclysm unearths ancient secrets, including one “that could reshape the future.” While investigating what caused the cataclysm and any other secrets in the region, she’ll team up with (and go against) other treasure hunters whose intentions aren’t as noble as hers. The most important thing to know about Catalyst right now is that it’s set after 2008’s Tomb Raider: Underworld, meaning Lara’s older and “at the top of her game,” according to Kerslake.

    Speaking of Lara, she’s undergone another new look for Legacy of Atlantis, which was previously shown off in 2024, prior to the games’ reveal. Her last big artistic change came with the 2013 reboot and lasted through that trilogy. For this new redesign, Kerslake explained Crystal Dynamics has had the same art director and lead character artist for “many games now”, so they’ve kept core elements of Lara with each game while working within the boundaries of the engine used to make each individual game, and ensured her look fits “the right era for each version [of her].”

    Similarly, Amos said the studio looks at evolving her through a lens of “the right character for the right period of how players experience games today,” focusing on “who Lara needs to be while retaining that core DNA that’s made her iconic.” No mention was made of her specific look for Catalyst, but the same logic applies there, with further insight presumably to come when that game is closer to release than the remake.

    In both titles, Lara will be voiced by Alix Wilton Regan, best known for Cyberpunk 2077 and Dragon Age: Inquisition. The shared voice means players will see the character at two different points in her life, and combined with her redesigned look, it’s all part of an effort by the studio to unify her earlier exploits with the more recent Survivor era: Legacy of Atlantis is Lara when she’s “fresh-faced” (as in, not long after the reboot games and Netflix series), followed by the pre-reboot games, and Catalyst is set at the furthest point in her adventuring career.

    That unification also extends to how the games were made. They were developed in parallel, with Flying Wild Hog tackling Legacy and Crystal Dynamics on Catalyst duty. Amos revealed the two studios have been sharing technology and resources, and are overseen by a leadership team that ensure “everything’s on track, within canon, and makes sense.” Of the partnership, he considered Flying Wild Hog, whose previous credits include Evil West and the Shadow Warrior games, “a dream to work with. Meeting them felt like a natural extension of [us], and there’s been so many similarities in how they’ve embraced this studio culture on their own that very much aligns with how [we] do things.”

    Amos and Scot assured more information on the two titles would emerge when the time was right, and they were equally avoidant about touching on how the upcoming Prime Video show will factor into this new, unified timeline. But they were more forthcoming about their pride in these two reveals: Scot recalled being at the Game Awards with Regan, other Crystal devs, and Flying Wild Hog CEO Michal Szustak and absorbing the excitement from the crowd and online for the two trailers. It’s been a long road for Crystal Dynamics and Tomb Raider this decade, but the hope is that looking to the reimagined past and incoming future can reinvigorate the long-running series and put Lara Croft back on the map.

    Look for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis to arrive in 2026, followed by Tomb Raider: Catalyst in 2027, both launching on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Justin Carter

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  • Remastered Tomb Raider games allegedly used AI to change Lara Croft’s French voice

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    Françoise Cadol is the voice actor for Lara Croft in the French localizations of the Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered games. She has sent a legal notice to the games’ publisher, Aspyr, alleging that a recent patch used artificial intelligence to alter her performance without her consent. The news was originally reported by French publication and picked up by .

    According to August 2025 for the remastered game collection, Tomb Raider VI was updated with some adjustments to its sound and audio. The latest update “fixed issues where various voice-overs and voicelines were too quiet, particularly in the Brazilian Portuguese localization” and “some voice-overs that were missing on the Steam build have been restored.” According to Le Parisien, fans alerted Cadol that the French version of the updated game seemed to differ from her original delivery, which they suspected were the result of the game using artificial intelligence. She has now filed a formal notice against Aspyr asking for sales of the game collection to be paused so the issue can be resolved.

    We’ve reached out to Aspyr for comment and will update this story if we receive a response.

    Actors both on screen and behind the mic have been mobilizing to protect themselves against unapproved AI recreations as the tech gains more popularity. The SAG-AFTRA union launched a against several video game companies last summer in an effort to gain better protections for performers as AI use grows, and questions around AI in voicework as the parties hammered out terms. The strike was in June 2025.

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    Anna Washenko

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  • An Inside Peek At Indiana Jones’ Gameplay Looks Whip-Crackingly, Fist-Punchingly Fun

    An Inside Peek At Indiana Jones’ Gameplay Looks Whip-Crackingly, Fist-Punchingly Fun

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    There’s a fairly good chance that you, like us, keep forgetting that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a first-person game. Each time we see any footage, it’s a jarring moment to remember that this isn’t a reskinned Tomb Raider or Uncharted, but instead puts us directly inside Dr. Jones’ head. This is exacerbated by so much of the stuff we’ve seen in trailers constantly jumping to cinematic third-person views, given how odd of an angle it is when trying to show off the game. But now we’ve seen ten minutes of in-game footage, and it’s starting to make more sense.

    The Top 10 Most-Played Games On Steam Deck: October 2023 Edition

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    John Walker

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  • Netflix’s animated Tomb Raider series now has a release date

    Netflix’s animated Tomb Raider series now has a release date

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    Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft is coming to Netflix on October 10. Netflix announced the release date today along with a new trailer, which finally gives us a slightly more in-depth look at what the series will be like. It picks up after the events of the Survivor Trilogy, which focused on a younger Lara Croft. Per Netflix’s Tudum, it will see Lara “forced to confront her true self and decide just what kind of hero she wants to become,” as she chases down a “dangerous and powerful” stolen artifact.

    Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft was first announced back in 2021 and is being produced by Legendary Television and Powerhouse Animation, the studio behind the Castlevania anime. It’s executive produced and written by Tasha Huo, known for The Witcher: Blood Origin. Lara Croft is voiced by Hayley Atwell (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning). The Legend of Lara Croft is not to be confused with the other Tomb Raider series currently in development for Prime Video, which has Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge on board as writer and executive producer.

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    Cheyenne MacDonald

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  • In Tomb Raider’s New Trailer, Lara Croft Is Back to Her Old Self

    In Tomb Raider’s New Trailer, Lara Croft Is Back to Her Old Self

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    Image: Powerhouse Animation/Netflix

    Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider franchise is taking two interesting roads as it’s got a brand new game in the works. On one side of things, the live-action series courtesy of Phoebe Waller-Bridge has recently moved forward over at Prime Video. And on the other, more immediate end, there’s Netflix’s Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, scheduled to drop in October and looking somewhat like a blast from the past.

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    The new show comes courtesy of Castlevania studio Powerhouse Animation and stars Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning’s Hayley Atwell as Lara Croft. In this tale set after the events of the reboot trilogy from the 2010s, Lara’s ditched her friends to run solo as an adventurer. While taking on increasingly difficult jobs, she finds herself on a new hunt after a thief’s broken into Croft Manor to steal an old Chinese artifact. The artifact’s not just old, it’s also dangerous, so it falls on her to do what she does best and save the world from peril.

    Legend may be in the same continuity as those games, but it’s looking more like a globetrotting, action-packed affair. In fact, it seems like this Lara is becoming more like her original incarnation instead of getting beaten around by gravity and nature every other step. While there’s parts of the reboots that’ve carried over, like her pickaxe and bow and arrow, and her trusty friend Jonah (Earl Baylon), there’s a definite change in the air. Here, she’s riding motorcycles, skydiving, and blasting a shotgun in midair like the hypercompetent hero fans originally loved.

    Netflix will premiere Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft on October 10.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Justin Carter

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  • Tomb Raider 3 Update Secretly Nukes Lara Croft Pinups

    Tomb Raider 3 Update Secretly Nukes Lara Croft Pinups

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    Image: Aspyr / Crystal Dynamics

    Well, this is weird. Pinups of Lara Croft appear to have gone missing in Tomb Raider I-III Remastered following a patch earlier this month to fix a bunch of bugs. Whether intentional or not, some fans are now calling it out as heavy-handed censorship of retro classics.

    The Week In Games: Reignited Rivalries And More New Releases

    Publisher Aspyr released the game’s second update on April 11 and mentioned a litany of changes, but nothing about up-scaled posters of Lara Croft being removed from the locker room in the Sleeping with the Fishes level for Tomb Raider III: The Lost Artefact. Though they still appear when playing with the original graphics settings on, where they look like pixelated postcards, the walls they’re on are now blank when players switch to the remastered graphics settings.

    Their removal was first noticed on the Tomb Raider subreddit, before the discovery began trickling out to other corners of the internet last week. “I thought it was bullshit, but nope, Crystal Dynamics played the OG fans. They censored out the pictures in the update,” tweeted one person. “Updates should never be used to retroactively censor games, it’s a form of theft. Any company that engages in this bait & switch behavior should go bankrupt,” tweeted another. To be clear, the original versions of the posters are still available in the games when played in the 1990s mode.

    A warning at the start of the remastered collection informs players that Crystal Dynamics, the studio behind the original games, chose to retain offensive stereotypes and imagery to “acknowledge its harmful impact” rather than erase those parts of the series’ legacy. Neither Crystal Dynamics nor Aspyr seemed to have a problem with the pinups previously. In fact, they were promoted as one of “ten remastered details you might have missed” a week after the collection’s launch.

    Shortly after the latest patch removed the posters, NexusMods user Dario108 uploaded a mod to restore them in the PC version of the game. Timur Gagiev, the maker of popular open-source port OpenLara, who ended up working for Aspyr on the remasters, retweeted Dario’s link to the mod without saying anything further. Some took this as a sign that the change was intentional despite some potential disagreement behind the scenes.

    Aspyr and Gagiev did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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    Ethan Gach

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  • Pornhub's Most Popular Video Game Character In 2023 Was Chun-Li From… Fortnite?

    Pornhub's Most Popular Video Game Character In 2023 Was Chun-Li From… Fortnite?

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    Image: Epic Games / Capcom / Kotaku

    It shouldn’t be surprising in 2023 that a lot of people watch porn involving video game characters, but exactly who tops the list and why might indeed be unexpected.

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    It’s the end of the year, which means companies and websites around the internet are releasing tons of data on what people played, read, listened to, and more. These yearly wrap-ups have become one of my favorite parts of December as I love looking through all the data they reveal. And perhaps there’s no data more interesting than what human beings around the world are getting off on. According to at least one popular porn site, a lot of you were into Chun-Li—but not the version from Street Fighter. 

    Earlier this month, Pornhub released its annual (and very detailed) round-up of what kind of content was the most popular and most sought after on its massively successful site. In all this data, as has been the case for the last few years, is a large section dedicated to video games. Like last year, Fortnite was at the top of the list with Overwatch in second. This time around though, Genshin Impact slipped out of the top three and was replaced by Minecraft.

    A chart shows the most searched games on Pornhub.

    Image: Pornhub

    Further data provided by Pornhub revealed which specific video game characters people were searching for the most in 2023. Chun-Li topped the list, overtaking names like Tifa from Final Fantasy and Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. But weirdly, according to Pornhub’s data, most people were looking for Chun-Li from Fortnite, not Street Fighter, the series she first appeared in. Though Ryu and Chun-Li were added to Epic’s popular battle royale in 2021, it’s still kind of weird.

    To get this data, Pornhub says it collected searches that included a character name and a video game title. This was done “to avoid counting searches for pornstars who may have similar names.”

    Anyway, here’s the top ten list of most searched characters on Pornhub.

    1. Chun-Li (Fortnite)
    2. Tifa (Final Fantasy)
    3. Dva (Overwatch)
    4. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) 
    5. Lady Dimitrescu (Resident Evil)
    6. Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog)
    7. Ada Wong (Resident Evil)
    8. Mario (Super Mario Bros.)
    9. Widomaker (Overwatch)
    10. Mercy (Overwatch)

    Try not to think too much about Sonic ranking so high or slip into a daydream where you’re in a room of Nintendo execs when they see that Mario cracked the top of the list.

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    Zack Zwiezen

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  • Amazon’s Tomb Raider Show Reportedly Being Written By Fleabag Creator

    Amazon’s Tomb Raider Show Reportedly Being Written By Fleabag Creator

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    Image: Crystal Dynamics

    If you, like me, are having trouble keeping track of all the video game adaptations coming to TV and film, you may have forgotten that a Tomb Raider series is in development over at Amazon. Well, friends, I will not be forgetting about this show any time soon, now that writer/actor/comedian Phoebe Waller-Bridge is reportedly writing the script for the show.

    According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Waller-Bridge is attached to the live-action show as a writer, though there’s no word on whether or not the Fleabag star will be in front of the camera at this time. Alongside writing, she’s set to act as executive producer alongside Ryan Andolina and Amanda Grenblatt, who both recently left Amazon to found their own production company, and have worked out further deals with Bezos and co. to work on projects like the Tomb Raider series.

    If you’re unfamiliar with Waller-Bridge’s work, she is known throughout the internet for her role as the titular character in Fleabag, a two-season series (also produced by and streaming on Amazon) which is also one of the few examples we have of what perfect television looks like.

    Fleabag is two seasons of perfect television.

    Fleabag is two seasons of perfect television.
    Image: Amazon

    You want to watch two short self aware seasons about a woman trying to claw her way out of emotional detachment and grief? It’s streaming on Prime. Don’t thank me, because it will ruin you for days. Come for Waller-Bridge’s sharp writing and performance, stay for Andrew Scott as the Hot Priest.

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    This series will be the third time Tomb Raider has seen a live-action adaptation, with Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander portraying Lara Croft in two separate film series. At the moment, it remains unclear if this show will be based on the classic Tomb Raider games or the survival-oriented settings of the reboot series.

    While the Amazon adaptation is in the works, developer Crystal Dynamics is also in the midst of developing a new Tomb Raider game. The studio was recently acquired by The Embracer Group after Square Enix sold it and other studios off in an effort to downsize and shift its focus onto other things like blockchain.

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    Kenneth Shepard

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