After sparking some controversy among fans of the Tomb Raider franchise, Lara Croft’s new design reportedly won’t even feature in the upcoming game published by Amazon Games. What the recent image showed was the “unified” version of the character and not a definitive look for the next Tomb Raider title.
On Feb. 16, the official Tomb Raider account on X (formerly Twitter) shared a new “unified vision for Lara Croft” with the character wearing the iconic outfit from the original games. Her appearance seemed mostly inspired by the reboot Survivor series, albeit Lara does look more stern and mature than in those games. This image sparked discussion online between fans of the franchise, with some criticizing the design, but it seems developers never even intended for this design to feature in their games. Speaking for Vandal, anonymous sources familiar with the upcoming Tomb Raider project said (translated from Spanish using DeepL) that the image “does not correspond to the design that Lara Croft will have in the [upcoming] video game developed by Amazon Games.”
The image shared on the official account is nothing but a “unified vision” of the iconic adventuress, as the tweet itself indicates, the Vandal report said. This means players will have to wait a while to see Crystal Dynamics’ real new Lara in action.
How long the wait will be is unknown. Amazon and Crystal Dynamics announced their partnership for a new Tomb Raider game in December 2022, but details have remained scarce and obscure. We will likely see more of the new title sometime in 2024, as there is also a Tomb Raider TV show planned for this year. The show is set to connect the timelines of the older and newer games (similar to the design the developers shared), implying the upcoming game will do the same. I can’t wait to see what Crystal Dynamics has in store for us, as the latest three games are some of my favorite action-adventures of all time.
