Fans of Lara Croft were surprised last month when Shadow of the Tomb Raider got an unexpected update.
The 2018 game is still going strong, and it is a title we described as one of the best games of the decade last year. It is consistent, wonderful to look at, and perfectly mixes stealth and combat to keep the player engaged. Long after the last of the DLC dropped, the game remains popular, and fans of Lara Croft were delighted when the unannounced update dropped.
Developer Eidos didn’t formally announce it, neither did publisher Square Enix, but players turning their PlayStation 5 suddenly found the last-gen release now supported “4K at high frame-rate on PlayStation 5 in high-resolution mode”. It’s Lara Croft, but not as we know her.
There’s even better news coming for Xbox owners, too: a keen Reddit user has spotted that the title has been newly tagged on the official store as now “optimized for Xbox Series X/S”. That is in addition to the Xbox FPS boost upgrade that improved the framerate back in May. Shadow of the Tomb Raider might be three years old this year, but it feels very much like a game for the current generation.
It goes without saying that any improvements to a Lara Croft game are welcomed by gamers, as she is one of video gaming’s most beloved characters. When she first appeared on the PlayStation back in 1996, she became iconic as a female protagonist in a popular video game. A sequel quickly followed, and within five years, she was on the big screen, being portrayed by Angelina Jolie in the film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. There have now been 19 official games, with another due this year.
How Lara Croft fans choose to digest their games has changed. Of course, big console releases are still popular, but those looking for a Lara fix can turn to iOS and Android too, and not always in a conventional way. 2021 will see the latest title released, Tomb Raider Reloaded, which will only appear on mobile devices and yet remain an action-adventure game. Indeed, some regions have already seen such a release, according to Pocket Gamer, with a global launch due soon. However, Lara’s imagery can be found in other game genres as well. There’s an online slot on Gala Bingo titled Lara Croft Temples and Tombs, which leans heavily on her imagery. The same goes for Lara Croft Relic Run, a ‘runner’ style game that uses Lara as the protagonist without borrowing the game’s other core mechanics.
That isn’t the end of her popularity either. Angelina Jolie’s film might have been the first we saw Lara on the big screen, but it certainly wasn’t the last, and there’s more to come. Online streaming service Netflix recently announced an anime series called Tomb Raider, set to take place after the events of the Shadow of the Tomb Raider game. Another film also is due, a sequel to Alicia Vikander’s debut as Lara in 2018, called Tomb Raider: Obsidian.
Whilst Lara Croft can be found in online slots, on your streaming service, and all other manner of places across pop culture, the core media she dominates is still the video game market, and the surreptitious update for the PlayStation 5 only goes to reaffirm the love the gaming community hold for their favorite female explorer.
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