Tomb Raider (2013 video game)

• 1. Introduction

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  In November 2010, Square Enix filed a trademark for a slogan, "A Survivor is Born," to promote a new Tomb Raider game. That game arrived in 2013 from the developer Crystal Dynamics, and it did not simply continue Lara Croft's story. It started that story over. As the tenth main entry in its series, it was built as a fresh beginning. Its Lara is young and untested, and she is a long way from the battle-hardened explorer seen in earlier titles. What waits for her on her first expedition? Who stands in her way, and what do they want? Why did the studio decide to begin again, and how did the music, the critics and the shoppers respond to the result?

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• 2. A Second Beginning

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  Crystal Dynamics began work on a new Tomb Raider soon after Tomb Raider: Underworld reached players in 2008. The team chose not to make a straight sequel. Instead it rebooted the series and re-established Lara Croft's origins, something it had already done once with Tomb Raider: Legend.

  The studio split into two teams after Underworld. One began the next main entry. The other built a spin-off series, Lara Croft, which debuted with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light in 2010. The new main game was also the first in the series published by Square Enix, which had acquired Eidos Interactive in 2009. In December 2010, Square Enix said the game had been in production for nearly two years. Studio head Darrell Gallagher described an origin story that sent Lara on a new kind of journey.

  The game ran on Foundation, the studio's own engine. Lara's movements were captured with compiled performance capture, a technique carried over from Underworld. Her face was based on that of the model Megan Farquhar.

  In January 2012, global brand director Karl Stewart ruled out a Wii U version. He said "it would not be right" to simply port the game. The team had built it for specific platforms before the Wii U was announced. Designing for the new console would have meant a very different game with its own unique functions.

  The multiplayer mode came from a different studio, the Canadian developer Eidos-Montréal, known for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In May 2012, the game slipped to the first quarter of 2013. Gallagher blamed the delay on the team "doing things that are completely new."

  Keeley Hawes had voiced Lara in Legend, Anniversary, Underworld and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, but she did not return for this game. Crystal Dynamics was said to be auditioning dozens of voice actresses. In June 2012, the studio revealed that Camilla Luddington would voice and perform the role. Hawes did come back as Lara in the downloadable game Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, released in December 2014.

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• 3. The Island of Yamatai

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  Off the coast of Japan, in the Dragon's Triangle, lies the fictional lost island of Yamatai. Its coastline is littered with shipwrecks, and the island has a reputation for fearsome storms. Legend says its kingdom was ruled by Queen Himiko, the "Sun Queen," who was blessed with shamanistic powers that let her control the weather. Little is known about Yamatai after her death, though its infamy was established soon afterward. Players who explore can find traces of other castaways. Portuguese traders, United States Marines and a Japanese military project were all stranded there at different points in history.

  Today the island belongs to the Solarii Brotherhood, a violent cult of criminals, mercenaries and shipwreck survivors. They worship Himiko and live under a rigid hierarchy with laws of their own. Their real purpose comes out only gradually as the story unfolds.

  The player controls Lara Croft, a young and ambitious archaeology graduate with a theory about where the lost kingdom lies. Her theory persuaded the Nishimura family to fund an expedition. The Nishimuras are descendants of Yamatai's own people.

  The expedition is led by Dr. James Whitman, a celebrity archaeologist who has fallen on hard times and is desperate to avoid bankruptcy. Conrad Roth, a former Royal Marine and close friend of the Croft family, serves as Lara's mentor. Samantha "Sam" Nishimura is Lara's friend and a documentary filmmaker representing her family's interests.

  Joslyn Reyes is a pragmatic, short-tempered mechanic and single mother. Jonah Maiava is a friendly, physically imposing fisherman with an open mind toward the supernatural. Angus "Grim" Grimaldi is the gruff helmsman, and Alex Weiss is a goofy electronics specialist. All of them are aboard the ship Endurance as it heads for the Dragon's Triangle.

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• 4. Storms and Sacrifice

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  On the strength of her own theory, and against Whitman's advice, Lara takes the Endurance into the Dragon's Triangle. A violent storm sinks the ship and strands the survivors on a remote island. Lara wakes alone in a cave and narrowly escapes a deranged savage.

  A man named Mathias, who says he is a fellow passenger, is with Sam when Lara finds her. While Sam tells him the legend of Himiko, Lara falls asleep. When she wakes, both of them are gone. She reunites with the rest of the crew. Then she leaves with Whitman to look for Roth, while the others search for Sam and Mathias.

  Whitman and Lara soon learn that the inhabitants worship Himiko, which confirms that the island is Yamatai. The cultists capture both of them and take them to a settlement holding other survivors. An escape attempt turns violent, and Lara is forced to kill one of her attackers. Separated from Whitman, she finds an injured Roth. With his gear, she climbs toward a communications relay at the top of a mountain.

  At the relay, Lara hails a nearby search plane and lights a signal fire. A supernatural storm suddenly forms and destroys the aircraft. The pilot parachutes to safety, but Lara cannot stop the islanders from killing him.

  Alex and Reyes then contact her with news that Sam has been taken by the same people, who are the Solarii Brotherhood. Lara is closest, so she attempts a rescue. Mathias, who turns out to lead the cult, foils her and orders her killed. A samurai-like "Oni" intervenes and carries her to an ancient monastery in the mountains.

  Escaping again, Lara finds a ritual chamber. There she learns that a "fire ritual" chooses Himiko's successor as part of the "Ascension." A candidate judged unworthy could die. Sam reaches Lara to say that the Solarii plan to put her through it.

  Lara storms the Solarii fortress with Grim's help, but he is killed in the assault. With Roth's help she slips into the palace and arrives in time for the ritual. Mathias and his men overpower her. Yet the flames do not harm Sam, and a sudden gust of wind puts them out. That marks Sam as Himiko's rightful successor.

  Lara escapes captivity once more and goes back for the captured crew. Whitman has negotiated a limited freedom among the Solarii, and he helps her return to the palace for Sam. Roth prepares a helicopter to carry them out. Remembering the storm that downed the plane, Lara urges Sam to flee on foot and tries to stop the helicopter from lifting off. Another storm strikes it anyway, and it crashes. Lara nearly dies, and Roth is fatally wounded by Mathias while saving her. She realizes the storms are being magically generated to trap people on the island.

  The surviving crew has secured a boat that can be repaired. Whitman rejoins them, claiming he escaped, but Lara suspects he is working with the cultists. She goes to the wreck of the Endurance to find Alex, who went to salvage repair tools. He is pinned under debris. He insists she run from the oncoming Solarii, and he sacrifices himself so that she can escape with the equipment.

  Clues left by a World War II-era Japanese military expedition that studied the island's storms lead Lara to an ancient coastal tomb. There she finds the remains of the general of the Stormguard, the Oni who defend the monastery. He died by seppuku. His final message says that Himiko's previous successor took her own life rather than receive Himiko's power, leaving Himiko's soul trapped in her corpse. Lara concludes that the Ascension moves Himiko's soul into a new body and destroys the host's soul. She also concludes that Mathias means to make Sam the next vessel.

  Back with the crew, Lara learns that Whitman has betrayed them and handed Sam to Mathias. She, Reyes and Jonah chase them to the monastery. Lara arrives in time to see the Oni kill Whitman. She fights through the remaining Solarii and Stormguard and confronts Mathias at the summit during the ritual. She shoots him dead in her signature dual-wield style. Then she destroys Himiko's remains to save Sam and end the ritual.

  With Himiko's soul destroyed, the storms dissipate. A passing cargo ship rescues Lara, Sam, Jonah and Reyes. As they sail away from Yamatai, Lara says she will keep exploring the world's myths and is not going home just yet.

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• 5. Survival Mechanics

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  The island is organized as an interconnected hub-and-spoke map, viewed from a third-person perspective. Lara travels between camps and across the island on footpaths, on ziplines she improvises or finds, and on climbable tracks. Many of her moves carry over from earlier Crystal Dynamics games, with tweaks such as a measure of stealth. Quick time events appear at regular intervals, often at crucial moments such as extracting a shard of metal or escaping a collapsing cave.

  Combat borrows several ideas from Naughty Dog's Uncharted series. Players free-aim Lara's bow and the guns she salvages, fight at close quarters and perform stealth kills. An ability called Survival Instinct highlights enemies, collectables and the objects needed for environmental puzzles.

  Role-playing elements shape progress. Hunting, exploring and combat challenges earn experience points, and spending them upgrades Lara's skills, for example by giving her more room for arrows and ammunition. Salvaged materials gathered across the island pay for weapon upgrades and customization. Better gear also arrives as the story advances, though how it looks is closely tied to events in the plot. Away from the main path, players can take side quests, revisit locations and search for challenge tombs.

  An online multiplayer mode sits alongside the campaign, and it was a first for the main series. Two teams of four, survivors against scavengers, compete across five maps in three modes. Team Deathmatch is player versus player, and a team wins by defeating the opposing team in three separate matches. In Private Rescue, survivors must carry medical supplies to a point on the map while scavengers race to a set number of kills, all within ten minutes. In Cry for Help, survivors explore the maps to retrieve batteries for defended radio beacons while the scavengers hunt them. In all three modes, the weapons and destroyable environments of the campaign carry over.

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• 6. Found Sounds

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  In December 2010, a Game Informer podcast offered a sneak peek at a track from the game, credited to the composer Aleksandar Dimitrijevic. Karl Stewart later clarified that Dimitrijevic had been hired only to score the trailer. The studio had not yet found the official composer for the game itself. After the Turning Point trailer premiered in June 2011, Stewart said its final score was not Dimitrijevic's work. He added that a completely new composer had been brought in for both the game and that trailer piece.

  Sound designer Alex Wilmer later explained that this unannounced composer had directed an in-house concert violinist from a distance. The result was a "very intimate" piece. In October 2011, the fourth Crystal Habit podcast on the Tomb Raider blog featured community manager Meagan Marie talking with Wilmer and lead sound designer Jack Grillo. Grillo described an overture built from an outline of the narrative, with the composer creating themes and textures to span the whole game. Wilmer stressed that the music would adapt dynamically and react instantly to what happens on screen.

  An episode of The Final Hours of Tomb Raider on YouTube finally named the composer as Jason Graves. His earlier work includes Dead Space and its sequels, F.E.A.R. 3 and Star Trek: Legacy. Beyond his trademark orchestral style, Graves wanted a signature sound that would stand out. He struck odd sounds from objects such as mallets. With help from his neighbour, the architect Matt McConnell, he also built a special percussion instrument that produced a range of strange sounds to blend into the orchestra.

  Although the story takes place in Japan, Graves did not want Japanese instrumentation. He chose sounds and themes that suit the scavengers, who came from many regions of the globe. By playing different percussion instruments in different ways, he created the feel of found sounds.

  The soundtrack album, Tomb Raider: Original Soundtrack, arrived on the same day as the game's worldwide release. Sites including Forbes and the magazine Film Score Monthly gave it high praise.

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• 7. Reveals and Editions

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  Square Enix's CGI studio Visual Works produced the Turning Point teaser, which pointed to a release in the third quarter of 2012. The first gameplay trailer went online in May 2012. It showed more action and several non-playable characters who seemed to belong to a menacing organization. On the 4th of June, Microsoft's E3 2012 press conference showed a new demonstration featuring environmental destruction, stealth combat with a bow and arrow, quick time events and parachuting.

  Summer footage showed Lara hunting, exploring and killing for the first time, and it was presented at the Eurogamer Expo in London on the 27th of September. On the 8th of December, a new trailer ran during the Spike Video Game Awards. Camilla Luddington introduced it, and an orchestra led by Jason Graves followed. The next week, IGN ran Tomb Raider Week, with previews, features and trailers every day from Monday to Friday. The game went gold on the 8th of February 2013.

  Tomb Raider reached shops as scheduled on the 5th of March 2013 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows. Australia received it earlier, on the 1st of March, and Japan followed on the 25th of April. Feral Interactive released a Mac version on the 23rd of January 2014. It was the first game in the series to earn an M rating from the ESRB, where earlier installments had been rated T. The board cited blood and gore, intense violence and strong language.

  Retailers competed with extras. In North America, GameStop offered an in-game Challenge Tomb. Best Buy orders came with the graphic novel Tomb Raider: The Beginning, the Aviatrix Skin and the Shanty Town multiplayer map. Walmart customers received a digital copy of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and access to a real-life scavenger hunt. Steam buyers got three exclusive bonus items for Team Fortress 2.

  In Europe, the Survival Edition packed a mini art book, a double-sided map of the island, a soundtrack CD, an exclusive weapons pack and a survival pouch. The European Collector's Edition added an 8-inch Play Arts Kai Lara Croft figurine in a metal box. In the United Kingdom, Game sold an Explorer Edition bundle, and Tesco sold the Combat Strike Pack.

  At E3 2012, Gallagher announced that Xbox 360 players would get early access to downloadable extras. In March 2013, Xbox Live users received the Caves & Cliffs map pack first. It held three multiplayer maps named Scavenger Caverns, Cliff Shantytown and Burning Village, and PSN and Steam users followed in April. The 1939 pack added two maps, Dogfight and Forest Meadow. On the 7th of May, the Shipwrecked pack added Lost Fleet and Himiko's Cradle. An outfit pack on Xbox Live offered the Demolition, Sure-Shot and Mountaineer outfits.

  In January 2014, Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition arrived on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with improved graphics, new control features and every add-on. On PlayStation 4 the frame rate was unlocked, ranging from 32 to 60 frames per second and averaging 53.36. The Xbox One version was locked to 30 and averaged 29.98. Both ran at 1080p. That same month, a Game of the Year Edition carried all the bonuses, without the graphical upgrade, to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

  Windows received the Definitive Edition in April 2024, exclusively through the Microsoft Store. Aspyr released Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 ports on the 18th of November 2025, and an Android and iOS version followed in February 2026.

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• 8. Acclaim and Sales

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  GamesMaster magazine awarded Tomb Raider a score of 90% and its Gold award. Its editor singled out the visuals, the length and depth of the gameplay, and a spectacular final third. Keza MacDonald of IGN scored it 9.1 out of 10, the highest IGN had given the series since the original Tomb Raider in 1996. Ryan Taljonick of GamesRadar praised the setting, said no area felt like a rehash of another, and called Lara's development an integral part of the experience. The Australian show Good Game rated it 10/10 from both hosts, only the eighth game to do so in the show's seven-year run. Giant Bomb gave it four stars out of five.

  Justin Speer of GameTrailers raised the most pointed criticism. The story presents Lara as vulnerable and uncomfortable with killing, yet the game rewards aggressive, brutal tactics with experience points. He found it hard to identify with her as a result. MacDonald noticed the same clash but was less critical, noting that both Lara and the player must learn quickly to kill in order to survive. Matt Miller of Game Informer pointed out that players could avoid open conflict if they chose. He also praised enemies who seemed to have real tasks on the island, rather than being clusters of polygons waiting to be shot. Taljonick found the supporting characters generic and not memorable. The multiplayer mode took the brunt of the criticism, with MacDonald, Speer and Miller all calling it lackluster.

  Reviews of the Definitive Edition were positive. Matt Helgeson of Game Informer welcomed the native 1080p graphics. James Stephanie Sterling of The Escapist praised the visual gains but found the small additions to the single-player game and the price hard to recommend, except to those who had never played the original. Matt Liebl of GameZone gave it 9/10.

  Before release, a developer interview described an early cutscene as an attempted rape that shapes Lara's origin story. The remark drew anger and led to several op-ed pieces. The developer later said that sexual assault was not a theme of the game and that the executive producer had misspoken. The lead writer afterward called the controversy a product of misinformation.

  The game sold more than 1 million copies in less than 48 hours. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number one and became the biggest UK launch of 2013, passing Aliens: Colonial Marines before Grand Theft Auto V overtook it. It more than doubled the debut sales of Tomb Raider: Legend. Its Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions set week-one records as the fastest-selling formats in the series, beating Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. It topped the charts in France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States. There it ranked second for March, excluding downloads, behind BioShock Infinite. In Japan, it debuted at number four with 35,250 units.

  Three weeks after launch, Square Enix announced 3.4 million copies sold at retail and admitted the game had missed its predicted targets. Crystal Dynamics defended the figure, calling it the most successful launch of any game that year. On the 22nd of August, Gallagher told Gamasutra the game had passed 4 million copies. In January 2014, executive producer Scot Amos said it had reached profitability by the end of 2013. On the 3rd of February, the Definitive Edition debuted atop the UK charts. By April 2015 sales stood at 8.5 million, and by October 2021 the game had sold more than 14.5 million copies, the best result in the series.

  Rhianna Pratchett, the game's lead writer, wrote the 48-page hardcover graphic novel Tomb Raider: The Beginning, published by Dark Horse Comics. It tells how the ill-fated voyage of the Endurance came to be. Gail Simone was hired in 2013 to write a Dark Horse comic series set between the game and its sequel. Rise of the Tomb Raider was announced during Microsoft's E3 2014 presentation and reached Xbox consoles on the 10th of November 2015. Windows followed on the 28th of January 2016. The PlayStation 4 version arrived on the 11th of October 2016 as the 20 Year Celebration, marking 20 years since the first Tomb Raider. Shadow of the Tomb Raider followed in September 2018.

  The 2018 Tomb Raider film, directed by Roar Uthaug, is based in part on the game. It was released on the 16th of March 2018, with Alicia Vikander as Lara beside Daniel Wu and Walton Goggins. Its story follows Lara Croft's search for her father.

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