Tomb Raider: The New Lara Croft

That is the new design for Lara Croft. Definitely a much younger Lara, she's also missing her previously cartoon-ish look in favor a far more realistic appearance. In her last game, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Lara looked like this:

The basics are still there, she still has huge lips and a tiny nose and her breast size has been preserved from the Alison Carroll model used in Underworld, the first current-gen Tomb Raider game. Less than two years ago, Eidos, the company behind Tomb Raider, was in serious financial troubles and was purchased by the most unlikely of video game companies, Square Enix, the creators of Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Quest. There were a few jokes that Lara Croft would have her design changed to include as many belts and zippers as possible, but all worries were put to rest when SE decided not to let go any staff from Eidos and change their company name to Square Enix Europe, basically just a renamed version of Eidos.

The new Tomb Raider, which has yet to receive a title other than Tomb Raider, will be a reboot of the entire series. This is a bit of a shock since Tomb Raider: Legend retconned Lara's family history while preserving the events of the first 5 Tomb Raider games. The gameplay will also feature a few changes, differentiating Tomb Raider from the Uncharted series, two games that took the Tomb Raider formula and made it better with impressive visuals, better stories, and better acting. Tomb Raider will be the 2nd Tomb Raider game made under Square Enix, the first being Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, a spin-off game made in a different style from the previous games. The game was extremely well-received and many reviewers said the likes of "if this is what Square's funding can give Crystal Dynamics, sign us up for more." Lara's new design is obviously heavily funded by Square Enix's budget, which was able to give us the outstanding visuals of Final Fantasy XIII.

One of the biggest gameplay changes is that Tomb Raider will feature a system in which Lara has to hunt for food and medicine to stay alive, very similar to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. If the new Tomb Raider has as good a system as Snake Eater had, the new Tomb Raider is a day 1 purchase for me.

I decided to look into the last 3 Tomb Raider games and was surprised to see they actually got pretty good reviews, but poor sales due to the stigma of the last 3 PS1 era games. I'm playing Tomb Raider: Legend right now and wow, it's definitely a lot better than those last Tomb Raider games I played way back in middle school. So, here's to hoping Lara Croft gets a successful reboot when Tomb Raider (tentative title) gets released in 2011.