Amazing facts about Tomb raider

1) Tomb Raider was the creation of just six people. Tomb Raider was cutting edge stuff, but back in 1996 cutting edge didn’t necessarily require a staff of hundreds/thousands. The game was created over a period of three years (1993 – 96) by developer Core Design, which, at the time, consisted of only six guys.

2) The game initially starred a male Indiana Jones rip-off. The initial idea that eventually bloomed into Tomb Raider was Core Design’s desire to do a 3D game where you could actually see your character. That doesn’t sound like a big deal now, but it was revolutionary at the time. Back in the mid-90s, almost all “3D” games were first-person, which allowed you fake things with scaling 2D spites ala Doom. A third-person 3D game on the other hand requires a moveable camera, which means your 3D game actually has to be 3D.

3) Lara Croft began life as spicy Latina, Laura Cruz. Lara Croft’s creator Toby Gard has joked it became obvious Tomb Raider needed a female protagonist when he realized third-person games involve a lot of staring at the main character’s butt, so to keep him sane through the long hours, he should probably make that butt a lady’s butt. In reality, Core was probably worried Lucasfilm would sue over their obvious Indiana Jones rip-off, and so they needed a new character that definitely wouldn’t be confused with Harrison Ford. A change of gender was the easiest way to do that.

4) There’s an actual Lara Croft living somewhere in Derby, England. The final step in Lara’s evolution came when Eidos Interactive purchased Core’s parent company in 1996. Eidos wanted to give the game more British appeal, so Laura Cruz was out. So, how did they pick Lara’s new British name? The guys at Core, which was located in Derby, England, grabbed a phone book and started looking for names that sounded like Laura Cruz. They landed on Lara Croft and suddenly some random Derbyite had a very famous name.

5) Lara is made of only 540 polygons. In 2013 the same character is made of more than 40,000 polys.

6) Lara’s trademark braid had to be cut from the game. The amount of polygons allotted for Lara was so tight, one of her trademarks, the braid she sports in all the promotional and concept art, had to be cut from the game.
7) Ms. Croft’s breast size was, like, totally an accident. Totally. So, according to Toby Gard, he was messing around with Lara’s model one day and accidentally made her breasts 150% larger. He was going to return them to being merely oversized instead of anatomically impossible, but the other guys on the team caught glimpse of the alterations, said Lara “looked better that way” and told Toby to keep the changes. Oh you don’t say.
8) The Croft Manor area was built in a single weekend. One of the most iconic locations in the original Tomb Raider, Lara’s palatial home Croft Manor, was hacked together by Toby Gard in a weekend, and based on the actual building Core Design was headquartered in. Yup, in England even small-time video game developers get to hang out in castles.
9) Lara’s decorating skills will melt your face off. Think the Ark of the Covenant is stored in some mysterious government warehouse somewhere? Wrong. It’s actually sitting in Lara Croft’s foyer. Hey, it’s a hell of a way to get lingering party guests to leave.
10) Only six people are killed throughout the original Tomb Raider. Sure, Lara ventilates a good number of lions, gorillas and dinos in the game, but human beings? A mere six die throughout the title. Multiply that by around 100 to get Lara’s kill count in the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot.
11) Shelley Blond, the voice of Lara in the first game, only got to play her once. Lara Croft has an iconic look, but she doesn’t have a particularly consistent voice. Shelley Blond only voiced Lara for one game. All told, five different voice actresses have brought Lara’s lines to life.
12) Sony wasn’t going to allow Tomb Raider on the Playstation at first. The Tomb Raider games were a cornerstone of the original Playstation library, so it may surprise you to learn that Sony didn’t want the game at first. Early on Sony was very picky about what they would allow on their new console, and Tomb Raider didn’t measure up to their standards the first time Core submitted it to them.
13) “Lara Croft” released two terrible albums that only came out in France. After the huge success of Tomb Raider, Lara Croft was suddenly everywhere — magazine covers, commercials, U2 live tours. She even recorded a couple albums so bad they were only released in France (even though they were entirely in English). Here’s the scandalous(ly sh*tty) single “Getting Naked” from Lara’s first album Lara Croft: Come Alive…
14) Eight different models have played Lara Croft (not including Angelina Jolie). Of course the Lara Croft albums weren’t actually recorded by Lara Croft, because Lara Croft isn’t real. Rhona Mitra, the model who played Lara Croft at the time, was responsible for them. Hiring live models to play Lara at promotional events and car shows was one of the stranger aspects of the whole Lara Croft phenomenon. The practice started with the release of Tomb Raider in 1996 with Nathalie Cook filling the role, and continued all the way until 2010 with Alison Carroll being the final flesh-and-blood Lara.

15) There is no nude code. Sorry guys who grew up during the 90s, there’s no official way to see Lara’s 540 polygons in all their glory. There were, of course, unofficial nude patches for the PC, but there’s no easy to enter built-in code.