The original history of video game icon Lara Croft is filled with several personal tragedies including the deaths of both parents on separate occasions, but it is also filled with many accomplishments both academic and athletic.
The character also has a storied history as a successful video game franchise with eight main entries in the series and another on its way. The upcoming Tomb Raider will be a reboot of the series and will give the series current developer Crystal Dynamics the opportunity to better sculpt the heroine for the modern era of gamers.
In a recent interview with the CVG, Tomb Raider lead writer, Rhianna Pratchett explains how the game will alter the history of the most identifiable female characters in video games.
"Given that I've written a couple of female action heroines before, this was sort of going back to the genesis of them and by that I don't mean the first one, I mean arguably the most famous one," Pratchett told CVG. "Even my mother has heard of Lara Croft."
According to Pratchett, the character's slightly approachable nature had to be change because it is a "different climate" from when the original game and film were released.
"For me, I felt that the slightly unapproachable British Ice Queen was not as appealing as it was when she first came out," Pratchett said. "We're living in a different climate. Rich characters throwing their money about... To be fair it's partly the film's fault as well. She needed her sharp edges rounded off a little bit."
She said that Lara still comes from a wealthy background, but that she is more humble about her finances than in previous iterations of the character.
"She does still come from money," Pratchett told CVG. "She's uncomfortable about it for a couple of reasons. She very much wants to make it on her own, partly because her parents are missing. They don't feature at all in the story [of the game] but they are missing. Touching the family money would mean acknowledging that they're really gone and that they're not coming back."
This is far departure from the Lara Croft seen in the franchise's films and previous games where Miss Croft drove expensive cars and utilized her wealth to create high-end technology. You can read the rest of the interview on CVG here.
Tomb Raider will release on March 5, 2013 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. Learn more about Lara Croft's personal journey here and about her inability to swim here. Learn more about Tomb Raider's multiplayer mode here.