History

Lara Croft has become an international heroine and role model for gamers everywhere, over the few past years she has been in numerous films, comic books and magazines and has been the face of several different products ranging from SEAT cars to Lucozade. The birth place was in fact in a small office block in Derby where Toby Gard began drawing the concept artwork of the heroine..Or rather the hero at the time. Lara wasn't actually the star of her own game until near the end of the planning. The target for the game was to have two playable characters, a male and a female, who would go raiding for lost artefacts in the tombs, temples and pyramids. After Core designed a list of what they wanted the character to have, they changed their hero to a heroine.

Lara first began as a South American woman named Laura Cruz, however Eidos preferred a British heroine, and so the Core Design team consulted phone book and looked at a list of names (true fact) and settled on Lara Croft. She soon began to take shape and the designs of a girly heroine developed into the bad ass rogue Lara we all know and love today. 

The game was designed to be an interactive movie taking place in pyramids and tombs. Their first game was originally denied from Sony who asked for more material and a better story. The game was altered and accepted by Sony.

Tomb Raider then became an international heroine and an icon of the British video game industry. She appeared on the cover of Face magazine quickly after and her popularity increased with Tomb Raider hitting #1 on gaming charts. There was no doubt that the series needed to go on.