'That's just not the character in the games. 'I think it was one of the things that riled up Toby and all of us, when the marketing got ahold of her and used her as a glamor model,' Rummery says. Gard intended to sell Tomb Raider as a revolutionary game, while Eidos saw its star as a head-turning cash cow who'd hawk the title for them.

That drove a wedge between the developers and their distributor. 'It was a bit like showing up at a car manufacturer wondering what you're going to work on, and them being like, 'Oh, you're going to work on hovercars.'' Tomb Raider's unique gameplay elements (it was one of the first 3-D actioners of its size and scope), unconventional lead character, and cinematic aesthetic made it one of the best-selling games of all time.Īctress Rhona Mitra got her big break as a Lara Croft model in the late '90s, when publisher Eidos sought to market the character as a sexy pinup, as opposed to the capable action-explorer seen in the games. 'Honestly, I sat there thinking, 'Oh my God, this is insane,'' developer Gavin Rummery tells EW. Gard, along with a small team of developers, crafted the first Tomb Raider game in a converted Victorian house in the English city of Derby. She was a slick, witty, dastardly British heiress who saved the world not with superheroic powers, but rather physical prowess and brainy gumption. As Sony's PlayStation poised itself to disrupt the gaming market with its advanced 3-D capabilities, so did Croft. Initially conceived as a man, Lara Croft ultimately sprang from the mind of Core Design animator Toby Gard in response to the male-dominated arena of action-adventure games.

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