Rebooting Empire: Unpacking the Baggage of “Tomb Raider”

During the first gameplay trailer for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the latest installment in the rebooted Tomb Raider franchise, the swashbuckling exploration and globe-trekking the series has been synonymous with is left on the shelf in favor of a darker, more mature tone. In the trailer, various characters place a lot of blame on Lara Croft, our archaeological protagonist, for unleashing a ‘cleansing’ in Central America when she takes a Mayan artifact from its resting place to protect it from more nefarious looters. When I initially saw this trailer, I was somewhat impressed this was the narrative they were going to adopt, one where the inherently imperialistic goals of a “tomb raider” are questioned and criticized, a narrative that would hopefully complicate Lara’s profession and provide some personal growth to the character. Unfortunately, based on some newer marketing materials, some of the core criticisms of the Tomb Raider character can still be made, leading me to be wary of the team’s ability to tell the story they presented in their initial pitch. Given the release of this new game in a couple of weeks, and the fact that the Tomb Raider reboot turns five years old, I decided to revisit 2013’s Tomb Raider (via the Playstation 4’s Definitive Edition re-release) in order to analyze how the rebooted series contends with the imperialist baggage of the original games.