Tomb Raiders: All 10 actors who've played Lara Croft across games, movies and TV
You may have already noticed that Tomb Raider’s 30th anniversary is in full swing. Developer Crystal Dynamics has already announced two games: Legacy of Atlantis, a reimagining of the first title from 1996, and Tomb Raider: Catalyst, the newest entry, coming in 2027. But one big factor that fans love to get into is the actor who’s set to play Lara Croft. This time, two are taking on the mantle of the archaeologist. Alix Wilton-Regan is voicing her in the two upcoming games, while Sophie Turner, known for Game of Thrones and the X-Men series, plays Croft in the Amazon Studios TV show. With it deep in filming, it’s likely we won’t see its premiere until early 2027. Nevertheless, you can play many of the previous Tomb Raider games right now on consoles and PCs, thanks to the remastered collections, released in 2024 and 2025, respectively. The very first voice actor was Shelley Blond in the 1996 debut, bringing plenty of sass, humour and independence to the Britpop era, back when the Spice Girls were achieving world domination. You’ve likely heard different grunts, moans, and ‘No’ sounds from Lara over the years, but you’ll have a favourite. Much like Doctor Who, fans have their preferred Lara throughout the years – whether that’s Judith Gibbins in Tomb Raider II and III, or Camilla Luddington in the Survivor Trilogy from 2013 to 2018. Nevertheless, if you’re new to Tomb Raider and you want to find out every actor who played Lara Croft in the past 30 years, we’ve got you covered. And, by the way, Lara Croft's birthday is canonically 14 February! Tomb Raiders: All 10 actors who've played Lara Croft Games Shelley Blond Back in 1996, Core Design was looking for someone who could give Lara the impudence and fun, which resulted in Shelley Blond landing the gig. Voicing Croft just for the first Tomb Raider game, the entire recording session took only five hours in one day around May 1995, as she revealed in my book, The Making of Tomb Raider: “I remember being in a studio with Nathan for about five hours, and just repeatedly reading out the lines. Around 10 to 30 times each, I would just keep saying: ‘Welcome to My Home’, ‘Here lies the Tomb of Qualopec...’, and ‘Thank you! I will.’” Blond laid the groundwork for what Lara could be and how she would be voiced in subsequent games and other media. The team at Core Design in Derby wanted you to feel as if you were in a movie inspired by Indiana Jones, with Lara and the environments telling you where to go. Much of this was down to Blond, with her fantastic one-liners across the many cut-scenes in the game. Unfortunately, Blond only played Lara in one game. A new actor would take up the mantle of Lara Croft going forward, but fans always remember how Blond set the scene for how Lara Croft would sound and behave – something that carries on to this day, 30 years later. Judith Gibbins <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/02/Canva-1066-14-9f167ef.png" width="1600" height="1066" alt="A promo screenshot from Tomb Raider 2, showing Lara Croft against a dark brick wall, wearing her iconic blue top and brown shorts, holding her dual pistols. In the bottom right corner, we have superimposed an image of Judith Gibbins smiling for the camera." title="Canva 1066 (14)" /> The team was already thinking about Tomb Raider II by the time the first game was about to be sent to stores worldwide in October 1996. Not only were players going to meet Winston the Butler for the first time, along with new moves for Lara like climbing and a mid-roll in the air, but there’d also be a new voice actor to follow on from Shelley Blond, by the name of Judith Gibbins. Her brother, Martin, a programmer at Core Design in the late 1990s, told her that auditions were being held to voice Lara. In mid-1997, Gibbins got the role and told me in the book what happened during the recording. “The recording for TR2 took a day at a studio in Chelsea. There wasn't a great deal of dialogue for Lara. It took a few days, but they were spread out over a few months, while Vicky worked on the script and added any changes that were needed.” Gibbins gave a slightly different take to Lara - one that sounded more mature and confident, as if a few years had passed between Tomb Raider and its sequel. This was a Lara who had seen a lot by this point and had no problem laying down some quips with random henchmen. Lines like, ‘Pardon me, if that was your way of trying the doors for me’ and ‘Don’t you think you’ve seen enough’ are lines that Gibbins still repeats to this day at events, to the joy of many fans. 1998’s Tomb Raider III, now led by a mostly new team, would still feature Gibbins voicing Lara, with plenty of new locations for players to visit in order to collect various Meteorite artefacts. Again, Gibbins would voice her with confidence and wit, along with one-liners that would have easily fit into a Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie. But with Egypt calling, some changes would be happening to Lara for her next outing. Jonell Elliott For 1999’s Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, the engine saw a bit of a glow-up, resulting in some smoother graphics, better animations, and more. With the game strictly set in Egypt this time, and a plan for the story to eventually take Lara to the PlayStation 2, Core Design wanted a new voice for her. After lots of searching, they found Jonell Elliott, who turned out to be a friend of Shelley Blond. Allegedly, the original plan was for Gibbins to voice Adult Lara and Elliott to voice Young Lara, but it wasn’t to be. Here, Elliott gave Lara even more confidence, drawing inspiration from Alien’s Ripley and others, as she told me for the follow-up to The Making of Tomb Raider, out later this year: “It took one week to record the lines in total for TR4 in a little studio in Soho, and it went smoothly! I remember I had a lot of fun playing with those lines – so sassy! I hadn't voiced any roles like Lara Croft before, but when thinking of roles to draw inspiration from, apart from Shelley and Judith as Lara, I would say Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in Alien. Loved that film.” Elliott’s contribution would follow into 2000’s Tomb Raider Chronicles, a divisive title for fans and the team themselves, who initially believed they’d be working on Tomb Raider for the PlayStation 2 after The Last Revelation. Nevertheless, plenty of moments in Chronicles gave Elliott reason to shine again, especially in the Ireland levels, where Young Lara made a return. But it would be 2003’s Angel of Darkness, the swansong for Core Design on the series, and for Elliott’s take on Lara, that would spell the end of this era. Due to a demand by higher-ups to release the game in June 2003 to appease shareholders, players got a mess of a game, with plenty of bugs, unfinished areas and more. The game’s ruined potential made sure that Tomb Raider would be passed on to Crystal Dynamics, and huge changes were about to occur. Keeley Hawes With Crystal Dynamics now responsible for the Tomb Raider series, they needed an actor who could once again give Lara the audacity and confidence that would fit with the mid-2000s. Enter Keeley Hawes, known at the time for her roles in Spooks and Ashes to Ashes. Debuting in 2006’s Tomb Raider: Legend, the game was a return to form for the series, with a new engine that finally freed Lara from the tank controls, as well as a great story that allowed Hawes to give Lara some determination and emotion that was absent in previous games. But the next game, 2007’s Tomb Raider: Anniversary, a remake of the 1996 original, gave Hawes a new challenge by giving this younger Lara more naivety, whilst keeping her trademark quips and confidence as she fought against Natla, as well as Larson and Pierre. To wrap up the trilogy, called LAU by fans, 2008’s Tomb Raider: Underworld would lay out Natla’s return, whilst Lara would try to find Thor’s Hammer. With an ally’s death and an imposter Lara here, this story allowed Hawes to express far more rage toward Lara here, making the narrative one to remember. After this, many thought that was the end of Hawes’ contribution, with Crystal Dynamics confirming that they were going to reboot the series. But to many fans’ surprise, she would revisit the role with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, followed by Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, both featuring a fixed-isometric perspective. These still carried on Hawes confident, commanding take on Lara, but in the years since, more focus has been on her grunts and sounds, such as when she appeared on the Graham Norton Show in 2016. These were great games, which you can play on smartphones and consoles right now. But it seemed to be the epilogue of Hawes contribution to the games. However, rumours are circulating that Hawes may be in the upcoming TV show, so it’s likely that we haven’t seen the last of her as part of the franchise just yet. Camilla Luddington In June 2012, Crystal Dynamics announced Camilla Luddington as the new voice of Lara, who would appear in the Survivor Trilogy. This began with 2013’s Tomb Raider, then 2015’s Rise of the Tomb Raider, then 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider. These games were set at the very beginning of Lara’s story, with her being stranded on an island, requiring her to use her wits to hunt down animals and enemies to survive. Luddington gave a different take on Lara here, and rightly so. Instead of the confident, sassy archaeologist we were all familiar with, we were instead given a new attribute - vulnerability. Trauma was abundant for Lara, falling into traps and performing surgery on herself just to survive the nightmares of the Yamatai island. The two subsequent games would build on this early Lara, with Luddington slowly creeping in confidence and curiosity as players would explore the vast landscapes that Rise and Shadow offered. However, the narrative that the Survivor Trilogy brought felt bland, which limited Luddington’s range in terms of what Lara could do and how she could express herself. Shadow of the Tomb Raider began to feel more of the same, along with frustrating swimming mechanics and an over-serious effort on the narrative for Lara to be ‘The Tomb Raider’, which felt more cheesy than exciting. After 2018, Crystal Dynamics went silent, only confirming a new game in 2021 to mark the series’ 25th anniversary. It would be four years until we heard of Crystal’s surprising plans. Alix Wilton Regan At The Game Awards in December 2025, fans were surprised to hear that two new Tomb Raider games are in development. Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, a reimagining of the first title from 1996, comes out later this year, followed by Tomb Raider: Catalyst, the newest entry, coming in 2027. The trailers unveiled Alix Wilton Regan as the latest actor to voice Lara Croft, but not before she hinted at the role when she was interviewed on Radio Times Gaming’s TikTok channel. We’d be repeating what we spoke about in January regarding Wilton Regan’s potential of playing Lara Croft, but we have high hopes. Her humour and enthusiasm from her other roles give us hope that these attributes will seep into playing Lara. It’s long overdue for her to start giving some quips that harken back to the classic games. With Crystal Dynamics declaring every mainline entry is now part of one unified timeline, meaning Catalyst is a follow-up from 2008’s Underworld, it’s a perfect opportunity to do away with ‘Becoming The Tomb Raider’ nonsense, and instead make Lara a confident, quick-witted archaeologist that fans grew up with. Movies / TV Shows Angelina Jolie As far back as 1997’s Tomb Raider II, a movie had been rumoured. This was an era where game-to-movie adaptations were the rage, beginning with Mortal Kombat in 1994. In 1998, Eidos confirmed that a Tomb Raider movie was in the works, but we wouldn’t see the result of it until 2001, when the project had been in development hell. Angelina Jolie was cast as Lara Croft, and from her looks alone, she seemed perfect for the archeologist. Granted, the movie wasn’t the best, even with an impressive cast list of Daniel Craig, Chris Barrie and more. But what shone was Jolie’s understanding of Lara – the confidence and the feistiness shone through, complete with aerobatics that even gave Classic Lara from the cut-scenes a run for her money. In an old interview with MSNBC in 2001, Jolie would mention how Lara was a woman, through and through, but also a warrior – something sadly novel for the early 2000s. “I loved that she's very much a girl. She wasn't trying to be a man. And she didn't have a thing against me. She was even very flirty and very curvaceous, as well as being a warrior deep down." The second movie, 2003’s Cradle of Life, was better action-wise, with scenes that were more manageable to watch thanks to fewer cuts between the shootouts. But the movie was deemed a failure due to its dull plot and unfortunate timing with the much-maligned Angel of Darkness, which would be one of Tomb Raider’s unfortunate low points. However, Jolie still impressed, with a slightly more mature take on Lara, saving Cradle of Life from being a total disaster. Alicia Vikander 2018’s Tomb Raider is a strange one. With Alicia Vikander loosely portraying a Lara that mirrored the 2013 game, the plot involved her finding her father, all the while avoiding a mercenary task group with the dull name of Trinity. Featuring a strong cast like Sir Derek Jacobi and Dominic West, the movie should have been a hit, but because it relied too much on the 2013 reboot, it felt like you were watching a game performed by actors. Yet that’s not to dispute Vikander’s performance. Here, she showcases Lara with determination and vulnerability, just like the game, but with some added humour to boot, especially at the very end of the movie. She exudes a sense of confidence and leadership that would have been great to build upon if a sequel had been made. But due to the movie rights reverting to Eidos in 2022, other plans were drawn up. Hayley Atwell Hayley Atwell’s casting in the 2024 anime series on Netflix was a Tomb Raider fan’s ultimate wish being granted. For many years, fan art and fan fiction would feature Atwell as Lara, due to her seemingly perfect accent that would fit the archeologist, as well as a commanding presence shown in the MCU as Agent Peggy Carter. Here, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft takes place after 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider, carrying on the Survivor Trilogy story where Lara is tasked to find various artefacts with the help of Zip and Jonah. Atwell easily embodies a mature, more confident Lara that we saw at the end of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. There’s plenty of humour here, too, which bodes well for Legacy of Atlantis, set to arrive later this year. Indeed, Atwell also revealed, in an interview with Radio Times in 2024, how playing Lara in the series gave her new challenges as an actor. “She gets anxiety. I think that's charming and endearing, and it gives me an opportunity as an actor to bring that particular quality to her, which may be different from what we've seen before, but certainly in keeping with what we know her to be." The series itself is great, with less of a reliance on Lara ‘becoming the Tomb Raider’ and instead seeing her leap, shoot and give off plenty of confidence and playfulness that had been lacking in the Survivor Trilogy. It’s a shame Atwell’s time has already ended, with the series having concluded, but there’s always a chance we’ll see her reappear in another adaptation, similar to the rumour of Keeley Hawes appearing in the Amazon TV show. Sophie Turner When Sophie Turner’s casting as Lara Croft in the upcoming Prime Video TV show was confirmed in 2025, many fans were unsure. It was more reminiscent of when Daniel Craig was announced as James Bond in 2005 – barely anyone could see how he could succeed Pierce Brosnan. But 2006’s Casino Royale silenced plenty of those wasted criticisms. Turner’s take is likely to do the same. The reveal of her in Lara’s classic outfit in January 2026 has already allayed many concerns fans may have had about her before, and rightly so. Similar to others like The Last of Us and Fallout, with their own game to TV adaptations, fans have accepted how characters can remain the same in the transition. Turner looks set to do that. There’s already a sense that, with the classic costume appearing in the show, and with the involvement of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, known for Fleabag and for injecting some fun into Craig’s final outing as Bond in 2021’s No Time to Die, by enhancing Paloma’s role with some great one-liners, there’s plenty to look forward to here. It seems as if Turner will embody plenty of what the original actors used to play Lara. From Shelley Blond’s British wit to Jonell Elliott’s confidence about coconuts, it’s time for someone else to take up this mantle and inject all of this into a new yet familiar take on Lara Croft. So far, it seems like that’s going to happen, and it’s a perfect way to celebrate Tomb Raider’s 30th anniversary as a whole. Daryl Baxter's book, The Making of Tomb Raider, is available now from Pen & Sword, Amazon and Waterstones. Read more: After The Last of Us, Fallout and Tomb Raider, what's next for video games on TV? Keeley Hawes tipped for Tomb Raider return in new Lara Croft TV series Check out more of our Gaming coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
I wrote the book on Tomb Raider - here's how Sophie Turner and Alix Wilton Regan will rewrite Lara Croft's history
Since its 1996 debut, Tomb Raider has remained an iconic franchise, with protagonist Lara Croft jumping, shooting and plundering tombs for almost three decades. Tomb Raider is a series that’s been a constant presence in my career. There’s no greater example than having a book published about the first two games in 2021, along with a follow-up coming out later this year. 2026 marks the series’ 30th year, and Crystal Dynamics, the current custodians of Tomb Raider in gaming, have announced two new titles. The first, called Legacy of Atlantis, is a re-imagining of the first game, out later this year, while Catalyst is the latest all-new entry in the series, coming out in 2027. New Tomb Raider games usually feature a new voice actor for Lara, and Alix Wilton Regan was indeed announced as the latest to voice Croft. I suspected as much when I saw her interviewed on Radio Times Gaming’s TikTok channel. And with the Sophie Turner-starring Amazon series looming a little further on the horizon, there’s a clear theme being instilled — the classic retro Lara that you remember from the old days is back, in more ways than one. An old favourite for a new audience This year’s Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis game is a reimagining of the 1996 original. However, I have heard that the game is leaning more towards 2007’s Tomb Raider Anniversary remake in its narrative and level design. It makes sense, as Crystal Dynamics long ago said that every mainline entry was going to be part of a unified timeline. This means that the 2013 reboot is the earliest game, speaking from Lara’s point of view, and 2008’s Tomb Raider Underworld is the most recent in her timeline. Confused? Understandable. But with Atlantis and Catalyst coming soon, both with Alix Wilton Regan voicing Lara, it should be easier than ever for new players to jump in and understand what’s going on. As Legacy of Atlantis will be set early on in Lara’s timeline, this means that we'll hopefully get to see the wit and British humour that were abundant in the 1996 original, and in some of the 2007 remake. Originally voiced by Shelley Blond, she was able to get across Lara’s humour in a way that I feel has been lost in recent years. Regan already seems to have that aspect, and there was no shortage of tongue-in-cheek humour in the trailers for both her upcoming games. To bring a less-serious Lara to new and old players, hearkening back to how Blond started it all, would be very welcome. Indeed, if you look at one of Regan’s showreels, you can hide the video and easily imagine her voicing Lara being sassy but confident. And we see a glimpse of that humour in the Catalyst trailer, when she jokingly tells a monologuing villain, "That’s where you’re wrong. I’m just getting started…" If we see other attributes in Legacy of Atlantis, such as the much-needed return of Winston the Butler, or some motifs of the original music created and composed by Nathan McCree, this new reimagining could make the game a contender for game of the year. But that’s not all. A catalyst moment Regan also has a unique challenge with Lara, something arguably not done before in other franchises. 2027’s Tomb Raider: Catalyst is set at the latest point in the unified timeline, meaning it’s set roughly 11 games after the events of Legacy of Atlantis. We’re going to be seeing Lara as an older, more experienced archaeologist, whom we’ll be playing later this year. That means Regan is likely going to bring a more mature Lara to the mix here, bridging her take from Atlantis to Catalyst. This is also exciting, as Regan has a lot of control over how this older Lara will react to situations. Again, I hope the British wit remains, if it does return in Legacy of Atlantis, and I can’t help but think she will bring that to Lara in droves based on her previous roles. But there’s also another catalyst moment to consider, in the form of Sophie Turner. Although she was confirmed to be playing Lara in the Amazon TV Show, it wasn’t until 15th January that a photo revealed Turner in the full Lara Croft garb, reflecting the classic era. Indeed, when you look at Sophie Turner with the shorts, the pistols, the red sunglasses and the lack of sleeves, you can’t help but notice how the whole ensemble screams of a retro Lara Croft vibe. When you consider the voice skills of Regan, combined with the look of Lara in the Amazon show, I can’t help but think that 'classic Lara' is officially back. That’s a promising theme to latch onto as we move closer to Lara’s big birthday. Rewriting history It’s clear that the Tomb Raider franchise is rolling back the years, all the way back to the original Lara, with these new projects. You couldn’t have imagined this happening as close as five years ago, when Alicia Vikander’s take on Croft was fresh in many minds, matching closely with the bow-and-arrow-wielding, self-serious vibe of the Survivor trilogy games. View Green Video on the source website In those games (2013’s Tomb Raider, 2015’s Rise of the Tomb Raider, and 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider), where Lara was played by Camilla Luddington, everything seemed to have a grey and gritty feel. Retro Lara was something to move away from, not something to embrace, at that moment in time. Now that the Survivor era has played out (and it did have some great moments, let me say for the record), Sophie Turner and Alix Wilton Regan both seem to be throwing it back to Tomb Raider’s early days in their own ways. Between them, they’re rewriting Lara’s history by revisiting those early looks and lighthearted vibes, and making them fresh and new all over again. Some old stories, some new ones, but a Lara that feels true to the original vision. Just as The Last of Us and Fallout games have found new players by moving onto TV, Tomb Raider is putting itself in a great position to entice people here. By the time that Sophie Turner’s TV show is out, Alix Wilton Regan’s first game will be available, and both will be united by a retro feel that’s instantly recognisable as the Lara Croft of yore. These new actors are a perfect way to celebrate Tomb Raider’s 30th anniversary, as well as taking the series forward in both mediums. With a sold-out fan event happening in Derby later this year to celebrate, the hype is huge already. In addition, having spoken to Lara actors Shelley Blond, Judith Gibbins, and Jonell Elliott for my two ‘Making of Tomb Raider’ books, I was always struck by how honoured they still are to be part of Lara Croft. Now, there are two more to add to the roster. After years of feeling like the franchise was undervalued and misplaced, I’m instead feeling lots of enthusiasm and hope for where the two games will go, as well as the Amazon TV show, and it’s mostly thanks to Regan, as well as Turner. Daryl Baxter's book, The Making of Tomb Raider, is available now from Pen & Sword Books, Amazon and Waterstones. Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis releases later this year for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. Check out more of our Gaming coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The surprising true story of gaming's first ever boss battle: "We'd be really, really rich now"
Read an exclusive excerpt from Daryl Baxter's new book, 50 Years of Boss Fights: Video Game Legends.
Intro by Rob Leane, RadioTimes.com gaming editor: “When I first read Daryl Baxter’s new book, 50 Years of Boss Fights: Video Game Legends, its first chapter made a real impression on me. Rather than simply kicking things off with an obvious gaming boss like Bowser or Dr Robotnik, Baxter went all the way back to 1974 to get exclusive insight from the makers of gaming’s first ever boss. It’s from a game that younger readers may not have heard of, but it sent massive ramifications into the nascent gaming industry of the time, and its impact is still being felt today. In fact, it feels quite fun to be talking about this at the same time that present-day players are diving into Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, which you could call the pinnacle of boss battles (certainly in terms of difficulty, at least). The book goes on to touch on loads of memorable bosses from the decades that followed the idea’s inception, charting a progression from 1974 to 2024, one gruelling encounter at a time, with heaps of insight from the ingenious creators of the bosses. Read on to discover that first chapter for yourself!” 50 Years of Boss Fights by Daryl Baxter (White Owl, RRP £22) Available at www.pen-and-sword.co.uk <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2024/06/52076-90b4650.jpg" width="404" height="602" alt="The cover art for the new book 50 Years of Boss Fights: Video Game Legends, written by Daryl Baxter, showing the book's title against a purple background. Bowser, Dr Robotnik and Metal Gear REX." title="The cover art for the new book 50 Years of Boss Fights: Video Game Legends, written by Daryl Baxter, showing the book's title against a purple background. Bowser, Dr Robotnik" /> In order to look at the memorable bosses in gaming, we need to look back at what is considered the first ever boss in a video game, while having its two creators tell the story of how it came to be. In 1974, two individuals created a game inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, the massively popular tabletop role-playing game, with this virtual version able to be played on a PLATO computer system. This game, known as simply DND, housed an event for the player that made them face a dragon — this was to unofficially be the first boss in a game, ever. The game is in orange and black, a standard for the PLATO operating system, and there would be no music — this would be where your imagination would kick into action, helping you to form the sounds and images of just what this Golden Dragon would do once you approached it for battle. Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood first met as students, in a library at Southern Illinois University back in 1974, and both remember it clearly. Wood kicks the story off for us, saying, "To go all the way back: there was a PLATO terminal on the first floor of Morris Library at SIU in Carbondale. One day, I looked in and there were a bunch of students huddled around it... probably six or so. "So, I got permission to use the system and log on, and I began playing around with it. The room was about eight by eight metres. In order to see the screen, the lights were turned off. "You could only sign up for one hour a day. Whenever you used the terminal, two or three or more people would show up and sit in the room with you. Sometimes we would just shoot the s**t, or just talk about the programmes. There was a group of maybe 10 people who regularly used PLATO, so we got to know each other. "There were some games on it... MoonWar, Dogfight, and a few others. The PLATO rules were that you could only play games during ‘non-business’ hours — which was after 7pm and before 7am Monday through Friday. Also, games were given a low priority... so, users playing games were the first ones kicked off the system in times of heavy use. "For some reason, Gary Whisenhunt and I hit it off, and we developed a friendship, which still continues. I think the reason we get along is because we had interests outside of computers and engineering. "One day, a new game called PEDIT5 (written by Rusty Rutherford) became popular. PEDIT5, in modern lingo, is a God’s eye view dungeon crawl." Whisenhunt takes over the story now, remembering the very first time he found that fateful computer: "Sometime in the fall of 1973 or the summer of 1974, I discovered the one PLATO terminal at the university. It was housed in the basement of the library — not many people knew of it, and it was more of an interesting oddity than something that was being used for actually teaching anything. "I was fascinated by it. I had always excelled at Math, but had never actually interacted with a computer — which were pretty rare prior to any type of personal computers existing. "Beyond that, PLATO was way ahead of its time, and represented what it would take many years for mainstream computing to accomplish — graphical interfaces, multimedia, interactive communication, touch screens, and more. "I started playing with the PLATO terminal and taught myself how to programme it. The thought of creating a programme was actually kind of exotic at the time. "The PLATO terminal was housed in a small room and you could sign up for time in one-hour blocks, no more than one hour a day. There were several other students there who were also intrigued by PLATO as well — people would often hang around the room looking for extra free time as I sometimes did. One of those people was Ray Wood. He and I became good friends. "Of course, given the graphical and interactive nature of the PLATO system, it was a great platform for games. Games were generally frowned upon, especially up at the PLATO home at the University of Illinois. However, the system was perfect for gaming and of course people started writing them. "Several of us in Southern Illinois University would sometimes play some of these games: Airfight, Empire, etc. Around that time, there was a dungeon game called PEDIT5 which had been created. Ray and I had played that, it was loosely based on similar concepts of the Dungeons & Dragons paper game that had recently come out. "However, PEDIT5 would occasionally be deleted — games were seen as an illicit use of the PLATO computer in some places. Ray and I had done some PLATO programming before that, but had never written a game — no one at Southern Illinois had ever written a game. "We decided that we should try and write our own dungeon game, and we were pretty sure that it wouldn’t get deleted because the person that oversaw the PLATO terminal really knew nothing about it and it was just something else he was supposed to manage. He’d never even know of its existence. "So Ray and I set about writing the game. We would meet at different places when we had open times between classes — usually on the steps of the library, weather permitting. "We would talk about what we wanted to accomplish and how the game would work. Then we would kind of divide up the programming tasks and each spend our allotted time on the one terminal to enter and debug the code." Wood picks up the thread again here: "The problem with PEDIT5 is that you couldn’t play it during ‘work’ hours. So, all the guys at SIU complained about it. The other thing, which is going to sound crazy to people now, is that the university admins thought games were a waste of valuable computer time, and thus would regularly delete the game from the system. So, it would disappear for weeks at a time. "Being the devious college students we were, Gary and I became the system administrators for the SIU Plato site. Thus, we were in control of the programming space at SIU. So, no one could delete computer programmes but us. "Anyway, Gary and I decided we would write our own dungeon crawl. Since we were SysAdmins, the game wouldn’t be deleted, we could play the game during normal hours, and all the guys at SIU could play the game whenever they wanted. So, everyone was happy. So, we started writing a version of PEDIT5. "PEDIT5 had some severe limitations. The biggest one was that a user couldn’t save a game. If you logged off PLATO or were kicked out of PEDIT5, your game disappeared. You had to restart from the beginning. So, no matter what items you found in the dungeon, they always disappeared in a few hours. None of that seemed particularly fair." Wood wants to stress an important point, for the record, at this moment in the story: "Gary and I worked together. DND was a joint creation." Wood continues: "Since at SIU we were limited to one hour on PLATO, the first thing Gary and I implemented was a SAVE GAME function so you could return to the game without losing your gold, weapons and levels. This made the game an actual RPG (Role Playing Game). In some ways, the save function made DND the very first real RPG. "We had some fun with the game, trying to introduce some cheeky humour into it. We even patterned one of the monsters in the dungeon after a particularly obnoxious student. "In order to programme better, Gary and I would try to sign up for PLATO so that our times were next to each other. That way, we had a block of two hours to work on it together. We usually did it on Saturday morning. We would show up at the library and go to work. "One Saturday after we finished programming, we decided to go out for a burger at a local greasy spoon. It was next to the train station in downtown Carbondale. They had a couple of pinball machine games there, so we started playing them. "The pinball machines had a high score function. If you had one of the top 10 scores, you could enter your initials. "Gary and I started playing. Gary, being the guy with good eye-hand coordination, got a high score. I started playing, and unbelievably, I beat Gary and got the top score. This was the first and only time I ever got a high score on a pinball game. I was, to be honest, pretty excited. "Gary and I started talking about how neat it would be to have a high score for DND where people could put in their name. But, the question came up, 'What does a high score mean in a video game?' "Because DND had a save game function, a person could simply play the game and get a new high score every time s/he played. So, it wouldn’t have any meaning. We said, ‘What if we put an ending on the game, you know, where the game stopped?’ If a player ends the game, then he gets to put his high score up, but his character gets deleted. "We came up with the idea of the players going into the Elysian Fields, the mythical place where Roman heroes resided after their death." Wood highlights a second important point here: "No video game in existence ended other than by the player getting killed or quitting." View Green Video on the source website Wood adds: "All other video games, the difficulty of the game increased until it was impossible to proceed further. The player would always ‘lose’. Take PONG... if you play single player, it gets so fast that no one can keep up. That is the way all the video games were prior to DND. "Once we came up with the idea that the game would have a planned ending, the game changed. If there is a clear ending to a game, then ‘why’ would a character play the game? If you are not going in simply to kill monsters and accumulate gold, then why do it? So, we decided that a player venturing into the dungeon must be on a quest to recover ‘The Orb’ (a MacGuffin, as Alfred Hitchcock would say)." Whisenhunt picks up the story at this point, saying, "While DND was a part of the Dungeons & Dragons genre, we had our own take on it. It had humour and was somewhat a tongue-in-cheek implementation of Dungeons & Dragons. "Early versions — which some might call ‘alpha’ versions of the game — started being played at Southern Illinois and word spread to the University of Illinois and people began playing here. It was very popular. I had picked the name to be DND because when many people were saying ‘D and D’ it pretty much sounded that way. "At some point early on, one of the things that we decided that we wanted to do is to give some goal for the game - in PEDIT5 you wandered around and did stuff, but there was no endgame. On top of that, PEDIT5 had few characters that it could store. We had enough for everyone, and we decided that there needed to be a quest so to speak — a purpose. "So we created The Orb, a great sphere for which someone should try to find and take out of the dungeon. The name for The Orb was inspired by the recent Woody Allen movie, Sleeper, which has a scene where there is an ‘Orb’ passed around and whoever touches it gets aroused. The scene is pretty funny. "So then we decided that we needed a special monster to guard The Orb, something that was extremely difficult to defeat and only a character with lots of experience and collected stuff had a chance. Even then, we wanted there to be a fair chance that even the most powerful might fail, because if you got The Orb and got out your character was retired to the Elysian Fields — kind of a hall of fame. "Everyone who played the game could see the characters that made it to the hall of fame (and essentially ‘won’ the game). It was difficult enough that even Ray and I, knowing how everything worked, would have to work hard and still might fail to win the game. We also added many more levels to the dungeon and a few more monsters and treasures and pretty much released the game." The game began to spread to other campuses, including the University of Illinois, which was hours away from Southern Illinois University where Wood and Whisenhunt had made the game. Whisenhunt remembers: "After this, it had become quite well known at the University of Illinois, where there were many terminals, and there were many people playing it. I think in the first few months there were over 100K game plays. While in today’s world, that doesn’t seem like a lot, but on a system that probably had a very limited number of terminals, and those terminals being chiefly used for academics, 100K was a lot. We were kind of pleasantly shocked. "However, we started noticing that there seemed to be more people defeating the dragon, grabbing The Orb and exiting to the Elysian Fields, than we thought possible. We thought there must be some game flaw, something we overlooked. "So I made a trip up to the University of Illinois in Urbana, IL for a weekend. It was a three and a half hour car trip. I was a poor college student so I camped at a rest stop on the interstate highway there overnight — which is now likely to get you arrested. "So I went to the PLATO classroom on a Saturday night — dozens of terminals there and just wandered around and casually looked to see if people were playing DND. There were several. What it turned out that they were doing, indeed, was something that we had never thought of. They were stepping into the first part of the dungeon, taking a few steps around until they happened to encounter some monster, easily defeating it, and exiting back out. "The strength or capabilities of the monsters was based on where you were in the dungeon, and at the very start, they were pretty simple to beat, particularly for a character with lots of experience, strength, etc. So these guys would do this little go in, kill something, then exit. Repeat for hours on end, and perhaps over several days. "So that was the design error, we had never thought that anyone would spend that amount of time doing something rote and tedious. Boy, were we ever wrong. So we changed the design of how the monsters worked. Attack factors, as Ray called them. We made it so that monsters of greater strength, ie more deadly, were attracted to how much gold you had accumulated. But this was based on a smaller random chance. "However, it meant that the longer you were in the game, the greater probability that you would get attacked by a monster with strength comparable to yours. If you just went in and out over and over again, you spent more time in the dungeon than if you explored lower levels and had to defeat more powerful creatures and found larger treasures. Since The Orb was the most valuable treasure, if you were carrying it, powerful creatures were very interested in you. "The first few people to encounter this were surprised and they would post about it on the DND notes file (a notes file on PLATO was the equivalent of an internet forum or Reddit today). One such person wrote a poem about it, about how his long standing character who he had worked through many hours and had grabbed The Orb and was in literal sight of the exit, was killed by a level 900 death monster. Characters still occasionally got in the Elysian Fields after that, but much much fewer. "At some point during this time I got hired by the University as a student worker in the library and the main part of my job was to manage the PLATO terminal — the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. DND became such a hit that it turned out that dealing with the resulting requests, complaints, etc became a lot of work. "So we added an administrator mode to the game so that we could name administrators and they could deal with a lot of this. Even then it was taking up too much of our time — we were still students. "We turned the game over to one of the administrators, Dirk Pellet, from Iowa State University (who we never have met in person, although much later in life I met his brother Flint Pellet). Dirk added more dungeons, monsters, and made significant improvements over the next few years. Many of the people that played the game later played it with Dirk’s improvements. We consider Dirk to be as important to the game as we do. So Dirk added many more challenges and options." Wood picks up the thread now, harking back to the inception of the boss battle idea: "We came up with the idea of a grand battle at the end with a ‘super monster’ guarding The Orb. We decided on a Golden Dragon because the cover of Dungeons & Dragons original rule book had a dragon sitting on a pile of gold." Whisenhunt also recalls how this came to be: "I think that we decided it would be a dragon because it was the biggest toughest creature that we could think of. At one point, the creature Grendel was a brief thought (Grendel is the creature from Beowulf. John Gardner, an American author, had recently written a book called Grendel retelling the Beowulf legend from the creature Grendel’s perspective and John Gardner was a professor at Southern Illinois University). However, the dragon seemed more appropriate and powerful." Wood continues: "We decided to make the Golden Dragons stats ridiculously high. It had a ton of hit points and inflicted a ton of damage. It had a plethora of henchmen with it. So, a player had to kill 20 or 30 minor monsters before finally confronting the Golden Dragon. If a player beat the Golden Dragon, they still had to make their way out of the dungeon, encountering even more monsters on the way out. "We jacked up the stats on the Golden Dragon several times. Gary and I couldn’t beat the game, but, as it turned out, there were lots of people who could. "Once we implemented the Golden Dragon, the popularity soared. People would play the game, get The Orb, put their name up, and then play it again trying to beat their last high score. "Gary and I also started taking trips up to the University of Illinois to work on the game. Due to the nature of the very primitive communication network, we could develop the game much faster if we were physically closer to the main computer. "At U of I, we would watch how people interacted with the game. We wanted to make it more fun. So, we would ‘tune’ certain parts of the game to make it more challenging for players." Whisenhunt and Wood had decided to implement the Dragon, based on how it was described and designed in the paper rule book of Dungeons & Dragons. Having seen the dragon design in the official book, Wood recollects, "We thought it would be neat to implement. "Also, Gary and I can’t draw. Someone already had designed a really cool-looking icon for a dragon. So, it made sense to use that icon rather than creating our own." Whisenhunt remembers that their DND game did exist without the Dragon initially: "The very first alpha versions that were played by fewer people didn’t have the Dragon, but that was a very short period of time. I doubt that many outside the small group of PLATO users at Southern Illinois University had played it then. Most of the history isn’t specific enough to know that." For adding the Golden Dragon into the game, Whisenhunt recalls some challenges when he and Wood were implementing the boss. "At first it was the most powerful and most difficult to defeat of all the creatures by design and it was always guarding The Orb. "However, it needed to be beatable. I would suspect we had several discussions about ‘how much so’ and the specific aspects, but I don’t remember the details. After we learned about how players were winning the game more easily, there were other creatures that could become more powerful, but they were rare," Whisenhunt continues. "We thought that the Dragon needed to have some kind of known effort to defeat it, so you had some idea of what you needed to accomplish before you took it on. "After the changes to make it more difficult to win, I believe the Dragon stayed the same — he was intended to be specific and not have random aspects. The other creatures could then become more powerful, especially if you were trying to carry The Orb out." For an enemy that players would be facing, especially for the late 1970s, both Whisenhunt and Wood tried a tactic to decide the Dragon’s function and health, something that’s still prevalent today in games — where there are whole departments that are involved in this. "We play-tested it. First, Gary and I would create a character and go fight it. Then, we went to the University of Illinois and watched other people fight the Golden Dragon," Wood continues. "This allowed us to tune the game to make it challenging for the users. The trick is to make it tough enough to be a challenge, but not so tough that no one could beat it. If there were too many people beating it, we would increase the stats to make it harder to beat." Looking back, Wood would have made one change if the technology made it possible at the time. "About the only thing that we could have implemented was a better levelling-up system. Levelling-up systems used by games such as Fallout 3 could have been done." Wood contemplates, "But, beyond that, we were limited by the computer power of PLATO. PLATO had almost no computing power compared to today. We got about everything out of the PLATO system that it could do. There was very little more that we could do with it. "If we had more computer power and more memory, we would have done a whole lot of different things. Gary and I had a lot of great ideas for improving the game, but PLATO simply couldn’t do it. Eg we tried to create a 3D dungeon game similar to DOOM, but PLATO simply didn’t have the horsepower to do it." Finally, when asked about how he and Whisenhunt had essentially created the first ever boss in a video game, he’s amazed. "I usually think, ‘Gosh, I wish I had been a patent attorney then.’ We would have made a fortune." Whisenhunt feels the same as Wood. "Well, it’s kinda cool, but it does have its drawbacks. We never called it a ‘boss’, that terminology came later. It is surprising how much attention it has garnered over the years in books, articles, webpages, etc. "Many years ago, when my daughter was dating a guy in a band, some of the guys in the band were asking her about her father (me) and what I did. She said that I designed microprocessors. "One of them asked what my first name was because Whisenhunt isn’t all that common and perhaps he knew one. She said ‘Gary’ and one of the other guys in the band went, ‘Is he the Gary Whisenhunt that created DND?’ Sigh. Several people think that I created ‘D and D’ (Dungeons & Dragons), partly because Gary Gygax and I share the same first name and both our ‘versions’ came out in 1974. "I have to correct them that Gygax created the original game on paper and I (with Ray) created a video game loosely based on Gygax’s game. And no, I’ve never met him. "At one time, a lawyer even contacted us because an author was doing research about early video games and was convinced, and had significant evidence to prove, that Daniel Lawrence’s DND game was a ripoff of ours. That’s a different game, also called DND, that came out in 1977 on the PDP-10 system." Whisenhunt remembers: "It was Daniel’s lawyer trying to quash such because they were worried we would come after him legally. Neither Ray nor I really cared about whether Daniel copied us or what — it appears that he did, but if so, isn’t that just paying homage? We took ideas from PEDIT5 and have always claimed that we did." View Affiliate Playlist on the source website Wood adds: "I’m amazed by how much of an impact DND had on modern games. I’ll give you an example: the Boss is the most recognisable part of DND that is modern games. But, there is actually something that is even more ubiquitous that was taken from DND: transporters. "We used transporters to move players between levels. Now, almost every freaking game has at least one transporter, and sometimes there are transporters all over the place. Transporters are used so much now that no one ever says, ‘Geez, what the hell are transporters from Star Trek doing in a game based on Middle Earth?’ "Do you know why DND had transports? Because Gary and I couldn’t draw stairs. We were sitting around trying to figure out how to do it, and we said, ‘Muck it. Let’s use transporters. Maybe no one will notice.’ And they didn’t." Whisenhunt explains how the true history of the term ‘boss’ kept getting lost through rewrites across the years. "The whole ‘boss’ monster thing also went through significant hassles as well — people rewriting the Wikipedia entry claiming that other Japanese video games preceded DND, which is not true by historical timelines. "I imagine that those developers came up with the same idea on their own, as to us it seemed pretty obvious that it fit well with such types of games. I mean, Ray was posting on some of these comments, when people would say it didn’t happen and Ray would say, 'I was one of the two people that came up with the idea in 1974. I was there. Gary still has the source code.' "I guess there’s some fame to it. Ray is, or was — as I’m not sure if he officially retired yet — one of the best Intellectual Property lawyers in the United States I’ve ever known. He has dozens of patents. I have dozens of patents. "There was a time when you were on the internet, there was a pretty good chance that the packets you were getting from the internet went through one or more processors for which I was the architect of the core of that chip. "Or that I invented the first processor virtualisation extensions architecture for the embedded environment. Video games, however, extend out to the masses so they get all the attention — which is okay. One time in the late 1980s, Ray said to me, 'In 1974, who would’ve thought that video games would be such a huge business. If we would’ve stuck with it, we’d be really, really rich now.'" 50 Years of Boss Fights by Daryl Baxter is out now (White Owl, RRP £22) Available at pen-and-sword.co.uk Check out more of our Gaming coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Retro heroes return in One More Life gaming podcast with Daryl Baxter
Sonic, Mario, Solid Snake and Lara Croft discussed!
Retro gaming is definitely having a moment right now, with October 2023 proving to be a huge month for classic characters and beloved franchises, and this week's episode of the One More Life podcast is a celebration of that. With Sonic Superstars, Super Mario Bros Wonder and Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Volume 1 all launching in the space of a week, plus Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered coming early next year, it was clear that we needed a retro gaming expert to come on our show. Listen to our One More Life podcast - the new episode is about retro gaming! Enter journalist and author Daryl Baxter, the man who literally wrote the book on Lara Croft. And he's also a lifelong fan of all the iconic franchises mentioned in the previous paragraph. By day, Daryl is the Features Editor at iMore, an outlet that covers all things Apple, from iPhones to Macs and beyond. By night, he writes books about gaming, the first of which was published in 2021 and titled The Making of Tomb Raider. In this chat, Daryl spoke about the nostalgia around retro gaming, which is reaching a fever pitch right now, and he also shared some recommendations for players on Apple Arcade (reacting to a reader request from our Apple Podcasts reviews). Daryl also delves into his own gaming habits, from his favourite mid-session snack and drink to his earliest memories of playing games back in the day. Stay tuned to One More Life in the weeks to come, as we have a really fun mix of expert fans and games developers popping up on the show to talk about their lives with gaming. From a retro angle, we have an upcoming episode with Pokémon Go developer Timothy Nguyen, where we touch on all the weird rumours that surrounded Pokémon Blue and Red back in the day. View Green Video on the source website Listen to our One More Life podcast, subscribe to our free newsletter and follow us on Twitter for all the latest gaming intel. Looking for something to watch? Check out our TV Guide or Streaming Guide. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now and celebrate the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who with a special issue of Radio Times. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Tomb Raider: Lara Croft creators on birthing an icon as franchise turns 25
"It wasn’t big boobs – it was the outfit, it was the attitude, it was the backstory and the whole world that created the success of TR."
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Tomb Raider franchise, meaning it's also a landmark birthday for Lara Croft herself - the original Tomb Raider game launched on 25th October 1996, and the series is still going strong today. To mark this special occasion, author and journalist Daryl Baxter has penned The Making of Tomb Raider, an unofficial book that chronicles how the original game came into being in the 1990s. It all happened at CORE Design, a Derby-based game-development company. In this exclusive excerpt from the book - which you can pre-order now at Amazon, Waterstones or Pen & Sword Books - Baxter pulls together an oral history of Lara's creation from the people that made it happen. Everyone at CORE was in awe at this tech demo. In previous years it was cartoony platformers and soul-searching spaceships with galactic music, here it was a 3D landscape where you could fight against a Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, the Lara Croft we know today was not originally named Lara Croft. Susie Hamilton, who handled PR for CORE Design at the time, reveals some interesting facts about her genesis: "Tomb Raider was first unveiled to us in an offsite meeting—the company was looking for inspiration for a new character/concept and this was a chance for the various teams to reveal what they had been working on. I definitely remember [character designer] Toby Gard speaking to us about a female version of Indiana Jones and unveiling his first sketches of Lara Croft. At that point she was called Lara Cruz. I think we were all very intrigued and so the team continued with the development." Troy Horton, producer of the first Tomb Raider game, offered further remarks on Lara Croft’s origins: "I don’t remember when I first came onto the project but I do recall Adrian Heath-Smith [the brother of Jeremy Heath-Smith, founder of CORE Design] who was a producer on the project, being in his office and showing me a wireframe animation of a woman swinging on a rope from one ledge to another. He shared this office with someone else; might have been our accounts manager, Helen. I recall that was the first time I heard of it and it was a wireframe animation. I think it was done on an Amiga, like in ‘Deep Paint Animator’ or something like that. So I think it might have been an idea that Toby was potentially thinking about for quite a long time before actual real development started." A buzz had started to form within CORE. While there were groups who were working on games for the SEGA Mega Drive, the Amiga, and the SEGA Mega CD, the pitch that programmer Paul Douglas and designer Toby Gard had made was shown across the whole company. Many at the company wondered just how a game like this could be created on time and within budget. Others involved in the early stages of the game’s development recall just how excited they were to be part of it, and how eager they were to get on board as part of the original development team, as Peter Barnard, Heather Gibson and Simon Phipps recall. Peter Barnard, who created Full Motion Video (FMV) scenes for the game, says: "I remember seeing Jeremy [Heath-Smith] for the first time in a meeting, as he was in LA when I started, and in this company wide meeting in 1995, I remember him saying ‘Every game is going to have an FMV intro’, and he name-checked me as an example of who will be making these for games going forward. "Some of us highlighted some games that didn’t have them, like DOOM, but Jeremy was so convinced by what he had seen back at LA with the original PlayStation, it was a given for the next project, which would be TR. Looking back at games of the time, games like Tekken or Wipeout would have a CG intro, so it was just normal, it was what those games did, it was the new technology, so the emphasis on one for TR was set. "And it worked for Toby, as he had this idea for a cinematic quality for the game, and he wanted to tell this big story. Whenever I talk to students, when you create a character, you have to build a world around them, and that’s what he did. It wasn’t big boobs - it was the outfit, it was the attitude, it was the backstory and the whole world that created the success of TR. It gave context to the world she lived in, and that’s what I tell students now, all because of that meeting." Heather Gibson, level designer, adds: "I didn’t know what game to work on next. I thought ‘I better get on a team soon, otherwise it’s goodbye.’ So I thought if anyone wanted help I’d just reach out. The way things worked at CORE, you were allowed to work on your own game ideas. "Toby had been trying to sell this game to Jeremy, since he arrived at CORE really. His concept for TR was a bit out there, and he wanted to do a 3D game, and by then they hadn’t really been done before. "So I remember sitting in with Toby and looking at his very early stuff and I was pretty blown away. We were recently given 3DS Max, so suddenly we were given the power to create 3D levels and FMV, and Toby took it one step closer to how TR was in his demonstration, by creating an Egyptian tomb. "Just sitting at a table and talking about it didn’t work, so Toby put together this very atmospheric Tomb. No enemies but just as a guide as to how this game would go. So I’m sitting next to Toby and I’m trying to replicate this in how a player could actually wander through." Artist Simon Phipps, who created Rick Dangerous for CORE Design, recalls: "I didn’t work on Tomb Raider, but I remember Toby being a really talented, driven young guy who had stacks of energy and a real vision. The one contribution I did have to Tomb Raider & the design of Lara was in one of those early meetings when Toby presented a piece of art that depicted the character who would become Lara looking like a 1950’s pith-helmeted pin-up heroine that didn’t look much like she raided tombs. "I suggested Toby take a look at Tank Girl, so I lent him my comics to give him a hand. If you look closely, version 1 of Lara is very heavily Tank Girl inspired, with the single strand of hair dangling over her forehead coming from Belle in Disney’s Beauty & the Beast, as that was in cinemas around that time, if I remember correctly. "I don’t remember much of the project to be honest - that was all handled downstairs in another room - the guys were building their own tools, Toby was drawing amazing storyboards and animating proto-Lara in 3DS. I was upstairs on another project on the far side of the building. I got out in September-ish of 1994, just when the pitch had been accepted." The Making of Tomb Raider by Daryl Baxter is published on 30th October 2021 by Pen & Sword Books. Pre-orders are also available at Amazon and Waterstones. Follow Radio Times Gaming on Twitter for all the latest insights. Or if you're looking for something to watch, see our TV Guide Visit our video game release schedule for all upcoming games on consoles. Swing by our hubs for more Gaming and Technology news.