Tomb Raider Devs Explain Why They Killed Lara Croft

It has long been known that the original Tomb Raider developers were tired of creating new games by the time they got to the fourth. So it's no wonder that Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation ended up hinting that Lara Croft was dead.

Now, nearly three decades later, the original developers from Core Design are reflecting on that move to kill off Lara, at least temporarily. It turns out that this big decision was made much more chaotically than you might have expected, with different accounts of how it all went down – but one fact remains the same: the developers were tired of making new Tomb Raider games.

Tomb Raider Devs walk us through the decision to kill Lara Croft

Lara Croft swims through the water with a crocodile behind her in the Tomb Raider 4-6 Remaster trilogy.

This is from the upcoming book, The Making of Tomb Raider: 1997-2000. Ahead of the release, Radio Times has shared some of the interviews with developers, where they discuss the decision to kill off Lara.

“We were tired of Lara and wanted to kill her,” says designer and writer Andy Sandham. “I wrote it up and gave the first story to Adrian [Smith, producer] and Jez [Jeremy Heath-Smith, producer]pretty sure they would get bored and not read the ending. I guess this is what happened. I remember Jez yelling at us about it sometime later. Probably when he had seen the FMV.”

Designer Richard Morton remembers it a little differently, saying that Lara's death came because they “didn't know how to end the game.” He also said that death would always be temporary and that she would be revived in a PS2 game. Others also back this up and explain why we never actually saw Lara die on screen.

However, most agree that the decision was at least partially influenced by developer exhaustion. “I suspect there was an element of us all thinking, 'Oh my God, if we kill her, we don't have to do another one,'” says programmer Tom Scutt. “We were all like, 'Okay, I can't imagine doing this again.' So I think we were all very anxious to get her out, basically.”

It's easy to see why the developers were so frustrated. They had been pumping out game after game non-stop, with a new Tomb Raider game being developed by Core Design every year from 1996 to 2003. Yes, the developers didn't even get a break after killing off Lara, and were immediately launched into both Tomb Raider: Chronicles and the ill-fated Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.