Critical Eye: Lara Croft Tomb Raider

There’s a frequent argument for the improvements, the progression of female representation in videogames, from Tomb Raider which is praised for a more realistic representation of the female body, to the improvements of female representation (as lead and playable characters) within Gone Home, Her Story and Life is Strange. Yet even in the supposedly progressive games the interactions of these female protagonists are still constrained by gender norms that still restrict these women to be supportive rather than having a spotlight solely on them.

For today we’ll be focusing on Tomb Raider to broach some of these notions of advertised ‘progressiveness’ against that of what’s actually in the game.

The biggest indication for equality as promoted by the developers and reviewers was the more realistic body image. Although certainly a nod to ‘realism,’ especially when contrasted with previous Tomb Raider games a more realistic looking character can still be sexually objectified, and does not make a game inherently progressive. In some ways it restricts the ability of objectification in the game but this offers no counter argument to the male gaze that pervades Tomb Raider.

By male gaze the perspective of the camera instantly provides a perspective of Lara Crofts sexuality. In the midst of Lara’s most harrowing scenes, from frowning from falling, from being impaled, the viewer is invited to see Lara as primarily a sexual object and not someone in fear of their life. The added extended death scenes further promote such exploitation of Lara’s pain and anguish as desirable for the player in that each type of death is specifically animated for the gratification of the player. There is added context in the suffering of Lara, without failing a task the player has no means of accessing it, and so is encouraged to in the process of a game, to fail to see these deaths. 

The above video showcases a particularly nasty case of in-game failure and strongly suggests further sexual violence against Lara. The game doesn’t address this scene at all which makes its inclusion and later lack of commentary one that doesn’t progress any discussion of sexual violence, and if anything normalises apathy towards it. This scene aside there are plenty of others which are gory for the sake of gore and visual spectacle rather than for character progression or storytelling techniques.

Such added content can be explained away as padding or necessary for such a game (in the words of Ron Rosenburg executive producer of the game ‘you want to protect her,’). These deaths are necessary to emphasise the death that surrounds Lara on all sides. However, in providing such graphic deaths and attention to detail in these scenes the emphasis seems to establish that Lara’s suffering is meant to be entertaining for the audience.  The inclusion of these graphic deaths does more to take away from Lara Croft’s independence and promotes that Lara naturally cannot take care of herself.

Moving away from such discussion of deaths and the accompanying male gaze on Lara the next area to examine is how well the narrative represents Lara Croft, and other female characters as autonomous beings without succumbing to gender performativity (mainly being support roles).

Using the Bechdel test Tomb Raider escapes from being labelled solely a masculine tale since the female characters do talk about something else besides men. However, looking at the narrative many of the movers and shakers of the story rely on the presence of men. That’s not to say that there’s no need for men in the story, rather the narrative relies on normative conventions that have men as the primary force. 

So, let’s review:

• Lara Croft explores the isle of Yamatai as it was one of the last things Lara's father wished her to discover. Although this provides a good motivation for Lara to go to Yamatai island, it might have been more autonomous to have Lara exploring due to her own interests rather than accomplishing her dead father’s will.

• Lara Croft is saved a number of times (sinking ship, attack by cultists, frostbite and jumping on helicopters) by her father figure Captain Roth. Roth is ultimately killed because he saves Lara too many times. Having Lara saved once may have been enough, but three times makes Lara seem more than inept in the wilderness.

• Lara Croft’s villains are primarily bad dudes (Mathias, and Whitman). The big bad is revealed to be a female spirit, but she is largely characterised as a big ol’ ghost rather than a character with any depth. Having Lara’s enemies as something a bit more diverse than opiniated white guys, may be a step in the right direction.

• Lara Croft’s best friend, Sam, is found by the end of the game to be a vessel for an empress (and so de facto royalty). Sam needs to be rescued to keep her being possessed by undead royalty by Lara – Sam otherwise serves no purpose other than a motivation to keep going further. If Sam provided some gameplay value (such as Alex in Half Life 2 or Elizabeth in Bioshock: Infinite) then her role would be much stronger.

• Lara Croft rewards one of her companions, Alex the IT guy, with a kiss for heroically failing to grab tools for the other members of the crew. Alex seems to be redundant in the game and in the narrative as someone who shouldn’t at all be on a trip to explore a forgotten island. Removing this character and scene completely would improve the game immensely, or alternatively apply Alex with a bit more character than IT guy who fails to do one job.

The only other female character beside Lara and Sam is Joslin Reyes who, provides no gameplay help, and offer only negativity to any plans of escape or survival for the group. Only at the end does she change her mind based on the urging of the other (male) members of the crew and helps Lara to go rescue Sam.  Also, the game highlights Joslin’s femininity with the fact that she is a single mother.

Now all of these points can be argued as pointing Lara to becoming self-sufficient and turning into the rugged and independent woman that she appears to be in other Lara Croft games. But such claims appear to do more to hide weak characterisations of women, and to defend the game from criticism. From asking such questions and analysing Lara Croft as something which can be improved the game and representations of women can be made much better.

Comparing these characterisations against that of the previous Crystal Dynamics game Tomb Raider Underworld, Lara Croft can be seen as more self sufficient.

In the above video Lara is seen to be independent to the extent that when her friend Zip refuses to drop his weapon (under a misapprehension about Lara) Lara calmly shoots him in the leg to prevent the situation from escalating. Although a bit extreme (to say the least) it’s a pragmatic way of dealing with the problem at hand. Through this action Lara Croft identifies herself character that deals with no nonsense to resolve problems.

Later her hacker best buddy Alister Fletcher, dies to Lara’s evil Doppelganger, and sure she morns him, but she doesn’t give him a kiss ala 2013’s Tomb Raider. She ruminates about his fate and resolves to figure out what’s happening with her doppelganger. Also, not that it should need mentioning having an IT guy at Croft manor makes a lot more sense than in the middle of the jungle. The added kick arse ability to shoot willy nilly at everything and not have extended death scenes for failing some quick time events also makes Underworld empowering of Lara – she’s supposed to win, there’s no reward for death.

From this comparison it already seems that Underworld portrays Lara in a much stronger light than in the Tomb Raider of 2013. Rise of the Tomb Raider 2015 is a somewhat better game but does not reach the same levels of independence and kick arse-ness that was displayed in Underworld.

All of this is not to say that there are not female representations in games, especially with the recent release of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, more so the point is that even within videogames that are supposedly progressive there is more that can be done to both improve the narrative and gameplay, alongside the representation of women.

Horzon: Zero Dawn

Horizon: Zero Dawn while widely praised, is not an open world action-adventure game that I enjoy. That being said generally action-adventure games rarely get a glowing review from myself, such as The Last of Us or the Uncharted videogames. However in the case of Horizon: Zero Dawn my lack of enjoyment has less to do with the genre and more to do with the implementation of the open world elements to the player's actions. Before going through the elements which were not enjoyable, Horizon: Zero Dawn should be praised for the aspects that it did well.

• Localised damage for each enemy - this gameplay element was seen largely with the robotic enemies, allowing for an identification of the various subsystems of the robot which you the player could disrupt. Furthermore the added layer of different elemental effects that could be used against each of these subsystems allowed for variation in the combat. E.g. removing armour, shocking, freezing or burning these enemies.

• Combat mechanics - when the combat flowed together well in a combination of jumping, sliding and dodging the fighting felt exhilirating. However this did become tiring when attacking large groups of enemies as a one woman army.

• AI interaction (robots and NPC humans) - this is something that I've only really noticed in Bioshock, Alien: Isolation and more recently Fallout 4. Enemies would attack each other outside of the player's own involvement, which adds to the sense that the world is alive.

• The story - the story deserves a special mention as the creation of the world and the player-character's place in it is well thought out and established. This makes for an engaging narrative for much of the game and propells the player forward (myself included) to discover more about the past and about their character Aloy. Discovery of how events came to be, or the history of gameworlds can be seen in Destiny, Fallout and other futuristic or alternative history videogames. I guess for a lot of these videogames the progression from a set point to a future one is entrancing for players, or at the very least myself. 

• Graphically impressive - the graphics are not really a gameplay feature, but consistently spectacular visuals did keep me around a lot longer than I would have with other games.

Beyond these aspects the rest of Horizon: Zero Dawn were enjoyable but not particularly well done. The open world (Far Cry 4, Mafia III), the bow and arrow mechanics (Zelda, Tomb Raider), the climbing (Assassin's Creed, Mirror's Edge) and collect-a-thons (nearly) are all present in other action-adventure games, and in a better state than what you would find in Horizon. These comparisons can be made readily; however what I will focus on is the way in which Horizon: Zero Dawn uses its open world in combination with the actions of the player. By this I mean whenever a certain task is completed by the player, such as a side mission, there's a correspondence in the game world. Such action can usually be seen on the world map and is noted by the characters of the videogame.

To use Mafia III  as an example. Completing a side mission or main mission would clear out opposition from part of the game world. However once done the player would then choose which of their subordinates would gain control over an area of land.

This action by the player enabled a response from the game including a visual signifier of the player's gang control on the in-game map, a particular bonus from their subordinate(depending on the subordinate used), and a change to the narrative depending on if the player favoured one subordinate over the others.




Horizon: Zero Dawn employs none of this reactivity during its play, leaving the player's actions in each area largely unnoticed by the game. As a result the progression of the player-character through the game is only really marked through their progress through the main quest. The fact that the player has removed all corrupted zones or bandit camps from the game world is not reflected in other character's responses let alone in a change to the overall narrative.

There are some reaction present in Horizon: Zero Dawn for the players actions, however these are not as prevalent as Mafia III. In completing some of the side quests the player is able to have more allies in a battle towards the end of game, however this appears to be the extent to which there is variation in how the game can be completed.

Further, Aloy can have different dialogue and reactions based on the player's choices of dialogue. However these are far removed from the player's actions in the game world. Reacting to Aloy being compassionate, logical, or brutal, is something which adds a layer to the gameworld in how the player can interact with non-playable characters; however it does not alter the progression of the narrative, or affect the gameplay.

If Horizon: Zero Dawn provided some of this overworld response to the player's actions beyond marking an area as done and giving the player materials to craft better items, then much of the open world presentation of the game would be made more immersive. This immersion would be due to the depth provided in having a range of results available to the players actions, as opposed to a binarycompletion of objectives. Enabling for different groups to flourish, or having side effects to the extent to which alloy hunts and destroys predators would mean that the actions of the character would carry weight in the world.

Instead what is shown in Horizon: Zero Dawn is the pressence of an open world without any variation to the outcome. In other games the player's actions and decisions make an impact on the game world world and effect it's open nature showing it to be a dynamic system and not just a landscape to get from point A to point B.