Setting and characters : The game is set on Yamatai, a fictional lost island in the Dragon's Triangle off the coast of Japan. The island—and the kingdom that once existed there—is shrouded in mystery, given its reputation for fearsome storms and shipwrecks that litter its coastline. Yamatai was once ruled by a queen named Himiko, known by her honorific title of "Sun Queen", who according to legend was blessed with shamanistic powers that enabled her to control the weather. Very little is known about Yamatai's history in the time since Himiko's death, other than that the island's infamy was established shortly thereafter. In exploring the island, the player may find evidence that—among others—Portuguese traders, United States Marines and a Japanese military project were all stranded on Yamatai at various points throughout history. At the start of the game, the island is populated exclusively by the Solarii Brotherhood, a violent cult of criminals, mercenaries and shipwreck survivors. The Solarii Brotherhood has established its own society based on the worship of Himiko, complete with a social structure and laws, with their exact purpose and intentions being explored over the course of the story.
The player takes on the role of Lara, who is a young and ambitious archaeology graduate whose theories on the location of the lost kingdom of Yamatai have convinced the Nishimura family—descendants from the people of Yamatai themselves—to fund an expedition in search of the kingdom. The expedition is led by Dr. James Whitman, a celebrity archaeologist who has fallen on hard times and is desperate to avoid bankruptcy, and is accompanied by Conrad Roth, a Royal Marine turned adventurer and close friend of the Croft family who serves as mentor to Lara; Samantha "Sam" Nishimura, Lara's friend and a representative of the Nishimura family who films the expedition for a documentary; Joslyn Reyes, a skeptical and temperamental mechanic and single mother; Jonah Maiava, an imposing and placid fisherman who is willing to believe in the existence of the paranormal and esoteric; Angus "Grim" Grimaldi, the gruff Glaswegian helmsman of the Endurance; and Alex Weiss, a goofy and bespectacled electronics specialist.
The game begins with Lara setting out on her first expedition aboard the ship Endurance, with the intention of finding the lost kingdom of Yamatai. By her suggestion and against Whitman's advice, the expedition ventures into the Dragon's Triangle, east of Japan. The ship is struck by a violent storm and shipwrecked, leaving the survivors stranded on an isolated island. Lara is separated from the others and captured by a strange, savage man. She manages to escape while her captor is killed as the cave collapses due to her actions.
As Lara tries to locate the other survivors, she finds more evidence that the island is inhabited, such as strange carvings, dead bodies, and animal sacrifices. She eventually finds her friend Sam and a man called Mathias, who claims to be a teacher who was shipwrecked on the island. As Sam tells Mathias the legends of Himiko, Lara passes out; when she wakes, Mathias and Sam are nowhere in sight.
When Lara regroups with the other survivors, Whitman decides to go with Lara and search for the still-missing Roth, while the rest of the group (Reyes, Jonah, Alex, and Grim) set out to find Sam and Mathias. As Lara and Whitman explore, they discover that the island's inhabitants worship Himiko, confirming that the island is Yamatai. Upon discovering a shrine erected in Himiko's name, they are captured by the islanders and taken to a settlement along with several other survivors from the Endurance. When the survivors attempt an escape, the captors turn on them. Lara is separated from Whitman and tries to hide, but is found by one of the islanders and forced to kill him. She fights off the remainder of the attackers and reunites with Roth, saving him from a wolf attack.
Lara manages to activate a radio tower and calls for help, but the plane that answers the call is struck by a freak storm, and Lara hears a mysterious voice saying "No one leaves" in Japanese. Unable to save the surviving pilots, Lara is contacted by Alex and Reyes, who reveal that Sam has been kidnapped by the islanders, a violent cult known as the Solarii Brotherhood. Lara tries to rescue her, but is stopped by Mathias, leader of the Solarii, and ordered killed: she is saved by an attack from samurai-like Oni. Escaping the ancient monastery where she is taken by the Oni, she hears from Sam that Mathias is going to put her through the "Ascension", a "fire ritual" to find the next Sun Queen that will burn her to death if it is unsuccessful.
Lara follows them to the Solarii fortress and is aided by Grim. The Solarii take Grim hostage, but he sacrifices himself so Lara can escape. With Roth's aid, Lara infiltrates the fortress and sees the ritual begin. She tries to stop the ritual, but gets captured and weapons taken. When the fires are lit, a great wind blows them out, showing Sam to be the next Sun Queen. Lara escapes again with just a bow and arrows and reunites with her friends (Reyes, Jonah, and Alex), forming a plan to rescue Sam and escape.
Aided by Whitman—who has managed to negotiate some degree of freedom with the Solarii—Lara returns to the palace to rescue Sam as Roth commandeers a helicopter to get them out. Lara succeeds, but persuades Sam to escape by land when she sees another storm gathering as the helicopter approaches. As Lara tries to force the helicopter pilot to land, they are brought down, with Lara nearly dying. Roth revives Lara, then takes a fatal blow from Mathias meant for Lara.
While mourning Roth, Lara accepts that the storms are not natural, but are somehow connected to the Sun Queen and designed to prevent anyone from leaving the island. She meets up with her friends (Reyes, Jonah, Alex, and Sam), who have evaded the Solarii long enough to secure a boat for escaping the island, provided that it can be repaired. They are joined by Whitman, who claims to have escaped, though Lara begins to suspect him of working with the cultists. Lara joins Alex in finding parts for the boat in the wreck of the Endurance. She finds Alex injured and stuck under some rubble. They come under attack by the Solarii and Alex triggers an explosion, sacrificing himself so that Lara can escape with the tools.
Finding an account of a World War II-era Japanese military and Nazi scientific expedition to the island that sought a way to harness the storms as a weapon, Lara decides to explore a coastal tomb, where she finds the remains of a samurai general who committed seppuku. It is revealed in a message he left that he led the Queen's Storm guard, the Oni that defend the monastery, and that the Queen's successor took her own life rather than receive the Sun Queen's power. Lara realizes that the Ascension is not a ceremony to crown a new queen, but rather a ritual that transfers the original Sun Queen's soul into a new body; the Sun Queen had learned to become effectively immortal by transferring her soul into a young girl's body each time she grew old. The last priestess' suicide had interrupted the ritual, and left the Queen's soul trapped in her old decaying body, and Himiko's spirit has wanted to escape that corpse ever since. Her rage is what's causing the storms on the island. As a descendant of Yamatai, Sam is a viable candidate, and Mathias plans to offer Sam as a new host in exchange for his freedom. Once the Sun Queen awakens in Sam's body, the storm will subside.
Lara returns to the survivors on the beach to find that Whitman has betrayed them, abducting Sam and handing her over to Mathias. Lara, Jonah, and Reyes give chase, heading up a river in the fixed boat to the monastery, with Lara arriving just in time to see Mathias trick Whitman into approaching and speaking to Stormguards: the Stormguards kill Whitman. After fighting her way through both the Solarii and the Stormguard, Lara arrives at the top of the monastery where Mathias is performing the Ascension ritual. Lara fights her way to the central platform, and after a struggle, shoots Mathias off the platform to his death using both his pistol and her own in her signature dual-wielding style. Despite Mathias' death, the ritual is already underway, with Himiko's soul starting to pour into Sam, but Lara then destroys Himiko's ancient remains, saving Sam and dispersing the storms.
Lara, Sam, Reyes and Jonah then leave the island and are picked up by a cargo ship: as they sail home, Lara realizes that the mythical stories her father told her were more than stories, deciding not to return home just yet, and the screen fades to white with a proclamation of "A Survivor is Born."
Animated model : Lara Croft's model is animated using compiled performance capture, a technique used in the previous instalment Tomb Raider: Underworld. The game was built on Crystal Dynamics' game engine called "Foundation". Lara's face is based on that of model Megan Farquhar. On 3 June 2011, the "Turning Point" CGI teaser trailer premiered at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011, emphasizing the release date was to be in the third quarter of 2012. The trailer was produced by Square Enix's CGI studio Visual Works.
Voice cast : Keeley Hawes did not return as Lara Croft for 2013's Tomb Raider, after completing Tomb Raider: Legend, Anniversary, Underworld and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. She reprised the role of Lara in the downloadable game Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, which was released on 9 December 2014. In December 2010, Crystal Dynamics was said to be trialling dozens of voice actresses. On 26 June 2012, the voice actress of Lara Croft was revealed to be Camilla Luddington. Lara is played by Nadine Njeim in the Arabic dub, by Nora Tschirner in the German dub, by Alice David in the French dub, by Karolina Gorczyca in the Polish dub, by Yuhko Kaida in the Japanese dub, by Benedetta Ponticelli in the Italian dub, by Guiomar Alburquerque Durán in the Spanish dub and by Polina Sherbakova in the Russian dub.[
Music : Tomb Raider (Original Soundtrack) Soundtrack album by Jason Graves Released 15 March 2013 Genre Video game soundtrack Length 74:55 Label Sumthing Else Music Works Tomb Raider's soundtrack was composed by Jason Graves, whose previous work includes Dead Space and its sequels, F.E.A.R. 3 and Star Trek: Legacy. The Tomb Raider: Original Soundtrack was released on 5 March 2013, alongside the game's worldwide release. The album was released to critical acclaim, with multiple sites including Forbes and the magazine Film Score Monthly giving it high praise.
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