But are there any, y'know, tombs?
Rise of the Tomb Raider hits next week, bringing with it a return to the spelunking, tomb raiding action the series is known for. Ironically, tombs were lacking from 2013's franchise reboot, turning the typically globe-trotting adventure series into a tale of raw survival, fraught with peril. Calling it 'Tomb Raider' seemed like an archaic holdover from a bygone era, considering how unimportant actual tombs were to the overall experience, but it brings up an interesting question: How much of Lara Croft's adventures actually involve tomb raiding?
To answer that, I've pored through each of the core console titles in the franchise, starting with the first Tomb Raider in 1996 all the way up to 2013's reboot, and counted each of the levels in which Lara is either engaged in tomb raiding, or on her way to said tombs - jungles, underground caverns, and ancient ruins count, military bases and skyscrapers do not. The results will surprise you.
Lara's expeditions from 1996-2013
Over her 17 year career as a tomb raider, Lara Croft has travelled to 31 distinct countries and regions both real and fictional, while making a few pit stops at her mansion in England along the way. In the first game alone, Lara's travels take her from Peru, to Greece, Egypt, then finally the heart of the lost continent of Atlantis - a trip that spans over 8000 miles.
Tomb Raider/Anniversary
The very first Tomb Raider (and the subsequent HD remake, Anniversary) is easily the purest tomb raiding experience in the entire series. It makes sense - this is Lara's debut, and when you're making a game called 'Tomb Raider', it's best to stick to the name on the box. When you're not solving puzzles inside these ancient crypts, you're traversing the wilderness and fending off various henchmen and dinosaurs to find them.
Locations visited:
Peru
Greece
Egypt
Atlantis
Total levels: 15
Total levels in service of tomb raiding: 15
Total ratio of tomb raiding to non-tomb raiding activities: 1:1
Tomb Raider 2
It's here that the series introduces non-tomb raiding elements in an attempt to spice up the plot. There's an Italian mob boss and a mystical cult that both need to be taken down, and you spend a decent chunk of the game exploring the city of Venice or escaping from an oil rig. Tomb Raider 2 also marks the first time in the series that you can explore Lara's mansion as a glorified tutorial playground.
Locations visited:
China
Venice
Oil Rig
Maria Doria shipwreck
Tibet
Croft Manor (England)
Total levels: 18
Total levels in service of tomb raiding: 12
Total ratio of tomb raiding to non-tomb raiding activities: 2:3
Tomb Raider 3
We're in full-on globe-trotting heist mode here, as Lara searches for artifacts in a variety of locations thatll help stop a giant meteor from mutating humanity into diabolical monsters. Thing is, two of Tomb Raider 3's five main mission areas couldn't be classified as a tomb even in the remotest sense. One set of levels takes you inside London's Natural History Museum, while another takes you into the heart of Area 51, a secretive military base which allegedly houses everything from prototype energy weapons to alien spacecraft.
Locations visited:
Croft Manor (England)
India
Nevada
London
South Pacific
Antarctica
Total levels: 21
Total levels in service of tomb raiding: 12
Total ratio of tomb raiding to non-tomb raiding activities: 4:7
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
After the comparatively ridiculous places Lara visited in the previous entry, The Last Revelation sees the tomb raider going back to what she does best: unchecked grave disturbance. Other than a brief stopover in Cairo to rescue her friend from minotaurs and giant scarabs (\_()_/), Lara spends most of her time diving into ancient Egyptian ruins, along with a brief prequel chapter set in Cambodia.
Locations visited:
Cambodia
Egypt
Total Levels: 35
Total levels in service of tomb raiding: 28
Total ratio of tomb raiding to non-tomb raiding activities: 4:5
Tomb Raider Chronicles
Aaaaaaand we're back. The Last Revelation ends on a cliffhanger (Is Lara dead?), and Chronicles acts as a compilation of flashbacks as Lara's friends reminisce on some of her earlier excursions. While Rome and the Black Isle are tomb-y enough to count, the Russian submarine base and a high-tech New York skyscraper sure aren't. At this point, it's clear that Tomb Raider's yearly release schedule is hurting the series, while the developers at Core start running out of ideas.
Locations visited:
Rome
Russian submarine base
Black Isle (Ireland)
Skyscraper (New York)
Total levels: 13
Total levels in service of tomb raiding: 6
Total ratio of tomb raiding to non-tomb raiding activities: 6:13
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
The Angel of Darkness looked like it was the end for Lara Croft. Awkward controls, copious bugs, and a hilariously gritty story that sees Lara framed for the murder of her mentor all combine to form an entry that almost killed the franchise. The worst part of it all? There just weren't a lot of actual tombs to explore in this one, as Lara spends most of her time traipsing over Parisian rooftops or crashing the hottest nightclubs. There is a rather lengthy, multi-part section inside of the Tomb of the Ancients, but compared to the rest of the game, it's a drop in the bucket. Interestingly, it's not the worst offender in the series.
Locations visited:
Paris
Prague
Total levels: 33
Total levels in service of tomb raiding: 9
Total ratio of tomb raiding to non-tomb raiding activities: 3:11
Tomb Raider: Legend
After the dismal failure of Angel of Darkness, publisher Eidos (now Square Enix) handed the reigns to Crystal Dynamics, a studio previously known for its work on the Legacy of Kain franchise. Legend, then, became a reboot of sorts, and other than a handful of levels that send you to an abandoned military base or downtown Tokyo, Legend remains faithful to the tomb raiding action that kicked the series off ten years prior.
Locations visited:
Bolivia
Peru
Tokyo
Ghana
Kazakhstan
England
Himalayas
Total levels: 9
Total levels in service of tomb raiding: 6
Total ratio of tomb raiding to non-tomb raiding activities: 2:3
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Tomb Raider: Underworld is a strange beast. It's one of the purest tomb raider games in the series, sending Lara to a variety of ruins and exotic locales with only a few pit stops to keep things interesting. But it also leans really hard into its mythology, as Lara goes on a quest searching for the entrance to the Norse underworld to find her mother, all while battling her evil doppelganger, a kraken, and the winged ruler of Atlantis.
Locations visited:
Croft Manor (England)
Mediterranean Sea
Coastal Thailand
Southern Mexico
Jan Mayen Island
Andaman Sea
Arctic Circle
Total levels: 21
Total levels in service of tomb raiding: 18
Total ratio of tomb raiding to non-tomb raiding activities: 6:7
Tomb Raider (2013)
Seeking to revitalize interest in the flagging franchise, Crystal Dynamics decided to reboot the series a little harder this time, throwing out nearly every bit of baggage Tomb Raider had accumulated along the way and starting fresh. Apparently, that meant getting rid of the tombs themselves, as they make up a tiny fraction of its gameplay. There are only seven in total, each one of them essentially a giant room with a single puzzle and small prize at the end, and all of them are optional.
Locations visited:
Yamatai (Japan)
Total levels: 29
Total levels in service of tomb raiding: 7
Total ratio of tomb raiding to non-tomb raiding activities: 7:29
Series-wide
Lara's series-wide antics puts her total tomb raiding time at a little over half of the series' combined gameplay. It might not seem like much, given that the whole point was originally about raiding tombs, but it speaks to a larger point: the Tomb Raider series has shifted quite a ways from its roots as an Indiana Jones-inspired adventure series.
Some of that surely stems from its original, yearly development cycle and the constant need for the series to up the stakes to keep the plot interesting, but a lot also comes from its constant desire to stay relevant. The series has tried to reinvent itself multiple times over its nearly twenty-year-long history, with varying degrees of success - and it's interesting that the game that's furthest from the series' roots is arguably its best. It'll be worth seeing how Rise of the Tomb Raider can bring its staple tombs back while maintaining the high-octane action that made 2013's reboot so much fun to play.