Tomb Raider Games With The Best Stories, Ranked

Ever since her first excursion graced the CRT screens of the 90s, Tomb Raider's Lara Croft has been on many perilous expeditions in search of ancient artifacts. From dusty ruins to dinosaur-infested valleys and even the waterways of Venice, the plucky British heroine has had her fair share of epic adventures, usually equipped with nothing more than a small backpack and her trusty pistols.

Of course, like all franchises, there have been highs and lows throughout the series. While the original run of PlayStation 1 titles have held up pretty well, some later entries dipped a little in quality, only to rise again with the 2013 reboot. Below are some of the best stories in Tomb Raider games.

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6 Tomb Raider 2

Fight The Venetian Mafia To Claim An Ancient Dagger

The second entry in Lara Croft's treasure hunting saga sees her largely ditch the traditional tombs in favor of a few more modern settings. While this might be initially jarring to fans of the first game who expected more ancient settings, the story woven throughout is a classic outing.

Lara begins her journey in a remote stretch of the Great Wall of China in search of the legendary Dagger of Xian. This powerful artifact bestows untold power on those brave enough to plunge it into their own hearts. Little does Lara know that Italian mob don Marco Bartoli is also seeking the mysterious blade. This cat-and-mouse chase takes the heroine from crumbling walls, to trapped-filled ruins, to Venice, and even to an oil refinery. It's a globe-trotting escapade that comes full circle in the final act for a satisfying and cohesive experience.

5 Tomb Raider

Discover the Truth of Atlantis in Lara's First Outing

It's hard to beat the original of anything, and the first Tomb Raider game proves that. It more than lives up to the name, with each level focusing on different ancient civilizations and ruins filled with treasure and traps in equal measure. Players step into the shoes of Lara Croft as a seasoned adventurer already gracing the covers of magazines accepting a new job from technology tycoon Jacqueline Natla.

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From there, the player explores the forgotten City of Vilcabamba hidden in the Peruvian Mountains before jetting off to Saint Francis' Folly in Greece. It's then on to Egypt for some classic pyramid high jinks, and finally navigating the twisting tunnels of Natla's mines. This is all in search of the Atlantean Scion, which Natla plans on using to resurrect her fallen kingdom because (spoiler alert) she's actually a millennia-old queen of Atlantis. It's a rip-roaring adventure that proudly wears its Indiana Jones inspiration on its sleeve, and went down in history as the beginning of a digital dynasty that took the world by storm.

4 Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation

Romp Through Ancient Egyptian Ruins To Stop A God's Resurrection

Serving in part as something of an origin story for the franchise's heroine, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation opens with a teenage Lara Croft on one of her very first expeditions under the tutelage of esteemed explorer Werner Von Croy. They venture through Angkor Watt together in 1984, before Von Croy is seemingly trapped inside the ruin for eternity with the artifact he so desperately sought.

Fast-forward to 1999, and a now experienced Ms. Croft is out on her own, making her way through the Tomb of Set in Egypt. After claiming the legendary Amulet of Horus, she unwittingly unleashes the ancient god of chaos, plunging the world into darkness. What follows is a tense race against time to set things right. All the while, Lara is pursued by none other than Werner Von Croy himself, seemingly back from the dead and possessed by the spirit of Set. It doesn't get much more classic than that, and the finale is the icing on the proverbial cake — which is why it's primed for a remaster next.

3 Tomb Raider: Underworld

Lara Follows In Her Father's Footsteps To Search For The Truth Of Avalon

Following the Tomb Raider series' successful reboot on next-gen consoles, Tomb Raider: Underworld was released in 2008 to positive praise from critics and fans alike. This time around, Lara Croft is tasked with discovering the location of Avalon in the hopes that it will help her uncover the truth behind her father's disappearance. Beginning at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, Ms. Croft finds Niflheim and a variety of treasures belonging to the Norse thunder god Thor.

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By  Fatima Naeem

Hot on her trail, however, is fellow anthropologist Amanda Evert, who's seeking the artifacts for her own ends — aided by none other than Jacqueline Natla herself. This blast from the past, coupled with a few startling familial revelations, makes it a stand-out story filled with as many twists and turns as the tombs themselves. The love, loss and betrayal in the story is poignant, and further fleshes out Lara's motivations.

2 Tomb Raider: Legend

Uncover The Mystery Behind King Arthur

With new technology emerging in the mid 2000s, Crystal Dynamics saw an opportunity to bring Lara Croft back to the forefront of players' minds. Enter Tomb Raider: Legend, the earliest title in the franchise's first reboot. Serving as a re-imagined origin story for the titular heroine, Legend expands upon Lara's backstory. The game opens with the disappearance of her mother following a plane crash in Bolivia. Now, Lara is on the hunt for a stone dais similar to the one that took her mother away in the hopes of finding a connection and uncovering the truth.

What she finds is a trail of clues that point to the mythical King Arthur, his magical sword Excalibur, and a world-spanning mystery that has seemingly touched every ancient culture on Earth. It's then up to the player to travel the globe and retrieve the shattered shards of Excalibur hidden in various ruins by the Knights of the Round Table. It's an epic retelling of the Arthurian legend that deftly combines the series' strengths with a defining real-world fable.

1 Tomb Raider (2013)

Survive A Cult To Discover the Secrets Of The Sun Queen of Yamatai

Another decade, another chance to reboot the Tomb Raider franchise for new audiences. But rather than a cynical cash-grab, Tomb Raider (2013) is a standout title in its own right that tells a compelling tale of survival against all odds, and serves as a catalyst for the heroine Lara Croft would become in her later life. Fresh out of university, Lara boards a research ship, the Endurance, bound for the lost island of Yamatai in the ominously named Dragon's Triangle region. Disaster soon follows, and the crew is shipwrecked by a violent, almost unnatural storm.

Forced to quickly adapt to harsh surroundings, a young and inexperienced Lara resolves to find the rest of the crew and escape the island by any means necessary. Venturing further inland, she discovers a mysterious cult who dedicate themselves to the worship of Himiko, the so-called Sun Queen with power over the weather. Armed with a bow and a climbing pick, players must navigate the treacherous island to uncover the truth behind Himiko's resurrection and endure the unforgiving wilds. This is the definitive adventure that made Lara Croft who she is, and the story takes great pains to emphasize her strength and resolve.