After DBD and Naraka, Lara Croft is Rapidly Becoming The…

Making her debut all the way back in 1996 with the first Tomb Raider, Lara Croft has been a gaming icon for almost three decades now. As well as starring in 12 mainline Tomb Raider entries and a slew of spinoffs, Lara Croft has appeared in multiple comic books, animated series, and live-action movies. Though her design and personality have changed slightly over the years, Lara Croft has remained one of the most popular video game protagonists.

Lara Croft is so iconic, in fact, that she's often transcended her own franchise. Along with the countless Tomb Raider sequels, spinoffs, and adaptations over the years, Lara Croft has also appeared in other video games, often as a crossover skin or as a cameo character. And while Lara Croft is far from the first video game protagonist to live on through cameos and crossovers, she's quickly becoming the most prolific, perhaps only second to Dead Space's Isaac Clarke.

Lara Croft posing with a gun from Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation.

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By James Houghton

Lara Croft Is Following in Isaac Clarke's Cameo-Laden Footsteps

Isaac Clarke Used to be King of Cameos

Back when the first Dead Space was released in 2008, Isaac Clarke quickly became the hot new character on the block, with his industrial, LED-lined visual design being instantly memorable. In the years following Dead Space's release, Isaac Clarke would appear in a vast range of video games, often as a skin. Skate 3, PGA Tour 10, and NBA Jam all used the same engine as Dead Space, and thus all imported the same Isaac Clarke character model to use as an easy Easter egg. Isaac also popped up in Dragon Age 2, LittleBigPlanet, Minecraft, and even the MySims series.

After the disappointing reception to the launch of Dead Space 3 in 2013, enthusiasm for the franchise fell steeply, and Isaac Clarke's cameo tour ended rather abruptly. But with the release of Dead Space Remake last year, Isaac Clarke was thrust into the spotlight once more, and EA made the most out of it by bringing the Sci-Fi protagonist to Fortnite as a crossover skin, and more recently, Battlefield 2042, where Dead Space received a surprisingly extensive in-game event.

Lara Croft Is Becoming a Crossover Queen

While Tomb Raider's Lara Croft has been no stranger to the realm of crossovers, her cameo appearances have really started to ramp up in recent years. Kicking off this new era of Tomb Raider crossovers was Brawlhalla, which added Lara Croft as a heroic outfit for Diana in February 2020. Just a year later, Lara Croft would play a substantial part in Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 6, where both her classic and Survivor Trilogy appearances were available in the season's Battle Pass.

But there have been more Tomb Raider crossovers in the last year or so than there have been in the rest of the franchise's entire history combined. In January 2023, Croft Manor appeared in PowerWash Simulator. In April, Lara Croft appeared in the mobile game The Walking Dead: Survivors. In July, an adorable Bean version of Lara Croft appeared in Fall Guys. And in August 2023, Lara got an impressive redesign of her classic outfit for Call of Duty.

Lara's cameo tour has continued into 2024, with her appearing in Dead by Daylight as a fully-fledged playable Survivor back in July, and her now set to appear in Naraka: Bladepoint. While she might not get a new game of her own for a while, Lara Croft isn't fading into obscurity anytime soon.

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