Meet Lara Croft
For three years, Alix Wilton Regan has embodied Lara Croft. She has watched the tapes. She has listened to the audio. She has studied every Lara who came before her.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis launches February 12, 2027. Co-developed by Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog, it's a complete reimagining of the 1996 original. It is Alix's debut as the iconic character.
Unapologetic
For Alix, one word captures who this Lara is.
"Unapologetic. That's the word. She's unapologetic. And I think that my Lara gets to be unapologetic because of all of the versions of Lara that have come before that have led up to this moment in time."
She describes her Lara as elegant, strong, confident, and smart. Adventurous, fierce, and deeply human.
"She walks into a room knowing that she has a right to be there," Alix says. "There is no insecurity. Now, she may at times question herself, but that's very different to feeling insecure."
That confidence comes with humanity attached. "Lara is a living, breathing woman. There's lots of tragedy and trauma there. And she's constantly grappling with this insane world that we're all having to live in and share."
No Laras Left Behind
The reason this Lara can be unapologetic, Alix says, is because of every Lara who came before her. The 1996 original. The Crystal era. The Survivor trilogy. All of them are in here.
"No Laras are left behind. Every version of Lara that has come before has informed my performance."
That principle shows up in the smallest places. Her hair is a deliberate blend of the classic bangs and braid with a touch of the reboot era's wisps. The sculpt itself is the work of Kam Yu, who has now shaped three generations of Lara Croft.
For Experience Director Jeff Adams at Crystal Dynamics, the design challenge was one of balance.
"She's Lara Croft. She's the Tomb Raider," Adams says. "Sometimes those aren't the same thing, and finding the balance is key."
He sums her up like this: "Born with everything except a capacity to sit still."
Lara Contains Multitudes
That balance, the icon and the woman, is also how Meagan Marie at Crystal Dynamics describes the character.
"Lara Croft has always been a curious and complex figure," she says. "She was born into great wealth and status but prefers the isolation and danger of ancient spaces. She's an academic who values reason yet is willing to accept the seemingly impossible. She's both effortlessly cool and witty but will geek out when unearthing history. She's strong and graceful, beautiful and formidable, guarded and empathetic. It's the contrasts that originally drew me to her, because they illustrated that I didn't have to be just one thing. Lara contains multitudes."
Those contradictions carry forward across every era of the character, including this one.
The Feeling of Being Her
Studio Creative Director Noah Hughes describes the appeal of the character in player terms. The throughline, he says, is the feeling of being her.
"If you take all the things that are great about action-adventure games," Hughes says, "Lara is perfectly suited to embody everything we love about those experiences: death-defying traversal and exploration, action-packed tactical combat, clever puzzles, and a riveting narrative filled with myth-fueled intrigue and world-changing discoveries."
She is, he says, "an unstoppable force, not because of her size or her strength, but because of her character. Her obsessive inability to leave a peak unscaled or a puzzle unsolved is matched only by her brilliance and her unflinching resilience."
For Alix, the hope is that the new Lara delivers that feeling.
"I want them to fall in love with Lara all over again."
Pre-order Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis
The new Lara Croft takes her first plunge into the Lost Valley on February 12, 2027. Pre-orders are live now. Secure your edition before launch, and join us across the months ahead for new mini-documentaries, deep dives, and exclusive looks at the world of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis.
