Tomb Raider was arguably the biggest Western video game franchise in the late 1990s, and its main protagonist Lara Croft was undoubtedly the biggest Western gaming icon at that time. In 1999, Tomb Raider III made more money than FIFA soccer and was the best-selling game in Europe. Yet, in the 2000s, Tomb Raider sales cratered. In fact, I thought this franchise had been dormant for years when the 2013 reboot was released. In reality, there was a constant stream of games, none of which had much of a cultural impact.

Part of the reason for the decline of Tomb Raider is probably the shift in focus. Lara Croft was supposed to be a uber-woman. Non only was she a rich aristocrat, she was also impossibly beautiful. Had the developers stuck to this vision, this franchise may have done a lot better. The reboot was a decent success, and it is a good game. I quite enjoyed it myself. In the sequels, however, Lara Croft again got less and less attractive. This can be nicely see in the video below, which compares Lara Croft’s tits throughout the franchise. Watch it to the end, because the 2018 version is unbelievably ugly.

Lara Croft also made some appearances in other games, and she does not look that great in them either. Here is one image I came across, albeit I am not sure from where it is from:

She also showed up in Call of Duty: Warzone, looking like a tranny:

As you can see, the preternaturally attractive Lara Croft devolved into Jane Average. She has probably grown a dick, too, in the meantime. Of course, the consequence is that the Tomb Raider franchise is once again languishing. The last big release was Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which came out in 2018. In the same year, there was also a reboot of the Tomb Raider movie franchise, for which a pretty unattractive actress was chosen, some B-lister with tiny boobs:

As a reminder, the first Tomb Raider movie came out in 2001, starring Angelina Jolie, who was considered one of the most attractive women in media at that time. Completely unexpectedly, the Tomb Raider reboot movie did not break even and a sequel got cancelled.

All is not bad, though. To my great surprise, I learned that Lara Croft also shows up in Fortnite, one of the most-played games in the world. Fornite has been developed by Epic Games, which is partly owned by Tencent, a Chinese company. The Chinese know what gamers want, so the Fortnite version of Lara Croft looks really good:

If Lara Croft looked like that in other games, I am sure they would sell a lot better.