Five Years Later: Looking Back at Tomb Raider 2013

On this day five years ago, Crystal Dynamics relaunched the Tomb Raider series. After largely falling into mediocrity, the 2013 reboot managed to breathe new life into the iconic franchise. Not only was it able to go head-to-head with current titles like Uncharted, it also brought new elements to the table and some excellent archery.

That’s why the question we posed in this week’s Now Loading was “Today marks the fifth anniversary for Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider reboot, and a film based upon it is coming out this month. What are your thoughts on the 2013 release, and are you excited for the movie?”

Check out the gallery below to find out what the staff thought of this week’s question:

Now that you’ve seen our answers, we’d love to see hear your thoughts on the matter at hand. Feel free to chime in below with your answer to this week’s question. We can’t wait to hear about what you thought about the Tomb Raider 2013 reboot!

We’re always looking for suggestions for our next Now Loading. If you’ve got a good one then let us know via email (or leave a comment below), and we might feature it next week. If we do, we’ll make sure to include a special thank you to the sender!

Now Loading is a weekly recurring feature where the PlayStation LifeStyle staff discusses anything video game-related ranging from hot topics to more whimsical subjects. Past editions can be found here.

Essential Reading:

now loading: tomb raider

Tomb Raider Reboot & Movie
Cameron Teague

The reboot was fun and I enjoyed playing it, but I'm not interested at all in the movie. It won't be good.
Chandler Wood

I enjoyed the reboot quite a bit. It was a nice way to make Tomb Raider relevant again after Uncharted took the crown. Sending it in a more violent and mature direction was a great way to differentiate it from Nathan Drake's adventures, not to mention Tomb Raider past. The injuries Lara endures just make sense as what an extreme adventurer might endure (and actually make me want to see what Naughty Dog could do with a more mature direction for Uncharted).

I'm not terribly excited for the movie though. To reach a PG-13 rating, I feel like they are going to have to have muted some of the maturity that the game brought. I'm not too keen on the actress either. She's just not quite Lara Croft to me. I'm not sure what's off about her playing that character, but every time I see trailers, it feels disconnected. One thing's for certain: It will be better than the Tomb Raiders of old, but I'm not yet convinced it will be all that great of a movie.
Keri Honea

I loved both games in the reboot, Rise of the Tomb Raider especially. However, I'll most likely skip the movie. I'm sure it will be better than the Angelina Jolie films, but it's still a movie based upon a video game. I haven't seen such a flick yet that wasn't ho-hum at best.
Paulmichael Contreras

I never did get around to playing the reboot. But I will say that the odds of the upcoming movie being any good are extremely low. I base this on the typically poor performance that we see in most movies based on video games.
Tyler Treese

I thought the reboot was really well-done. The combat was far better than its contemporaries (*glares at Uncharted's poor shooting*), and the story was quite interesting. I definitely have some qualms with certain aspects (the weird death and violence fetishism), but it definitely rejuvenated a franchise that had fallen into mediocrity.
Zarmena Khan

I really enjoyed the 2013 release. RotTR paled in comparison, IMHO. The story was decent, the gameplay was on point, the environments were awesome. It was a fun romp. I'm looking forward to the movie but, like everyone else, I'm not getting my hopes up. Most video game-based movies I've watched recently sucked, and the trailers so far haven't excited me at all.