When Square Enix first announced that video game icon Lara Croft was to undergo a “reboot” back in 2010, the general response of fans and critics alike might have been characterized as one of cautious optimism. This was, after all, the tail end of the decade that had seen two of pop culture’s biggest and most enduring icons—Batman and James Bond—undergo wildly successful cinematic reimaginings.
Tomb Raider finally hit shelves in 2013, after an almost five-year development process. Drawing deep from the well of the Bond and Batman reboots for its origin story narrative, and lifting more than a few gameplay mechanics from Naughty Dog’s successful Uncharted series (which itself was influenced by earlier Tomb Raider titles), the reboot certainly made good on video game developer Crystal Dynamic’s promise to be “like no other” in the series before it.
It is a rare thing for video games to tackle the subject of organized religion, and rarer still for that subject to find…
