Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is a full remake of the original 1996 game, rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5 by Flying Wild Hog with Crystal Dynamics oversight, published by Amazon Games. It launches February 12, 2027. New voice actress Alix Wilton Regan plays Lara Croft, replacing Camilla Luddington who voiced the character across three reboot games.
In an interview with IGN published June 8, Wilton Regan was asked to describe her version of Lara in one word. Her answer was “unapologetic.” Then she explained what that means in practice.
“She’s so completely confident in herself, her abilities, her brain, her body, her being. She just doesn’t question herself. And I think, particularly as women, we spend a lot of time questioning ourselves. She doesn’t.”
Then she described who the game is for.
“One of the best feedback that we’ve had about this game and the people who are playing the demo is that the men are getting this confidence. This kind of Lara Croft charisma and sheen. It’s not just one for the women. It’s the girls. It’s the guys. It’s the gays.”
“The girls, the guys, the gays” has functioned as a progressive cultural signifier for years, a rhetorical construction that positions LGBTQ identity as a primary marketing audience while leaving straight men named only by implication. The framing reads as inclusive. Its function is to signal the ideological direction of the property to the communities the developers want to reach and, equally, to signal which audience is not being named.
That signal lands differently in the context of a franchise that spent fifteen years actively revising Lara Croft away from what she was.
The original Lara Croft, introduced in 1996, was one of gaming’s first unambiguously sexually confident female protagonists, a British aristocrat who combined physical danger with intelligence, sarcasm, and an appearance that was athletic and explicitly attractive. Her iconic look, the turquoise top, dual holsters, and ponytail, defined female character design in gaming for a generation.
The 2013 reboot by Crystal Dynamics stripped that away. The survival-horror Lara of Tomb Raider, Rise, and Shadow was deliberately vulnerable, grounded, and de-glamorized. The reboot trilogy sold across three entries but generated consistent audience commentary that the new Lara felt like a different character wearing the name.
Legacy of Atlantis follows the same track, with multiple fan communities on Reddit have praised the new design for combining classic Lara’s confidence and costume with modern visual fidelity. Modern is the key here.
The franchise has also expanded in other directions. Amazon’s Prime Video Tomb Raider series stars Sophie Turner as Lara Croft, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge as co-showrunner. When Turner was cast in September 2025, the initial reaction was skeptical. A first image released in January 2026 drew more mixed responses — the gear and weapons were recognizable, the casting question remained unresolved for many fans.
The game carries an additional controversy. Crystal Dynamics confirmed that AI-generated assets were used in Legacy of Atlantis’s production. The studio stated the AI assets have been removed or “refined,” but fans remain skeptical about what was AI-generated and whether the refinement is complete. The steelbook cover art drew specific scrutiny, with fans flagging visual artifacts consistent with AI generation. Crystal Dynamics has not specified which assets were affected or detailed what the refinement process involved.
The AI confirmation and the “girls, guys, and gays” framing arrive together. Lara Croft built thirty years of audience investment because she was a character who transcended demographics. Nobody marketed her to a list of identity groups. She was just compelling and people showed up.
The choice to market her remake using that specific phrase is a signal about whose enthusiasm the production is courting. The same publishers who made Wolverine for people unfamiliar with the X-Men, Masters of the Universe for an audience that didn’t show up, and God of War Laufey without the man whose name the franchise carries are now framing Lara Croft as a property assembled for a specific constituency.
Does the “girls, guys, and gays” framing change your plans for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis? Let us know in the comments.
When genetic engineering nearly doomed the species, humanity made a desperate bargain: let the frontier do what nature intended. In a harsh universe, these cadets have to make impossible decisions. Read Space Fleet Academy today.
NEXT: Stellar Blade: Blood Rain Protagonist Evie Divides Fans as CEO Defends Younger Design