Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider tells an intense, gritty origin story for Lara Croft, charting her transformation from a young woman into a hardened survivor. Armed with raw instincts and the will to push beyond human endurance, Lara must fight to uncover the dark history of a forgotten island and escape its relentless grip.

The game begins with Lara Croft embarking on her first expedition aboard the Endurance, determined to find the lost kingdom of Yamatai. At Lara’s urging—and against Whitman’s advice—the crew ventures into the Dragon’s Triangle east of Japan. A violent storm wrecks the ship, stranding the survivors on an isolated island. Separated from the others, Lara is captured by a strange, savage man. She escapes as the cave collapses due to her actions, killing her captor. Searching for the rest of the crew, she finds signs the island is inhabited: eerie carvings, dead bodies, and animal sacrifices. Lara eventually meets up with her friend Sam and a man named Mathias, who claims to be a teacher shipwrecked on the island. As Sam tells Mathias the legends of Himiko, Lara passes out; when she wakes, both Sam and Mathias are gone. Lara reunites with the other survivors. Whitman joins Lara to search for the still-missing Roth, while Reyes, Jonah, Alex, and Grim go looking for Sam and Mathias. Exploring together, Lara and Whitman confirm the island is Yamatai and discover the inhabitants worship Himiko. After finding a shrine built in Himiko’s name, they are captured and taken to a settlement along with other Endurance survivors. During an escape attempt, the captors turn on them. Lara is separated from Whitman, forced to kill an attacker, and fights her way out before reuniting with Roth and saving him from a wolf attack. Lara activates a radio tower and calls for help, but the responding plane is struck by a freak storm. Over the radio, she hears a mysterious voice say “No one leaves” in Japanese. Lara cannot save the surviving pilots. Alex and Reyes contact her with urgent news: Sam has been kidnapped by the islanders, a violent cult known as the Solarii Brotherhood. Lara tries to rescue Sam but is stopped by Mathias, the Solarii leader, who orders her killed. She survives only because she is attacked by samurai-like Oni. Escaping the ancient monastery where the Oni take her, Lara learns from Sam that Mathias plans to put her through the “Ascension,” a “fire ritual” meant to find the next Sun Queen—one that will burn Sam to death if it fails. Lara follows them to the Solarii fortress with Grim’s help. The Solarii seize Grim, but he sacrifices himself so Lara can escape. With Roth’s support, Lara infiltrates the fortress and witnesses the ritual begin. When the fires are lit, a great wind blows them out, revealing Sam as the next Sun Queen. Lara escapes and reunites with her friends, and together they plan to rescue Sam and flee the island. With help from Whitman—who has negotiated some freedom with the Solarii—Lara returns to the palace to save Sam, while Roth commandeers a helicopter for their escape. Lara succeeds, but when she sees another storm building as the helicopter approaches, she convinces Sam to flee by land instead. As Lara tries to force the pilot to land, the helicopter crashes and she nearly dies. Roth revives Lara, then takes a fatal blow from Mathias meant for her. Grieving Roth, Lara accepts the storms are not natural and are somehow tied to the Sun Queen, meant to prevent anyone from leaving. She reunites with the remaining survivors, who have secured a boat for escape if they can repair it. Whitman returns, claiming he escaped, but Lara begins to suspect he is working with the cult. Lara and Alex search the wreck of the Endurance for parts. When the Solarii attack, Alex triggers an explosion and sacrifices himself so Lara can escape with the tools. After finding records of a World War II-era Japanese military and Nazi scientific expedition that tried to harness Yamatai’s storms as a weapon, Lara explores a coastal tomb. There she discovers the remains of a samurai general who committed seppuku. His message reveals he once led the Queen’s Stormguard—the Oni who defend the monastery—and that the Queen’s successor took her own life rather than receive the Sun Queen’s power. Lara realizes the Ascension is not a coronation, but a ritual that transfers the original Sun Queen’s soul into a new body. The Sun Queen achieved a form of immortality by moving her soul into a young girl each time she grew old. The last priestess’ suicide disrupted the ritual and left the Queen’s soul trapped in her decaying body, and Himiko’s spirit has sought to escape that corpse ever since. As a descendant of Yamatai, Sam is a viable host, and Mathias intends to offer her to Himiko in exchange for his freedom. Returning to the beach, Lara finds Whitman has betrayed the group: he abducts Sam and delivers her to Mathias. Lara, Jonah, and Reyes pursue them upriver to the monastery. Lara arrives in time to see Mathias trick Whitman into speaking to the Oni; the Oni kill Whitman. Fighting through both the Solarii and the Stormguard, Lara reaches the top of the monastery, where Mathias is performing the Ascension. Lara battles her way to the central platform and, after a struggle, knocks Mathias to his death—symbolically using both her pistol and his in a dual-wield style that later becomes one of her signatures. But the ritual has already begun, and Himiko’s soul starts pouring into Sam. Lara destroys Himiko’s ancient remains, saving Sam and dispersing the storms. Lara, Sam, Reyes, and Jonah finally leave Yamatai and are rescued by a cargo ship. As they sail home, Lara realizes the myths her father told were more than stories, decides not to return home just yet, and the screen fades to white with the declaration: “A Survivor is Born.”