Both a reboot of and prequel to the 1996 Core Design game of the same name-and now available on next-generation hardware in a nominally upgraded “Definitive Edition” port, the industry equivalent of a Malibu Stacy doll packaged with a new hat-the 14th installment in the long-running, multi-platform franchise regards itself as an opportunity to reimagine not only its gameplay but, more significantly, its protagonist anew. Tomb Raider presents a somewhat intriguing case. In general developers defer to convention: cutscenes continue to suggest one thing while gameplay continues to suggest another. Irrational’s Bioshock, in its widely lauded last-act twist, reframed its hero’s campaign of undersea vigilantism as the work of a brainwashed cypher-a sly bit of meta-criticism that doubled as canny autocritique, albeit one that didn’t so much solve the problem of game characterization as smugly obviate it. Occasionally developers conspire to address this problem directly: Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, perhaps as a corrective gesture for the lunacy of Nathan Drake, sought to ground the actions of its sometimes ruthless co-leads in a world already drained of morality, where violence had become a compromise with emotional and psychological consequences. ![]() This is a dissonance to which we’ve long grown accustomed. Consider the literary axiom that a character ought to be defined by what he does rather than what he says: by this measure most videogame protagonists are indefatigable serial murderers unbothered by the slightest pang of remorse. ![]() ![]() Part of the problem, I think, is that traditional methods of characterization are next to impossible to reconcile with the fundamental mechanics of many games. There aren’t so many with whom you could imagine having a good conversation. There are plenty of taciturn warriors, wisecracking mercenaries, and gallant heroes with whom you could imagine entrusting the fate of the world. The world of videogames houses no shortage of iconic characters far scarcer among its populace, on the other hand, are interesting, well-realized, or marginally believable ones.
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