Tomb Raider's Lara Croft named most iconic video game character of all time by BAFTA voters
The votes are in, and BAFTA has revealed the Most Iconic Video Games Character of All Time.
The poll was launched to celebrate two decades of the BAFTA Games Awards - it celebrates its 20th anniversary on 11 April. It was engaged with by more than 4,000 players from all over the world, who have named Lara Croft as the number one pick.
The generation-spanning star of the Tomb Raider franchise first appeared in 1996, and since then has been remastered and evolved several times for video games, film, television, and even her own live immersive experience in London.
Her credentials are impressive: 15 games; 3 movies (in which she was played by Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander); multiple novelisations and comic book adaptations; six Guinness World Records; and an upcoming Netflix animated series - Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, starring Hayley Atwell as the voice of Croft.
Super Mario followed in second place, and perhaps surprisingly, the third spot on the podium went to Agent 47 from the Hitman series.
Here is the full rundown of BAFTA’s most iconic video game characters of all time:
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
Mario, Super Mario
Agent 47, Hitman
Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog
Sackboy, LittleBigPlanet
Pac-Man, Pac-Man
Link, The Legend of Zelda
Master Chief, Halo
Kratos, God of War
Shadowheart, Baldur’s Gate 3
Arthur Morgan, Red Dead Redemption 2
Pikachu, Pokémon
Steve, Minecraft
Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid
Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot
Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy VII
Astarion, Baldur’s Gate 3
Kazuma Kiryu, Yakuza
Ellie Williams, The Last of Us
Nathan Drake, Uncharted
The live version of Lara Croft will be at the 2024 BAFTA Games Awards ceremony (on 11 April). Shelley Blond, the original voice of the heroine in 1996’s original Tomb Raider, will present an award.
In a statement, Blond, said that the game went "above and beyond any and all expectations" in cementing Croft in pop culture.
“I had no clue when voicing the original Tomb Raider game that it would be such a global phenomenon and neither did Eidos or Core Design. They had only ever done children’s games before and of course they hoped it would be a success, but I think it went above and beyond any and all expectations.”
Blond added: “When creating the voice for Lara Croft, it came just by looking at the rough sketches I had in front of me and I took note of the fact that she was a female Indiana Jones type of character, ballsy and well spoken. Lara is very special to me purely because she means so much to the gamers.”
The BAFTA Games Awards take place on Thursday 11 April at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.
