Tomb Raider Legend Story

The Story of Tomb Raider Legend focuses on Lara's search for her mother and the sword Excalibur.

Notice: Legend is essentially a reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise and makes very few references to any prior games and the storyline is standalone. There are, however, a few "Easter Eggs" referencing the previous games as well as the two feature films.

Official Synopsis

From the Eidos Website

Gaming's most famous heroine makes her triumphant return in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend! Lara Croft travels the globe in search of an ancient artifact and is pitted against rival forces...

From tombraider.com

Lara Croft's search for a South American relic changed course dramatically when she meets a dangerous figure from her past, and she finds herself in a race to recover one of history's most famous artifacts.

Full Story

When Lara Croft was just nine years old, the executive jet carrying her and her mother crashed into the Himalayas, leaving them as the only survivors. After taking shelter in the ruins of an ancient temple, Lara discovers an ornate stone dais holding a sword. Unwittingly activating the ancient artefact, Lara watches in horror as her mother vanishes in front of her eyes. Devastated, she left the pink book behind, in which the directions of how to open the portal were written.

Years later, Lara, with the help of Zip and Alister, travels to the ancient civilization of Tiwanaku in Bolivia, following a tip from university peer Anaya Imanu. Lara attempts to find an ornate stone dais similar to the one in Nepal. She soon runs into James Rutland and his mercenaries on the edge of Lake Titicaca, where the dais is situated. Old memories are brought back to haunt Lara as Rutland implies that her deceased friend Amanda Evert is still alive. After an intense battle, Rutland as well as most of the mercenaries escape in the helicopter. Left alone, Lara then examines the stone dais and finds that it is similar to the one in Nepal. A sword must be placed into the slot of the dais in order to activate the portal. Desperate to understand what happened to her mother, Lara decides to retrieve the sword.

Lara meets up with Anaya at the village, and after an attack from the mercenaries, whom Rutland sent to stop them, they manage to reach the tomb in Paraíso, where a tragedy befell Lara and her friends many years ago. When Lara was a student on an archaeological excavation, a mysterious demon was released which killed most of the team except for Amanda and Lara. Amanda managed to seemingly destroy the demon by removing a mysterious glowing red stone from a wall. This, however, left to a cave-in. In their attempt to escape, the cave was filled with water and Amanda was buried in falling stones and boulders.

In the present, Lara discovers that her old friend had apparently escaped and learns the legend of Tiwanaku's Queen. The Queen rose to power after meeting a shaman with a magical staff and was shortly brought to paradise by a woman in a lake after an epic final battle, the culmination of a struggle for power. Lara realizes that the tomb of the Queen of Tiwanaku is linked to Bolivia, the incident in Nepal when she was a child and possibly even Arthurian Legend. Later on, she learns about the sword piece that is believed to be a part of the Excalibur. To her surprise she realizes that the artefact she is hunting has already been discovered, and is in the 'care' of Yakuza boss Shogo Takamoto, who had it stolen from Waseda University.

Lara's journey takes her to Japan, where her media mogul friend Nishimura assists Lara in finding Takamoto so that she can negotiate. Nishimura arranges a party for them to meet. Takamoto, however, ruins the party and refuses to negotiate, since he bears grudges with her over an incident some years ago. He orders his henchmen to kill Lara as he escapes. Lara kicks of her shoes and rips of the side of her dress while taking cover from the henchmen's fire. Lara overpowers all the henchmen after a thrilling fire-fight. Barefoot and now in a ripped and revealing dress, Lara Croft is told by Nishimura that the only way to get Takamoto is through the construction site. He advises her to be careful and gives her the elevator pass to the roof. Lara ascends to the roof and swings over to Takamoto's apartment. Takamoto refuses to let her see the sword and leaves Lara to deal with his men. Lara eventually tracks Takamoto down to the roof of his penthouse, where she witnesses for herself the terrifying power of the sword fragment. Nonetheless, she manages to overcome Takamoto and retrieve this first artefact. The level ends with our barefoot heroine climbing up a wooden ladder into Nishimura's helicopter.

After being rescued by Nishimura, Lara proceeded to Ghana to chase Rutland, since he possessed a sword fragment. It was unknown where this sword fragment was found. She soon tracked him down to a mysterious, ancient temple hidden behind a spectacular waterfall. Strangely, her father had been here, since he had left a pendant behind. When she finally found Rutland, he told her about something called the Ghalali Key, believing it to be in Lara's possession. The Ghalali Key was probably found in this temple. Lara has no idea what he was talking about and this frustrated him. Rutland then attacked her using his sword fragment. Retrieving his sword fragment, Lara hastily left and received news from Zip and Alister that Amanda had searched her manor for the Ghalali Key whilst she was in Ghana. Both of them were alright, though.

Lara came to a military base in Kazakhstan near the Soviet lab, where Rutland's men were quickly killing off the soldiers so that they could have control of the entire place. From there, she travelled in a motorcycle, and then on top of a train to an abandoned Soviet lab in Kazakhstan where experiments on a sword fragment led to its closing down fifty years ago. Lara caught up with Amanda, who is clearly still angry about being left behind in Paraíso. Lara quickly went after her and found her doing experiments on the third sword fragment. To Lara's horror, Lara realized that Amanda had become insane and she had used the stone to control the demon which killed their friends in Paraíso. She also realized that Amanda wanted to use the sword for her own selfish purposes. Lara fought it off and recovered the sword fragment from the Soviet machinery, destroying the entire lab in the process. Amanda managed to escape from the laboratory before it fell apart.

Following a map on the back of a shield also recovered from the Soviet lab, Lara's adventure surprisingly brings her home to England. She discovers the real King Arthur's tomb in Cornwall hidden under a tacky and now-derelict King Arthur tourist attraction, along with the fourth and final sword fragment. Lara realized that Arthur and his knights brought the fragments of Excalibur to locations across the world influencing the destinies of various civilizations, and that the entire court of Camelot actually existed. After battling a sea serpent-like creature, which was probably assigned to protect the place, hundreds of feet underground, Lara returns home to figure out how to put the sword back together. Lara realizes that the previously unknown Ghalali Key was in fact a pendant given to her mother by her father. It is also the one that her mother had with her when their plane crashed into the Himalayas.

Lara was thus forced to return to her past once again, as she tracked down the wreckage of the plane she was on in Nepal and recovered the Ghalali key before the plane fell off the cliff. She then returned to the temple where her mother lost her life, reassembled the sword, Excalibur, and using its awesome power to escape. Determined to use it onto the stone dais in Bolivia, she quickly returned with the sword.

Lara returned to the stone dais in Bolivia, where Amanda, Rutland and their mercenaries were waiting for her so that they could steal the sword away from her. In an effort to stop them from blocking her way, Lara cut through Rutland's men and unintentionally killed Rutland himself. Amanda rushed over to him, and he passed away in her arms. Feeling sorry for what Lara had done, she tried to patch up the things between both of them and suggested both of them to use the sword together. Furious, Amanda refused to listen and released the demon once again, this time merging with it. With the help of the Excalibur, Lara defeated the creature once and for all.

Following the directions from her book (It was again unknown how she got it) and opening the portal once more, Lara understood what happened with her mother, as she looked into the mirror of light and saw her. Lara realized that the mirror spans time and what she is seeing is her mother just moments before she was gone by removing the artefact. Her mother told Lara (not recognizing her) to leave her daughter alone and that she "meant no harm". Amanda wakes up and shouts at Lara to pull out the sword or it will explode. As Lara's mother heads this, she pulled out the sword, the same as she did all those years ago and the dais exploded. Lara, to her utmost shock, realized that Amanda was the one who 'killed' her mother.

Furious, Lara shot around Amanda to get answers, and Amanda gave in and said that her mother was in Avalon and not dead, where Amanda had wanted to go. Amanda then decided that since Lara would not believe her, she is wasting her breath. Lara knocked Amanda out, saying "From this moment, your every breath is a gift from me." Lara then left the place, now believing what her father thought and was extremely determined to make sure that she was able to get to Avalon and save her mother.