Lara Croft's many adventures have seen numerous highs and lows—from a sales standpoint, that is. After debuting strong with 1996's Tomb Raider, the series has had some hits and misses. What was Lara's biggest miss?
According to recently released lifetime sales figures from Eidos' new owner Square Enix, it appears to be Tomb Raider Anniversary, the remake of the original Tomb Raider, released in 2007. Somewhat surprising, considering that game was actually quite good, in contrast to Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, which was not good in almost any sense. Anniversary was even outsold by the phoned-in Chronicles, when Eidos grunted out five games in just five years.
Lara's appeal has definitely become more selective over the past 13 years, as shown in Square Enix's report on Eidos star franchise.
Some positive figures there for Tomb Raider: Underworld, which seems to have turned things around a bit after the release of Anniversary, but we doubt that Lara will ever experience the glory days of Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider II.
Square Enix has also revealed lifetime to date sales figures for Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts, which number crunchers will want to file away in the unoccupied areas of their brains.