Tomb Raider 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:turns 25 this year, and while the next title is still a ways off, we know it will attempt to reunite the g💟lobetrotting, actio𝐆n movie tones of the original games with the more gritty and grounded reboot of younger Lara. Quite how this will wor😼k is unclear, and we don’t know if that means just adhering to the structure of the older games 🅘or fully folding them into the canon. One thing’s for sure though: whatever Lara’s future is, Sam needs to be in it.
Sam - full name Samantha Nishimura - was introduced i🌞n 2013’s Tomb Raider, along with a host of other characters i🥀n the reboot. She’s on the ill-fated expedition that ends in a shipwreck, and is ostensibly traveling with Lara to film a documentary about Lara’s discoveries, but is mainly there as Lara’s best friend. There was - and continues to be - a lot of speculation about whether Sam and Lara were ‘more than friends’, and that too is an important reason Sam needs to return, with more details since emerging on their relationship and its constraints.
There was a special level of depth to Sam and Lara’s interaction that the game seemed to constantly tease and then never get to. This wasn’t a pally Drake and Sully bond, it was Max and Chloe, Ellie and Riley - hell, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:it was Joker and Ryuji. It always felt like their relationship was holding something back, and if she does return, it seems like now she will finally get to embrace who sh♕e is. But it’s not just for representation that I’d like to see Sam return. She was a big part of what ꦓmade the first game in the reboot trilogy so special, and the sequels suffered for not having her there.
Before we get to that though, let’s dive into the first (reboot) Tomb Raider itself. Lara starts the game with Sam and a group of other friends on this expedition, each of whom have very clear roles. Lara and the ship’s captain, Conrad Roth, are the two explorers, while Sam is the documentarian. There’s also an engineer by the name of Joslin Reyes, Alex Weiss the technician, and Jonah Maiava, the chef. Jonah is fairly underdeveloped in this ga𝓡me, but gets especially strong development in Shadow, so for him, it balances out. With Sam, no such luck. Anyway, during the shipwreck, all of the crew are separated and stranded on the beach, and Lara slowly reunites with them as she makes her way through the game, all while keeping an eye on the main reason 🌊she’s there at all; the mystery of Yamatai. Once she meets Sam though, after their emotional reunion, they quickly meet Mathias, a man who apparently lives on the island. He offers to protect them, but ends up kidnapping Sam in the night, meaning Lara has to save her best friend all over again.
This is where the two plot strands of Tomb Raider unite. Mathias believes that Sam is the key to awakening the spirit of Himiko, the dead god worshipped by the cult on the island of Yamatai. In saving Sam, Lara also discovers the mysteries she has been seeking since the start of the game, and this makes the experience much more streamlined and cohesive. What’s more, Mathias is not delirious after years on a strange island, but is completely correc♕t; Sam does awaken Himiko, leading to the climactic final assault on the cult by Lara to save Sam from the clutche﷽s of this god. It positions Sam as a key figure in the reboot mythos, then seemingly forgets about her.
Followinജg that, Sam skipped both Rise and Shadow, with no real reason given. Fans have speculated that Sam was simply too traumatised but for one thing, that’s not accurate to the comics, and for another, at least damn well tell us that! Show us some consequences of this gritty reboot, give us human stories that matter. Don’t just hand us a brilliant new character then tell us she can’t come out to play 🃏because she’s too sad.
Truthfully, I actually think Rise is the strongest of the t🌜hree, having learned from the first game’s missteps whi🍌le not over correcting them as Shadow did, but it definitely misses Sam’s presence. Lara has no one else she feels as close to, and so her on screen chemistry takes a bit of a tanking. The reboot Lara is deliberately stripped of her James Bond, Indiana Jones style suaveness in favour of realism, but without Sam there to bounce off, Lara’s realism feels flat and dull.
It’s not like Sam was conveniently snipped out of the story because she had nothing else to offer, either. In the comics, Sam’s story continues to unfold, where she is kidnapped once more and is still possessed by Himiko’s soul. That’s a pretty big loose thread for the games to leave open, especial♛ly when it means abandoning a key character with little reason offered.
This is also where the idea of Lara and Sam’s closeness comes back into it. Gail Simone, best known for her Birds of Prey and Wonder Woman comics, tweeted last year that she thought Lara and Sam were “10000% gay for each other. It’s not even subtext,” prompting a💦 reply from Tomb Raider comic writer Jac🥀kson Lanzing. “We tried so hard to make it canon,” Lanzing said. “We had an entire issue in TR: Inferno dedicated to Lara finally, fully understanding her feelings for Sam. By the time it went to publishing, their culm💃inating kiss had become a friendly hug.”
This neutering of Sam and Lara’s arc in the comic is a metaphor for Sam’s presence in the games as a whole. There was so much potential offered upfront, yet the sequels washed most of it away. I’m not sure whether♎ the next Tomb Raider game will involve a time skip, will fold old characters into the new reboots as Shadow’s (𝐆eventually cut) Natla ending did, or will try and continue Shadow with more of a Legend or Chronicles vibe, but however they do it, Sam needs to be there. Oh, and this time, please let them kiss.