The announcement that Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft is going for a second season, dropping on December 11, poses quite a bombshell from Netflix. Any fans of the original show or just any incarnation of the character will be quite happy that Hayley Atwell is back to voice the iconic adventurer. It was said on the official Tomb Raider Twitter account before redirecting readers to further information alongside the obligatory Netflix Geeked tweet. And the reactions from the players? It is completely ranged and wild, witnessing the schism of opinions on this show from all sides.
Right off the bat, season 2 happened, and it’s coming out in just a few months on Netflix. There has been such a fast turnaround that would truly justify whether these were in development for a very long while or they wanted to cash in on the first-season hype. Lara Croft by Hayley Atwell is an even bigger split opinion among people; for the rest of us, it’s continuity-wise a good thing for the show to be in the larger Tomb Raider universe, and with some strong talks about a new game hitting sooner rather than later, maybe this is just one part of a wider campaign to keep people interested. Either that or they’re just giving us all something to talk about while we wait.
Let me get into that because oh! The replies are something else. With it’s completely obvious that the Tomb Raider community is split between love and hate for this. Some are super excited, with charmbracelet20 loudly proclaiming “YESSSSS CANNOT WAIT,” which may very well go down as an iconic response to this whole thing. Then there is MasterGamer hyped and totally cannot wait for the trailer; like, where even is the trailer? PePhung24 is still calling for it, shouting “WHERE IS THE TRAILER RREEEEE 😭😭😭😭,” and honestly, could not have said it better; it’s everybody’s turn to find out what’s coming.
On the flip side: negativity is coming hard. DiamondBack662 went there: “I’m a huge Lara Croft fan, but this isn’t Lara Croft…” which is exactly how the majority of the players felt about the first series. What they argued over seems to be about character design and personality, with GatorGatekeeper wondering whether she’s “not gonna be chunky this time”—season 1 design basically killed the interest of his friend group. Ouch. Then Leonel_Gun went full-out in calling the first one “garbage.” So, there is a clear division over this mode of representation for Lara.
Now let’s see the show will be plagued by drama about Jonah, who’s a character from the first series it seems. Joe: “PLEASE KILL OFF JONAH 💜” and in another tweet, “hopefully, he’s not in the main cast.” Daniel, though, states “as per the article, he indeed is in the main cast.” Oh, that stirs up some drama in the comments! Others, meanwhile, want to talk more about Sam, with ltzsa just saying “Sam please 🙏,” and Aurora wants to “replace Jonah with Sam, or whatever.” It is a pop rumble that refuses to keep the thought of this show to itself.
Good times in there, too, with The_P_I_G commenting, “and the crowd goes mild,” perfectly capturing the ambivalent reactions. Then KittyCroft rants about how if Lara cries even once or is subjected to any of that “gay bullshit forced on her character,” they’re done with the franchise, which… is an opinion that could stir up some conflict. Era_Of_Bliss basically echoes that crybaby sentiment with “Pls no more crying that ain’t Lara,” so evidently, there was just too many tearjerker moments in Season 1 that rubbed some of the players the wrong way. ThePandaBacon gave a joke that “She’s getting ready to cry even harder,” so brilliantly funny.
But the critics aren’t alone. There are pleas for the classic outfit and braid, with canary_khan asking if she’ll have them by the end of the season. Plus, Jwood1603 pointed out that all this Tomb Raider content might be coming right before a new game reveal, which would be sick. Then the rest of us are just giddy for more stuff, like AergesMonstrum throwing down some excited emojis and wztmaizen saying, “Yes Let’s Go!!” So, it really is this whirlpool of hype and doubt.
So funnily enough, the show sits within the larger Tomb Raider ecosystem. The first season was a part of Netflix’s push present gaming-animated series, and Hayley Atwell, being a major name due to all her Marvel stuff, certainly adds more UPC star power. But if players are this divided, it might be a sign for the showrunners to incorporate feedback into the second season. Whether they’re going to curb all the crying, up the action, or come back to the classics, the expectations that will be pinned on them is deserving. And there is no coming out in December; it’s just a short time now!
It’s generally wonderful that Tomb Raider is getting more love into animation, and the second season in the and greenlit surely proves that Netflix sees potential here. But the player response on the other hand just goes to show that adapting such an iconic character is quite complicated. Every one of them in the audience has their own Lara trademark-to-either-the-classic-badass or the-soaked-in-tears-lockdown-of-sorting-reboot, and pleasing them all is impossible. For those who liked the first series, though, there is no time to spare; December 11 can’t come fast enough. For the haters, it’s a gamble if the second season wins them over. Or not; who knows? At least we have more Tomb Raider stuff coming our way. So mark December 11th and prepare to dive back into the legend in whatever shape it takes now.
