Other : The Lara Croft Website
In the past, Lara used to have an official website just for herself ~ www.laracroft.co.uk. If you try it now, it won't work. If you try it with .com, it will redirect to the Square Enix Tomb Raider website. It used to be a nice way to learn all you could about the woman herself and anything to do with her world that's not necessarily about the games.
Here we will be using Web Archive captures to document the history, and we'll be looking into the UK version of the site, but there will be mentions to French and German versions. There are also links provided in italics so that you may explore the site for yourself if you wish.
You can view the various pieces of web art here.
Here we will be using Web Archive captures to document the history, and we'll be looking into the UK version of the site, but there will be mentions to French and German versions. There are also links provided in italics so that you may explore the site for yourself if you wish.
You can view the various pieces of web art here.
1998 & 1999
The Official Lara Croft website went live on April 6th 1998, but for one week only, the only way to access it was through the 'MegaStar' website. MegaStar was the online version of Express Newspapers' 'Daily Star', and they frequently worked with Eidos Interactive since its own launch [source].
The very first version of the Lara Croft website was through the Eidos website rather than being its own, however the web link 'Laracroft.co.uk' does exists but it redirects to 'Eidos.co.uk/Lara' - named to be "Lara's Official UK Website". Most of the links on this page link to an Eidos page. The web capture is the earliest for this site, dated to May 1999, but the copyright line at the bottom is dated to 1998 for Tomb Raider III. It doesn't get updated until 2000. Content included information about Lara, her weapons, outfits and even some pictures that you could send to friends. There aren't pictures but in 1998, the postcards were called 'Flyer', 'Karate', 'See Ya Later', 'Leather', 'Thru the Wall' and 'Stand Shadow'. In 1999 the eCards were named 'Bikini', '4level' and 'pic2'. Home Page | Postcards | eCards MegaStar Launch Platform 2000
It is in early 2000 that the site holds valuable information about Lara, her outfits, weapons, the official model, bare essentials, letters to Lara and some other exclusives. This is the homepage - more of a landing page really, as clicking on the image takes you to Lara's biography (Lara's Past). Sadly, it goes to an incomplete page that is missing pictures, but a later date capture shows the full page. The link underneath, for new merchandise, leads to an Eidos Interactive eStore for Tomb Raider merchandise.
The Bare Essentials page talks about Lara's 3D model and how it was created. The Model page has information about Lucy Clarkson, but when the first TR movie was released, the page was updated and there was also a section for Angelina Jolie too. Landing Page | Lara's Biography | Bare Essentials | Arsenal | Designer Wardrobe | Exclusives | Letters to Lara | News | Model | Model (Updated Page to include AJ) ALSO SEE: Web Art featuring Lara's Arsenal and Wardrobe 
The Lara Croft website was available to French fans through the Eidos-France website. The earliest capture of the home page is in late 2000 but the biography page is captured in January 2000, so it is possible that the site existed earlier to match the English counterpart. It looks very similar to the UK version, however it doesn't have a landing page with just a logo; it instead joins the landing page with a page that has a sidebar.
Home Page | News | Lara's Biography | Bare Essentials | Wardrobe | Arsenal | Exclusives | Letters to Lara | The Movie | Model 
The Lara Croft website was also meant to be available to German fans too, however following laracroft.de takes you to a page that mentions that it is under construction. Using the web archive, we can't find any pages to visit as it appears to remain in construction, however we know that at some point it was active as a German Eidos newsletter points to this site, to a page called 'Secret' in 2003 for Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. Sadly, you can't view this page either.
Home Page 2005
Come early 2005 and the website no longer existed; the domain wasn't registered anymore.
However an October 2005 capture shows that the site exists but it shows the same content as the official Tomb Raider website - which at that time, was Tomb Raider: Legend. This is a landing page for the various regional websites. The US and German links go to the official TR website but the UK and French links go to an Eidos Page. It is worth noting that Legend had a Flash website so it cannot be viewed in browsers anymore. Landing Page 2006
Into a February 2006 capture, Italy has been added to the links. In March, Spain, Portugal and Greece have links too. In June, Poland was added, but it links to a fansite, 'traider.pl/legend'.
A November 2006 capture shows an updated landing page that link to both the Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Anniversary websites. February Landing Page | March Landing Page | June Landing Page | TRaider.pl/legend | November Landing Page
2007
A February 2007 web capture shows that the Lara Croft website no longer acts as a portal page but instead shows the same content as the Tomb Raider website. As the picture above shows, it isn't viewable now as it was a Flash website.
February Capture 2008
A late July capture show that the website again became a portal page for Tomb Raider: Underworld, linking to various region TR websites.
The last capture for 2008 shows that between September and December, the website was updated to show the various links on the official TR website, such as blogs, latest news, latest screenshots, etc, and it included a countdown timer for the game's release. July Capture | December Capture 
2009 & 2010
For some reason, the captures at the beginning of the year show that the website returned to the portal page that it was in July 2008. It remained this way for the rest of the year but the graphics were updated around November to show a render of Lara.
November Capture 2011
The only capture for this year shows that the site was updated to present the latest game, which was meant to release in 2012. You could change the region from US to UK, Germany, France, Spain or Italy. Most of the links across the top go to an age gate page that you cannot use, but the blog link goes to the official Tomb Raider Tumblr blog (before it changed its name to the current one). The links in the red box flick to various sections that show related content but you can't view them or get the images any bigger. You can however use the 'lights' feature to make the website a little darker. A logo at the bottom of the page says that the website was created by 'Petrol Interactive'.
In 2012, the link of 'laracroft.co.uk' redirects to the Tomb Raider official website. However, the LC site does still exist if you bypass the original URL and go to page called 'Index'. It looks much the same as it did in 2011 and it has updates that show new content, like Christmas wallpapers and Tweets from the official Twitter account. Home Page | Official Tomb Raider Blog | 2012 Capture From 2013 onwards, the 'laracroft.co.uk' website no longer exists. If you type in 'laracroft.com', you'll be redirected to the Tomb Raider Square Enix website instead.
|
