Tomb Raider at Christmas

Over the years, fans and developers have come together to warmly wish happy Christmases to all. Below, we have gathered various items from official sources as well as links to nostalgic fan work for your pleasure over the festive season.

Official Renders

~ Some of these renders were large enough to be used as wallpapers. ~

Unofficial Renders

~ Seen on the fan site 'Core-Design'. ~

Wallpapers

~ An interesting fact: the first render was created by Phil Chapman [1]. ~

Fan Wallpapers

~ These were created by fan site 'Tomb Raider Chronicles' and can be downloaded from here. They are available in sizes 1024x768 and 1280x1024. ~

Official Screensaver

This charming screensaver was given out by Eidos at the end of 1998. It features a lovely greeting from Lara and some Christmas music, all whilst Lara throws snowballs at the screen. You can still download it from fan site 'Core Design'. This version features an official copyright line and will show your current date, and the small animation will repeat on the screen in a different position. We did have a version that played just the animation in the middle of the screen but it no longer works.

Official Christmas Cards

Thanks to the Croft Times, we know what the second card reads:
'On the twelfth day of Christmas,
Eidos gave to me…
Twelve Bravehearts Beating, Eleven Reavers Reaping, Ten Commandos Fighting, Nine Gangsters Plotting, Eight Ninjas Kicking, Seven Thiefs a Looting, Six Deathtrap Dungeons, Five Waaaaaar…………zzzzzzzzzzones, Four Cutthroats, Three Holy Wars, Two Owen Goals
and Lara Croft
in Tomb Raider Three!!!
Best Wishes for Christmas and the New Year!’

Official Greetings From Eidos France

Back in 2002, the Eidos France website gave out their Christmas wishes in this Tomb Raider Flash file. It features AoD Lara in a festive themed outfit and a nice carol plays.

You can download it to see and hear it for yourself here, but in order to view it, you'll need a standalone Flash player.

Official Greetings From Crystal Dynamics

The first three were created for Crystal Dynamics by Angela Song.

In Game Outfits

The mobile game 'Lara Croft Relic Run' is the only game in the franchise to feature a Christmas themed outfit. Sadly, it was only available once for a limited time.

Icons

As you can see, officially there aren't many Christmas themed icons, but this one, for 'Lara Croft: Relic Run', was used on the Google Play Store.

Other Links

The Tomb Raider Advent Calendar
Created by fans in the TRLE community, the advent calendar is put together every year, and it often contains more than TRLE related goodies. As well as levels, fans offer out their objects to use in custom levels and recipes for Christmas inspired cooking.
Christmas Levels
We wanted to provide a link to a list of Christmas levels, however we can only point you in the right direction. Many fans will already know of this, but if you have some free time and fancy joining Lara for some Christmas adventures, you can visit TRLE.net. Remember to change the 'Class' Filter to 'Xmas'.
Christmas Music
There are even Christmas tunes for Tomb Raider, created by fans. We've only been able to find Marcus Trogen, who composed a track called 'Christmas Night'. Marcus was known in the Core Design years for his creation of TR music.

Christmas Merchandise

Eidos released a few items that were Christmas themed, though it doesn't seem like they did this past 1998. The gift tags could be found on the front of Wizard's December issues and feature characters from various comic franchises.

This set of images are not our own, as they are mostly taken from eBay listings, however, the images of the champagne bottle belongs to TRKuchen.