Lara Croft Sets Two New Guinness World Records
Lara Croft, the leading lady in the Tomb Raider franchise, is now the proud owner of not one but two Guinness World Records. After two decades of being the most badass woman in the business Lara now holds the record for ‘Most Magazine Covers for a Videogame Character’ and ‘Largest Gathering Of People Dressed As Lara Croft’. Well, 270 other people own that second record but Lara Croft is the inspiration and the namesake obviously.
Since making her video game debut in 1996, Lara Croft has been featured front-and-center on approximately 1,230 magazine covers spanning film, culture, lifestyle, and video game publications such as TIME Digital, Entertainment Weekly, Mad, PlayStation Magazine, and PC Gaming. With new covers from around the world being unearthed every day, that number grows to over 1,400 when factoring in covers that saw Lara alongside a co-star. These covers include portrayals of Lara Croft through official video game artwork, original illustrations, parody cartoons, and real-life photo-shoots with official Lara Croft models and actresses. You can check out a bunch of those covers over on the Tomb Raider Flickr feed.
Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix also hosted a cosplay gathering at Paris Games Week on Saturday, October 29th as part of the ongoing celebration of 20 years of Tomb Raider. During the cosplay gathering, the European Tomb Raider community – spearheaded by passionate French fans – broke the Guinness World Record for the ‘Most People Dressed as Lara Croft’ in a single venue, drawing a crowd of 270 Tomb Raiders total. Fans could dress as any of the hundreds of official Lara Croft representations from the past 20 years, with participants donning costumes from the games, comics, movies, and even obscure fashion renders.
Lara’s two new Guinness World Records titles are added to an already impressive roster. Lara was awarded six records in the Guinness World Records 2010 Gamers Edition, including the Most Successful Video Game Heroine, Most Recognizable Female Character in a Video Game, Most Detailed Video Game Character, Most Official Real Life Stand-Ins, Highest Grossing Computer Game Spin-off, and Most Successful Live-Action Transfer.
Congrats Tomb Raider and Lara Croft!