Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered adds racial and ethnic content warning

Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered begins with a content warning that explains the trilogy contains “offensive depictions of people and cultures rooted in racial and ethnic prejudices”.

The message states that these depictions are “inexcusable” but have been kept intact to acknowledge their “deeply harmful” inclusion and learn from it.

There’s no detail in the statement on which specific elements of the games it refers to – though one likely example can be found in Tomb Raider 3, Eurogamer fans of the games tell me, where stereotypical South Pacific islanders attack Lara Croft with bows and arrows.

The games’ opening statement, first reported by IGN, can be seen in full in the image below.

Its full text reads:

“The games in this collection contain offensive depictions of people and cultures rooted in racial and ethnic prejudices. These stereotypes are deeply harmful, inexcusable, and do not align with our values at Crystal Dynamics.

“Rather than removing this content, we have chosen to present it here in its original form, unaltered, in the hopes that we may acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it.”

Statements such as this are still rare in video games, though have been used by online streaming services to flag elements of older TV series and movies now widely-judged offensive.

Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered launches for PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S tomorrow, 14th February – Lara’s birthday.

New additions to Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered include a photo mode, the ability to toggle more modern controls, 3D items to replace flat 2D sprites, improved lighting, animations and other visuals.