10 Gaming Endings That Basically Doomed The Franchise

The marketing for Shadow of the Tomb Raider seemed to suggest that the game was going to offer up an atypical spin on the adventure franchise's formula, by examining the impact of Lara Croft's globe-trotting, artefact-thieving behaviour on the civilisations that reside there.

But despite teasing Lara to be the game's true villain with some of her more reckless actions throughout the game - namely stealing a dagger which brings forth the apocalypse - she's ultimately restored to her regular white saviour mode by game's end.

While the game could've ventured in one of several truly bold directions, the status quo is largely restored by the time the credits roll, with the asterisk that Lara will now try to protect rather than steal things during her adventures.

But now that the series has fully drawn attention to how much of a douchebag Lara is, doesn't it somewhat take the fun out of it?

By showing the consequences of her blinkered, privileged adventuring upon indigenous civilisations - as in, literally getting innocent people killed - it's going to be tough to engage with the next game with quite the same oorah flippancy.