17 Gaming Secrets Only Losers Discover

5. The Midas Touch (Tomb Raider / Tomb Raider Anniversary)

Tomb Raider Anniversary
Eidos

As one of gaming’s eminent female badasses, fearless academic explorer Lara Croft has encountered all sorts of foes, fables and traps while scouring the world for priceless artifacts and personal answers.

Of course, her failures routinely have nasty consequences, and few are as horrifying as what happens if she makes a certain wrong move within the Palas Midas section of the original Tomb Raider or 2007’s remake: Tomb Raider: Anniversary

If you know the Greek/Roman myth of how King Midas turned everything he touched into gold, you can guess where this is going.

Basically, and in standard Tomb Raider fashion, Lara needs to roam around multiple rooms, manipulate switches, and open several doors as she tries to convert three lead bars into gold. To fully accomplish this, she has to place them by the hand of the Midas statue that’s buried in sand and tucked away near the garden area.

It sounds easy enough, but if Lara accidentally stands on Midas’ hand, she’ll watch in horror as she swiftly becomes a golden sculpture and falls down.

It’s amusingly on-the-nose punishment for a simple blunder, and unfortunately, Lara dies rather than getting the chance to learn from her mistake and carry on with her expedition.

 
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Hey there! Outside of WhatCulture, I'm a former editor at PopMatters and a contributor to Kerrang!, Consequence, PROG, Metal Injection, Loudwire, and more. I've written books about Jethro Tull, Opeth, and Dream Theater and I run a creative arts journal called The Bookends Review. Oh, and I live in Philadelphia and teach academic/creative writing courses at a few colleges/universities.