Sizzle: It comes as no surprise that someone already created a nude mod for the Tomb Raider Remastered collection. After all, even the original Laura Croft from the 90s eventually got stripped naked by horny coders. “Rule #34 There is porn of it. No exceptions.”
However, it is somewhat remarkable that the randy modder pushed out a topless Tomb Raider Remastered mod only 12 hours after the game launched yesterday. Developer mralexmods posted his mod on Nexus on February 14, at 10:05 pm. Happy Valentine’s Day indeed.
It was by no means the first mod released for the remade bundle. Within a few hours of its Wednesday morning launch, Nexus Mods users had posted over a dozen add-ons that could change various aspects of the game, including lip and hair color, sunglass style, button prompts, logos, splash screens, loading screens, and more.
Interestingly, seeing Laura Croft in the buff was a long-running fantasy of gamers even before anyone created a working mod. In 1996, speculation began spreading of there being a “nude code” for the game. This rumor sprung up back when there were entire magazines devoted to cheats and codes you could enter via controllers or console commands.
However, there was no basis for the rumor other than wishful thinking. In 2021, developers confirmed that no nude code ever existed in any Tomb Raider games. However, Eidos didn’t push back hard against the wild theories. On the contrary, it “leaned into it.”
Tomb Raider co-creator Paul Douglas mentioned that someone within the company suggested adding an adult secret Easter egg but was rebuffed.
“Even during development, someone in management, perhaps half-jokingly, asked us for something similar, and we told them to bog off,” Douglas told TheGamer. “What was a little surprising is how long the publisher leaned into it.”
Programmer Gavin Rummery claimed the team was offended by the rumor.
“It annoyed us because a) it didn’t exist and b) it meant we’d meet people at parties who thought we were perverts making pornographic video games for children,” Rummery said. “Our response was to add the ‘shower scene’ at the end of Tomb Raider 2 where Lara shoots the player for daring to try and spy on her undressing.”
However, was that the 1996 Rummery talking or the more politically correct 2021 Rummery? They were wildly different eras. Even Douglas acknowledged that fact.
“Alas, those were the days when all publicity was seen as good regardless [of] how it depicted the character,” he said.
It was eventually a moot point when someone finally modded the texture files, ushering in a very real (and perhaps the first) nudity mod known as “Nude Raider.” Eidos subsequently had the website hosting the modification taken down. Since then, there have been dozens of nude mods for dozens of other games, including the recent Tomb Raider reboots. It shows that whether it’s an in-game mod, fan art, or a Blender animation, nothing escapes Rule 34.