本文介绍古墓丽影3代相关的一些非常少见的周边收藏。此文的作者是来自西班牙的收藏家罗德里戈·马丁（Rodrigo Martin），本站古墓丽影世界探访系列中就曾采访过他（点击阅读）。以下是原文，本站正在翻译中。
——原文网址：https://tombraider25.square-enix-games.com/en-us/tr3/blog/treasure-hunters/
04.08.2021
Treasure Hunters: Tomb Raider III
After the tour we did last month with Tomb Raider II, this month we are going to analyze some of the weirdest merchandise that appeared for "Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft" (1998). Before we get into it, let's put some historical context in which this game was developed.
We are in 1998, the sales of the previous games in the franchise continue to rise, each reaching 7 million units sold, a historical figure for a British video game developed by Core Design's small team. On the other hand, Tomb Raider III would achieve another 6 million units sold in the houses of her followers and Lara saw a rising fame consecrating her icon level.
The Core Design´s development team was beginning to notice the accumulated fatigue when the idea of going on with the third installment was presented without delay. Several Core developers contacted Jeremy Heath-Smith asking him for two years to develop the next episode. According to Yin-Poole (2016) in the interview for Eurogamer, the producer responded with a refusal, of which the developers had to rethink their position in Core. Some members left Core due to annual development demands, but most of the team that participated in the previous two games remained for the development of Tomb Raider III despite the circumstances, and the large amount of money they were in charging. The checks ranged up to £ 300,000, fixing the lives of many of those who received it and making up for the difficult months of work to go through before Croft's third adventure saw the light of day. 8 months of hard development and negotiations with Eidos Interactive resulted in the release of Tomb Raider III on November 16th, 1998.
Lara Croft's public image continued to be sold en masse to the world through merchandising deals and publicity campaigns such as a series of Playmates figures, which featured Lara in diorama form in various mythical scenes of the saga. Some more interesting products also appeared such as a memory card with her torso to "Let Lara Croft save her own adventures on the PlayStation!", as indicated on the official product box as well as a collection of pens from the brand "Waterman”. The television also received an ad of the archaeologist when she starred in some commercials for the British energy drink called Lucozade. In the commercial, she appeared in a tomb being chased by a group of demonic dogs and when surrounded she managed to get rid of them thanks to the energy provided by the soda, which in turn was the relic that the tomb housed. There was also a second advertisement for Lara Croft in the jungle chased by a man with a chainsaw.
In addition to television, Croft made a cameo appearance in the music video for the German group Die Ärtez's song “Männer sind Schwaine,” where she appeared with her famous dual pistols shooting explosive barrels, engaging in a gunfight with the gang and using her wits to beat them.
Still, the rise to fame beyond the video game sphere began in March 1998, when Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to create the first film of Tomb Raider. At E3 1998, the future intrusion of Tomb Raider into celluloid was announced, an event that featured the appearance of the new model Nell McAndrew. The producers assigned to bring Lara to the big screen were Lawrence Gordon and Lloys Levin. Although the film was announced in 1998 it was not until 2001 that it was released after several script changes and agreements with Eidos.
For the most staunch fans, this was some of the most desired merchandising that appeared at this time, and we will detail it below:
The launch party for “Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft” took place at the Natural History Museum in London (UK) on October 15th, 1998. This event brought together both development staff and the press. During the event, this exclusive golden statue of Lara Croft was distributed to attending members of the press. A total of 100 numbered golden statues were made at the bottom of its base.
Over the years, countless replicas have appeared that tried to simulate their special golden hue, especially knowing the high economic level they reach in auctions, but only the real ones have numbering on the base. One way to differentiate a real statue from a replica is by looking at the hue of its gold paint. In general, in the replicas the tone is uniform as if it had been spray painted, however, in the original version it has a variable shade of gold at different points in addition to having a darkened varnish on both the base and the statue.
During the late 90s and early 2000s, navel piercings became very fashionable, which is why Lara Croft wore one in different renders with her blue Nevada military outfit. As part of the promotion for Tomb Raider III in Germany, the distribution company Koch Media Germany came up with this peculiar promotional item. The famous Lara Croft piercing was given away in promotions, later becoming a difficult object to obtain and a jewel for collectors.
German reissue of Tomb Raider III for PC came in a large gold box. Sadly, it doesn't come with extras other than the game, a manual, and a German Tomb Raider merchandise booklet, but it does have a cool box design. Over the years this edition has become highly sought after by collectors, in part thanks to the beautiful cover image and the glitter of the gold cardboard that covers the product.
This is a Tomb Raider III promotional standee used in stores and points of sale in 1998. Nowadays it is really rare to find this type of promotional advertising in perfect condition, knowing the amount of time that has passed and being an object that is usually discarded after the promotional campaign is over.
Original negatives from E3 in 1998 pertaining to the press conference for the official reveal of the first Tomb Raider movie, as well as a photo session with Lara Croft's model, Nell McAndrew. The negatives were part of the private collection of Eidos Interactive (United Kingdom) within its historical archive.
Two promotional posters for bus shelters from Lara Croft's campaign for Lucozade. Lara Croft was the promotional image of the energy drink from 1998 to 2001, concluding with the first film of the franchise. The collaboration became a reality again in 2018 with Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Tomb Raider III official calendar for the year 1999. It was published by Prima Publishing. During this time it was common to put on sale the respective annual calendar with 12 different artworks. Today it continues to be a rare object that usually fetches high prices at auction thanks to nostalgic fans.
This has been my selection of products for Tomb Raider III, I hope you found them interesting. If you want to know more about Tomb Raider merchandising, I'm Rodrigo Martín and you can follow me on my Tomb Raider Collection website or through Facebook. Next month we will return with what for many is Lara Croft's most iconic adventure in Egypt, we will talk about "Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation" (1999).
