Tomb Raider Co-Creator Responds To New Lara Croft Controversy

Tomb Raider co-creator Paul Douglas has responded to a new controversy involving the latest release.

We’re still waiting on a new Tomb Raider adventure (come on now, Crystal Dynamics), but in the meantime we’ve been able to enjoy Lara's return in the form of the recent remasters by Aspyr.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered and Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered serve as remasters of the first six games in the series, featuring new graphics, improved controls, and additional features.

The latter release has landed itself in a spot of controversy following the launch of Patch 2, however. As spotted by Tomb Raider fan account @infinitytombraider on Bluesky, it’s claimed that some voiceover lines in the new patch have been AI-generated without the original voice actor’s permission.

According to the account, some of Lara’s lines in the new patch were “created using AI by stealing the voice of Françoise Cadol, Lara Croft's French voice.”

Cadol provided the voice for Lara in the French dub of all Tomb Raider games released between 1996 and 2008, and also in the spin offs Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris.

Infinity Tomb Raider later claimed that Cadol “was not asked to record any new voicelines & did not give her consent for any subsequent use of her voice, especially with AI.”

Tomb Raider co-creator Paul Douglas, who led development of the original game in 1996 alongside Tony Gard, also weighed in, writing, “GenAI used in this way: Not cool. Not classy.”

The issue has landed just as French voice actors recently launched #TouchePasMaVF (“Don’t Touch My French Version”), a campaign to prevent French voice work being used to train AI models.

It’s worth noting that AI was also used to upscale textures in both remaster collections. However, AI upscaling technology pre-dates generative AI, and has seen common usage in many video game remasters over the years.

Since AI upscaling isn’t trained on copyrighted works without the owner’s permission, it typically isn’t considered as controversial to use.