GameStop’s “Tomb Raider” Criticism Slammed

Five years ago, GameStop found itself all over the news due to the short squeeze of its stock price. Today, they’re back in the news for a whole different reason – a shady tweet.

The retailer’s official account posted a link to an article sharing the recently released first look photo of Sophie Turner as Lara Croft in the upcoming Amazon Prime Video TV series based on the “Tomb Raider” franchise.

On the whole, reaction to the photo has been quite positive on social media. Some have criticised some of the finer details of the costume, but many seem to like its old-school 1990s Lara approach.

GameStop’s tweet, on the other hand, wasn’t so kind and threw in a shady “This is not Lara Croft” line alongside its retweet of the story. That post pulled in 18.4 million views and over 4,700 replies.

There was no subsequent explanation of the statement, but it opened the floodgates of criticism at GameStop. One film critic quoted their tweet and added “This is not a game store” along with photos of one of their retail store interiors that now mostly seems to focus on collectibles and merchandise rather than actual games.

Sigourney Weaver, Jason Isaacs, Martin Bobb-Semple, Jack Bannon, John Heffernan, Bill Paterson, Paterson Joseph, Sasha Luss, Juliette Motamed, Celia Imrie, and August Wittgenstein co-star in the series which hails from Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Chad Hodge. Production is underway ahead of a 2027 premiere.