Lara Croft Crowned Most Iconic Video Games Character of All Time, According to BAFTA Poll

njm1314, 1 month ago

Over Mario, Sonic, and Pac-Man? No fucking way.

RandomStickman, 1 month ago

Agent 47 over Sonic? Pikachu not even in the top 10? Yeah, this list is wack.

OsaErisXero, 1 month ago

I think it could be successfully argued that Pikachu is only top 10 if we include presence in non-gaming media.

Sackboy being on the list though is wild

Oneeightnine, 1 month ago

I’m interested to see if they provided a list or if they asked people to submit their own choices. Sackboy and Arthur Morgan are…I mean I’d argue Arthur isn’t even the most iconic character in his own game. Surely that honour goes to John Marston?

amio, 1 month ago

... well that's just stupid. Have these people ever played a game?

Lukewarm_Tea, 1 month ago

Being a gamer is maybe what lead to this list. I would say a character is the most recognizable if it can be named by the most people. Mario/Sonic/ Pikachu/pacman very recognizable shadowheart/asterian probably not as much.

njm1314, 1 month ago

Not just Gamers though. Dishonest or misguided gamers it must be.

HubertManne, 1 month ago

who the heck is agent 47, sackboy, arthur morgan. some of these don't make sense. even some I recognize I can't say are more iconic than pacman. I guess those with a the knowledge of qbert are dying out.

Etterra, 1 month ago

As much as I love the LoZ games, is say Mario is more recognizable. Certainly moreso than Lara Croft.

webghost0101, 1 month ago

The definition of iconic video game character that was used here must be interesting.

ConstableJelly, 1 month ago

Did they publish the poll itself? Curious how they defined “iconic.” These results are baffling. I’m most surprised by Shadowheart, who is a great character but…functions as part of an ensemble and is arguably not even the most “iconic” character within her own game. And BG3 itself, despite being one of the most culturally impactful video games in recent memory, still is just too young to qualify for iconic status.

Broken_Monitor, 1 month ago

They polled gamers, for sure. Non gamers are only gonna recognize part of this list, and thats what makes them truly iconic - being known by people who dont even care about video games.

Thats gonna be mario, sonic, pikachu, pacman, and maybe Zelda (but probably not Link). The average person will know those but would have no clue who Lara Croft, Nathan Drake, or Solid Snake is. Kazuma Kiryu?? I’m an avid gamer and wouldn’t recognize that name.

cloudless, 1 month ago

They polled game publishers. The list is more like “which game publisher is paying us the most.”

nieceandtows, 1 month ago

Wasn’t link only the official in-game name starting with botw? Not saying it wasn’t link before, but previously they asked for your name first and only used Link if you didn’t give one, so many casual players wouldn’t have known it’s Link.

givesomefucks, 1 month ago

and maybe Zelda (but probably not Link).

It would be a picture of Link under the title Zelda…

bjoern_tantau, 1 month ago

And they’d say “Oh, Peter Pan!”

smeg, 1 month ago

the poll was engaged with by over 4,000 players from all over the world

So gamers, and a non-trivial but not even remotely representative group size

MamboGator, 1 month ago

I thought the same thing. The only thing I’ll disagree with is Lara Croft being unknown. She was huge in the '90s and '00s. She was even featured in Playboy and once the first Angelina Jolie movie came out she was a part of the general consciousness. Probably not more recognizable than Mario, though.

Broken_Monitor, 1 month ago

Fair enough, its not that she’s unknown, just not as popular as the others. I actually forgot about those movies! Man they were not great…

bionicjoey, 1 month ago

Putting Lara Croft above Mario is insane. Hell, I’d put Luigi above Lara Croft.

ivanafterall, 1 month ago

Shots fired.

Mic_Check_One_Two, 1 month ago

Yup, this list is biased as hell. It was trying to determine iconic characters. Put Mario and Lara Croft in front of a 90 year old person. They’ll recognize Mario immediately, but almost certainly won’t recognize Croft. Hell, I’d put Bowser, Peach, and Luigi over Croft.

cloudless, 1 month ago

Too late for April fools!

bjoern_tantau, 1 month ago

Shadowheart? Astarion? Don’t get me wrong, I love BG3, it’s my favourite game at the moment. But any character my mom wouldn’t recognise shouldn’t be on that list.

Granted, Lara Croft fits that bill, but how did they determine that she should be above Mario or Pac-Man?

bjoern_tantau, 1 month ago

I couldn’t ask my mom, she has too much work today but I could ask my father and thus can present you with the 100 % super scientific and objective list of most iconic video game characters:

1. Mario
2. Pac-Man
3. Pikachu
4. Lara Croft

Oneeightnine, 1 month ago

Okay so for context I’ve not played BG3. However I do consider myself pretty upto date with my gaming stuff (I run a videogame community afterall). I couldn’t tell you which of the characters on the front of the BG3 box-art is Shadowheart; not the foggiest.

As for Croft. I wonder if they’d ‘commissioned’ this poll before the release of the recent game if she’d have even made the top 10. For the most part, her star has fallen pretty significantly from where she was in the 90’s.