Lara Croft beats out Mario and Pikachu in BAFTA poll for most iconic video game character

To celebrate the BAFTA Game Awards’ 20th anniversary, BAFTA created a poll to finally find out who is the most iconic character in video game history. You’d perhaps expect Mario to take the crown but — pending a proper artifact theft investigation — the prize ended in the hands of Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series.

The full Top 20 is pretty interesting. It features both the names you’d expect, as well as names you’d likely never guess would be here:

1. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)
2. Mario (Super Mario)
3. Agent 47 (Hitman)
4. Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog)
5. Sackboy (Little Big Planet)
6. Pac-Man (Pac-Man)
7. Link (The Legend of Zelda)
8. Master Chief (Halo)
9. Kratos (God of War)
10. Shadowheart (Baldur’s Gate 3)
11. Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption 2)
12. Pikachu (Pokémon)
13. Steve (Minecraft)
14. Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid)
15. Crash Bandicoot (Crash Bandicoot)
16. Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)
17. Astarion (Baldur’s Gate 3)
18. Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza)
19. Ellie (The Last of Us)
20. Nathan Drake (Uncharted)

If you look at the big picture, the clear winner is Nintendo. The Japanese giant had three of its biggest characters conquering high spots. Naughty Dog is a clear second, with three of its protagonists also featured in the list, albeit in lower spots. I believe that the elephant in the room is Agent 47 from the Hitman series at #3, as he’s supposed to be exactly the opposite of noticeable. Also, though popular, I find Sackboy’s placement at #5 pretty surprising considering how many more popular mascots exist. It’s great to see Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3 in there, as no one doubts the young character is already an all-timer, but it’s weird that he fell below Shadowheart, an also great but much less popular character.

The list had the participation of over 4000 voters from around the globe. You could attribute it to recency bias, given the recent and beautiful Tomb Raider I-III remasters, or — if you want to fully wrap your head in tinfoil, to British bias — considering how both Lara and the BAFTAs hail from the old empire. Still I, a completely unbiased lifelong Tomb Raider fan find it impossible to deny the impact that Lara had in the industry in the ‘90s and maintains to this day.