Rhianna Pratchett

Long before Lara Croft was a comic-book fixture, she was a video-game character in desperate need of a soul—and it was Rhianna Pratchett who gave her one. As lead writer of Crystal Dynamics’ 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, Pratchett rewound Lara’s trademark badassery into a frightened, fiercely determined survivor, earning the game a Writers’ Guild of Great Britain shortlist and widespread critical acclaim. She followed it on Rise of the Tomb Raider, winning the Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing.

Pratchett grew up around storytelling—she is the daughter of the late, beloved fantasy author Terry Pratchett—but she came to games through journalism, writing for PC Zone and The Guardian before breaking into narrative design in 2002 with Beyond Divinity. Her résumé since reads like a greatest-hits of 2000s games: BAFTA-nominated Heavenly Sword, the Writers’ Guild-winning Overlord, the stylish parkour of Mirror’s Edge, Risen, BioShock Infinite, and Thief. She was inducted into the European Women in Games Hall of Fame in 2013.

Pratchett brought the same craft to comics. For Dark Horse she wrote Tomb Raider: The Beginning—the prequel showing how the Endurance crew first assembled—then took the reins of the monthly series from issue #7, deepening Lara’s mythology across the arcs collected in the Tomb Raider Omnibus Volume 1. Along the way she worked with pencillers Nicolás Daniel Selma, Derlis Santacruz, and Andrea Mutti, inkers Juan Gedeon, Andy Owens, and Pierluigi Baldassini, colorist Michael Atiyeh, and the series’ launch writer, Gail Simone, on co-written chapters. She has also written the Mirror’s Edge miniseries for DC and short stories for Legends of Red Sonja.

Perfect for fans of character-first adventure and narrative-driven games. Learn more at rhiannapratchett.com and follow @rhipratchett on Twitter.