WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the Tomb Raider franchise reboot, in theaters now.


After enduring brutal fights, unrelenting river currents and the thorny canopies of Yamatai, Lara Croft returned to London only to discover the fight had only begun. The Order of Trinity that had haunted, and ultimately killed, her father did not die with Mathias Vogel as Lara might have hoped in the final act of Tomb Raider. In fact, the ancient organization is alive and well, and it's up to Lara and her shiny new pistols to stop it from destroying the world.

RELATED: What Is Trinity (and What Does It Want)?

When Lara, played by Oscar winner Alicia Vikander, finally accepts her inheritance in director Roar Uthaug's franchise reboot, she's given a book that lists all of Croft Holding's assets. While briefly skimming the company's subsidiaries, she discovers an entry for Patna Ltd. We're shown flashes of Patna's logo printed on the containers, cans and supplies that Trinity's men hauled across Yamatai, revealing the organization has agents working within Lara's company, and are led by none other than Ana Miller (played by Kristin Scott Thomas), to whom Lara handed over control of her business.

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Ana's motives for pressuring Lara into signing her inheritance claim are made so much clearer. Despite what it appeared to be in Ana's first few scenes, her speeches and warnings about letting go and saving Richard Croft's legacy weren't made out of genuine care, at least not for Lara and not for the company. She said those things out of a sense of loyalty and duty to Trinity, because the order wanted control of Lord Croft's company, likely because it needed access to his secrets and research.

Clearly, Lara isn't yet done in this fight, but what does this mean for a possible Tomb Raider sequel?

RELATED: Tomb Raider's Final Scene Changes Part of the Mythos -- For the Worse

The late Richard Croft had a room full of antiques and research notes, and we know that Yamatai and Himiko were only a small part of his work. So while Himiko and the highly contagious virus she played host to will never be used again, that doesn't mean the Order of Trinity has run out of options. The organization is ancient, and if it's anything like its video game counterpart, it will have spent centuries searching for artifacts of great power. That means more firefights with Trinity soldiers and more tombs to raid, which is pretty much what Tomb Raider is about at its core.

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Given the revelation Lara had at the end of Tomb Raider, and that sly look Ana gave her as the elevator doors closed in her final scene, it's safe to assume a sequel would see the two face off in some way. Because Lara saw fit to acquire some guns, a sequel would likely feature her battling her way through Trinity agents to Ana before the Order's next terrible plan can be fully realized.

When making an educated guess about a sequel's storyline, we should keep in mind that while Tomb Raider combined elements of both 2012's A Survivor Is Born and 2015's Rise of the Tomb Raider, there's still quite a lot left for a follow-up movie to adapt. Given that the ending of Tomb Raider was content in its conclusion that actual magic doesn't exist in this world, the chances it would adapt the Prophet of Kitezh from Rise of the Tomb Raider is highly unlikely. Luckily, there's another entry in the rebooted video game franchise on the way.

RELATED: First Teaser Arrives for Shadow of the Tomb Raider

You might have also noticed Lara's growth throughout the film. In the beginning, she's a bike messenger who tries her best to stay in the fight, but by the end, she's eager and ready for the next deadly challenge. Aside from the fact that she probably won't be filling soldiers with arrows as if it were open season on Trinity agents, we'd likely see a Lara Croft more akin to the star of the classic Tomb Raider video game series, which hasn't been adapted since 2003's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider--The Cradle of Life.

The classic Lara Croft is willing, ready and able to leap into danger and solve deadly challenges whenever and wherever they may be. That's the Lara the film ended with. It implies a sequel would potentially have even more video game-like moments in which Lara dodges traps, performs death-defying stunts and uncovers larger puzzle-filled tombs, on a much grander scale than those in Tomb Raider. Whether that's a good thing is completely up to you. The ponytail and dual pistols might excite fans of the older franchise just as much as this film initially excited fans of the reboot. That's assuming the film isn't simply content with its final scene being little more than a nod to the older games.


In theaters now, director Roar Uthaug's Tomb Raider stars Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft, Dominic West as Richard Croft, Daniel Wu as Lu Ren, Kristin Scott Thomas as Ana Miller, Hannah John-Kamen as Sophie and Walton Goggins as Mathias Vogel.