My name is Ben Fisher, and I’m the writer and narrative director of the upcoming live action Tomb Raider Experience Seattle: Escape from the Temple of Fire, in which you and a group of other intrepid explorers will team with Lara Croft to investigate a mysterious temple in the heart of a volcano. It’s ninety minutes of heroic feats, tense puzzle-solving, and thrilling adventure!

Oh, and lava monsters.

Today, I’d like to talk a bit about the team responsible for bringing this story from the script to Seattle’s waterfront.

Building a story in the Tomb Raider universe was a literal childhood dream come true for me, but all my plotting and scripts were just words on a page until they reached the hands of our famed explorer, and that’s where Lauren Santana joined the party. Lauren is an incredibly gifted actor who studied at Drama Centre London and previously worked on high profile video games like Dragon’s Dogma II and Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. Lauren gave Ms. Croft exactly the gravitas we wanted: she’s fierce, confident, and – when the situation calls for it – just a bit cheeky. A number of talented performers have given Lara her unmistakable voice over the years, and Lauren now joins their chorus in perfect harmony.

Of course, every hero needs a villain. For the Tomb Raider Experience Seattle, we struck the jackpot by bringing legendary voice actor Yuri Lowenthal on board to play Lara’s nemesis, the megalomaniacal Dr. Augustus Fisher. Yuri’s credits include Marvel’s Spider-Man, Ben 10, Naruto, and many others far too numerous to list here.. It was a joy to watch one of my favorite performers bring my evil creation to cackling, eyebrow-raising life.

And just as our favorite heroes are inexorably intertwined with their nefarious counterparts, so too are those counterparts forever bound – for better or worse – to their enablers.

In other words, all the best villains have henchmen, and ours is played by the incredible character actor, Bryan Krasner. If you have a favorite show, Bryan’s probably been in it, from Heroes to Modern Family to How I Met Your Mother. Like all great sidekicks, he elevates every scene he’s in and brings an infectious energy to the set. While we’re on the subject of sets, I’d like to give a shout-out to Butcher Bird Studio in Glendale, California for providing the perfect filming location.

And finally, we couldn’t do any of this without the folks behind the mics and cameras, and I had the great fortune of working with Ben Rock as the project’s live-action director. Ben was the production designer on a little horror movie you might have seen called The Blair Witch Project. He also directed one of my favorite sci-fi “hidden gems,” Alien Raiders, so I was particularly excited to collaborate with him. Unsurprisingly, every idea he had for the shoot was better than the last.

They say never meet your heroes, but it turns out there’s an exception for iconic archeologists, brilliant voice and character actors, and the guy who made you scared of twig dolls as a kid. Working as writer and narrative director for Tomb Raider Experience Seattle: Escape from the Temple of Fire has been a blast and I’m so grateful to Crystal Dynamics, Hourglass Attractions, and all my talented collaborators for making it happen.

See you all in Seattle!

Ben Fisher is an award-wining author of comics and prose, including The Underfoot, The Great Divide, Grumpy Cat, C.H.U.D. Lives!, and Splitsville. He also writes live experiences, including Deep Red Disco: A Giallo Murder Mystery for the Seattle Museum of Popular Culture, Knights of the Golden Horseshoe for Massanutten Resorts, and the upcoming Tomb Raider Experience Seattle: Escape from the Temple of Fire. He can be found on Bluesky at @benfisher.bsky.social and at www.wordblanket.com.

Collaborations

The Tomb Raider Experience Seattle: Escape from the Temple of Fire