Random: Lara Croft Tops Mario as the Most Iconic Video Game Character of All Time, Apparently | Push Square

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Well, BAFTA was clearly looking for headlines with this news, and boy has it got them! The British Academy of Film and Television Arts recently hosted a poll asking people to vote for the most iconic video game character of all time — and the results are, to be frank, shockingly inept (but obviously quite interesting).

Yep, Lara Croft of Tomb Raider fame came out on top; she's officially the most iconic video game character of all time… according to around 4,000 people, which, without wanting to sound petty, isn't an especially large sample size. The polls we run here on Push Square usually get more votes than that!

The top 20 is unhinged. Mario ended up in second, Agent 47 is somehow third — the voters must just love characters with English accents — and Sonic is in fourth. Sackboy managed fifth, so that's at least a win for Media Molecule.

Further down the list, there's some serious recency bias at play. Shadowheart and Astarion, both party members from Baldur's Gate 3, are at 10th and 17th respectively. Kazuma Kiryu made it to 18th, though, which just goes to show how popular the Like a Dragon series has gotten over the last few years in the West. An unthinkable feat just a couple of generations ago.

Anyway, here's the top 20:

For what it's worth, we held a similar popularity contest for PlayStation characters back in 2018. An entire bracket-based tournament took place over the course of several months, with Push Square readers voting for their favourites week in, week out. More than 100,000 votes were cast by the end of it, and Nathan Drake ended up winning.

Oh crap!

So, er… what do you make of this? Do BAFTA's voters have good taste or is this the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen in your life? Pass your congrats on to Ms. Croft in the comments section below.

Robert (or Rob if you're lazy) has been a fan of PlayStation since the 90s, when Tekken 2 introduced him to the incredible world of video games. He still takes his fighting games seriously, but RPGs