Yeti

Yeti (or Abominable Snowman) are cryptids that are said to live in the Himalayan Mountains of Asia. Most often described as tall ape-men, they haunt wild and snowy mountains and wildernesses.

Lara meets yeti, or creatures like them, various times in her career. Part of the backplot of Tomb Raider includes a feature in a magazine called 'Lara bags Bigfoot', a North American version of the yeti.

The yeti shown in Tomb Raider II appear in two Tibetan levels, the Catacombs of the Talion and the Ice Palace. They are only slightly taller than Lara and are covered in shaggy white fur, presumably as a form of camoflage. They seem more like the traditional image of a fully bipedal ape, although their rounded shoulders indicate that they have a large amount of muscle mass in their torsos. They beat their chests and roar when Lara approaches them, and can run faster than her. They swipe at her with their hands in order to damage her.

The yetis of Tomb Raider II are also given a special death sequence. If killed by one, the yeti will grab lara, swing her around over its head, and throw her to the ground in front of it.

References to yeti are also made in the opening cinematic of Tomb Raider Legend, where Lara and her mother are travelling in their aircraft above the Himalayas of Nepal. Their conversation turns to yeti to demonstrate, later in the game, just how much her mother's disappearance affected Lara emotionally.