In brief: Amazon Games has partnered with Crystal Dynamics and will publish the next major entry in the Tomb Raider series. The new game doesn’t yet have a name, but Amazon said it will be a single-player, narrative-driven adventure that continues Lara Croft’s story across multiple platforms.
It’ll be built using Unreal Engine 5 and feature familiar elements like mind-bending puzzles, an array of enemies and creative pathfinding that have made Tomb Raider one of the top franchises in gaming.
The project is still in the early phase of development but promises to be the biggest and most expansive Tomb Raider title to date.
The original Tomb Raider debuted in 1996 from developer Core Design and publisher Eidos Interactive. It was a groundbreaking game for the time, with innovative 3D graphics, controls and gameplay that were unlike anything up to that point.
It stands as the ninth best-selling PlayStation game of all time with more than 7.1 million copies sold, and was the top-selling game in the franchise until the reboot dropped in 2013. In 2018, the game was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame alongside John Madden Football, Final Fantasy VII and Spacewar! To date, the franchise has spawned nearly two dozen games with more than 95 million copies sold.
Tomb Raider was published by Eidos Interactive for years but eventually ended up under the wing of Square Enix. Earlier this year, Embracer Group purchased a handful of assets from Square Enix including Square Enix Montréal, Eidos Montréal, and Crystal Dynamics for $300 million.
Netflix last year announced it was working on a Tomb Raider animated series. It’ll pick up after the events of the trilogy reboot and is expected to debut sometime in 2023. Showrunner Tasha Huo has stated the first season will be eight episodes long, with each episode running for 22 minutes. According to Variety, Netflix signed up for a minimum of two seasons.
Amazon said additional details on the next Tomb Raider game will be shared at a later date.
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