The announcement is remarkable in more ways than one. Not just from Embracer’s point of view, who agrees to share the fame and future income of the next with another Grave robbers, but also for Amazon Games, which for the first time is targeting a large solo production and not an online game like its own New World, Smilegate RPG’s Lost Ark and, as announced at the Game Awards, Bandai Namco’s Blue Protocol. A welcome diversification that will benefit Lara Croft, whose return is now being spoiled by this industry heavyweight.
Tomb Raider is approaching the 100 million mark
Apart from a banal description and a reminder that the game will be developed with the Unreal Engine 5 engine, this release agreement does not reveal anything special about the next adventures of Lara Croft, a character who has been around since the release of Shadow of the Tomb Raider in September missing November 2018, knowing that this title marked the end of a trilogy that began in 2013 with the Tomb Raider reboot and continued in 2015 with Rise of the Tomb Raider. However, we do learn that the Tomb Raider franchise has sold 95 million games worldwide since its debut in 1996 (10 million more than when it celebrated its 25th anniversary in October 2021), making it the second most popular series ever was sold from the Enix catalog before the Japanese publisher decided to part with it.
“This new, yet untitled Tomb Raider game is a single-player narrative adventure that continues the story of Lara Croft. It contains all the elements that make Tomb Raider one of the most popular franchise games and allows players to take on the role of the brave, multi-faceted heroine Lara Croft in environments that emphasize exploration and puzzle-solving, with ingenious puzzles and a multitude of enemies to harness the power and advanced technology of Unreal Engine 5 to Crystal Dynamics to deliver innovative storytelling in what will be the greatest and most expansive of all Tomb Raider games. The game is currently in an early stage of development and more details will be released at a later date,” the statement said.
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