Crystal Dynamics recently dropped a community update video celebrating 25 years of Tomb Raider. The official celebrations kick-off next month, in February and will continue through the year with retrospectives, “nostalgic content”, and more.
Among everything, we got to hear about the future of the series which will unify the timelines of the original games with the more recent origin trilogy of Lara Croft.
“We envision the future of Tomb Raider unfolding after [the rebooted trilogy], telling stories that build upon both the breadth of Core Design and Crystal Dynamics’ games, looking to unify these timelines,” said game director Will Kerslake in the update video. “With Tomb Raider’s extensive history, this is not an easy task, and we ask for patience as we go through the process.”
The original games on PS1 and PS2 witnessed Lara as an established and confident explorer, rummaging around old temples for the thrills. However, the 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider, followed by The Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider were the origin story of Lara Croft. Instead of a confident adventurer, she was portrayed as a determined survivalist who battled against all odds.
The next game in the series is meant to pick up where the original games left off. So, we’ll witness a confident, badass explorer Lara Croft (and a creepy old butler in the mansion) in modern graphics. Lara’s character in the reboot series was quite different from the one in the original games, so it would be interesting to see how Crystal Dynamics makes the transtion.
Speaking of transitions, Netflix has announced that they will be producing a new Tomb Raider anime series that highlights Lara’s journey after the events of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Hopefully, this series will serve as a base for the transition of Lara’s character.
Now that you’re pumped, here’s the inevitable disappointment. Crystal Dynamics clearly stated that there will be no major game announcements this year, so the upcoming game is ‘at least’ one year away. Back in 2018, Square Enix shifted their staff from Tomb Raider to work on the Avengers game. On top of that, a global lockdown further delayed the production of the next game.