Development on the upcoming Tomb Raider game from Crystal Dynamics and Amazon is “going well”.
Amazon announced it would be working alongside Crystal Dynamics on the next Tomb Raider game back in 2022, when it said it would provide its “full support” to the team as it works on “the biggest, most expansive” series entry to date.
Since then, details have been pretty sparse for the upcoming release. In fact, all we really know right now is that it is being made in Unreal Engine 5 and will have “mind-bending puzzles to solve” and a “wide variety of enemies to face and overcome”.
Despite quietness in terms of public information, behind the scenes, things on Tomb Raider are “going well”. So says Amazon Games boss Christoph Hartmann, who told IGN that Crystal Dynamics is “fairly sheltered from everything going on with Embracer”.
Hartmann discussed the ongoing disruption at Embracer, which initiated a “comprehensive restructuring programme” after the collapse of a $2bn “major strategic partnership” in May last year, resulting in studio closures and layoffs. The Amazon exec said he understood “people obviously look at what the parent company is doing”, but in Tomb Raider’s case, “it never impacted on resources, never led to any changes on management for them, so they’re fine”.
He added the “bar is so high” when creating a new Tomb Raider game. “The longer you go, the expectation goes higher, so it’s a huge, huge task, but things are progressing,” Hartman said. “I mean, there’s some really great ideas here.”
While he refrained from sharing what these ideas are, Hartmann reiterated that things are “moving forward” at Crystal. “The studio went through a couple of ownership changes anyway before, it’s not brand-new for them,” he continued.
“They kind of were doing games with moving around anyway. And like, okay, new sheriff… you know what I mean, new owner in town. Let’s just keep on doing what we do and make games.”
Along with its upcoming game, Amazon also has a Tomb Raider TV project in the works with Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge attached.
Meanwhile, Netflix has its own animated series arriving later this year, known as Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. The show will act as a bridge of sorts between the Tomb Raider Survivor trilogy and the games from the 90s.