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Amazon Games Will Publish Crystal Dynamics' Next Tomb Raider Game

Amazon Games will publish the next Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider game, which was announced earlier this year.
In April, Crystal Dynamics revealed that it was developing the next Tomb Raider game in its series that began with a reboot back in 2013. They did so during the State of Unreal 2022 presentation, revealing that this Tomb Raider sequel – the fourth in this rebooted series – will be built on Unreal Engine 5. Now, Crystal Dynamics has announced that Amazon Games will publish this sequel.
"Amazon Games and Crystal Dynamics today announced they have reached an agreement under which Crystal Dynamics will develop a new multiplatform Tomb Raider title, with Amazon Games providing full support and publishing the game globally," a press release reads. "The as-yet-untitled new Tomb Raider is a single-player, narrative-driven adventure that continues Lara Croft's story in the Tomb Raider series.

"It includes all the elements that have made Tomb Raider one of the most revered franchises in gaming, giving players control of the confident and multidimensional hero Lara Croft in an environment that rewards exploration and creative pathfinding, with mind-bending puzzles to solve, and a wide variety of enemies to face and overcome."
The press release says the studio is using Unreal Engine 5 to make this upcoming game the "most expansive Tomb Raider game to date." This sequel is currently in early development.
Game Informer

Weird Embracer isn't publishing this entry...but excited. This used to be my favorite Ip when i was a kid. I still get excited with a new entry is announced.
 

MaKTaiL

Member
Prime Gaming day one?

Happy Jeff Goldblum GIF by Apartments.com
 
Seems embracer isn’t interested in publishing triple A games. Wonder why they even bought those studios from square. Yet both studios are on working on first party Microsoft games. I wonder if they intend to sell them to Microsoft after the activision fiasco is over. It’s funny how they wouldn’t publish a franchise big as tomb raider.
 

Skyfox

Member
👋 Amazon, if it's woke or Lara is uglified (like the most recent game where she had resting bitch face and her body was covered in a rug for the second half of the game) I'm happy to skip.

If she looks like Tomb Raider 2011 I'm in day one.

👋 Ps. Guerilla, I bought Horizon Zero Dawn day one but will be getting Forbidden West when it's a fiver because you did the same thing and we're not blind.
 

Denton

Member
Interesting. Embracer is a holding company, not a publisher...I guess they were deciding whether to publish it internally under THQN or Deep Silver or Saber brands, but Amazon offered to pay and the deal was good.
 

jakinov

Member
Seems embracer isn’t interested in publishing triple A games. Wonder why they even bought those studios from square. Yet both studios are on working on first party Microsoft games. I wonder if they intend to sell them to Microsoft after the activision fiasco is over. It’s funny how they wouldn’t publish a franchise big as tomb raider.
They bought them to make money. They aren't publishers. They don't have the infra or business to do that. They are a company who owns companies. Whether it's Embracer or a single guy the point is they aren't a publisher, they own the business, they can take home the profits or they can sell it later when it's worth more. Doesn't matter how big Tomb Raider is, they'd be tking more risk to try and publish themselves.
Interesting. Embracer is a holding company, not a publisher...I guess they were deciding whether to publish it internally under THQN or Deep Silver or Saber brands, but Amazon offered to pay and the deal was good.
That likely never even came up. The company isn't not really in the business of micromanaging projects of companies they own. They are meant to own companies and manage them at a high level (bird eye view).
 

pqueue

Member
Based on recent Amazon adaptions.... Odds are good lesbian multiracial Lara coming right up.
 
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Umbasaborne

Banned
Makes sense. Embracer doesn’t fund tripple a games, so they are probably partnering with other publishers to minimize risk
 

ProtoByte

Member
Well... if this means it'll actually be AAA, that might be a benefit. Embracer's made it pretty clear in both rhetoric and in action that they're not really interested/able in making proper AAA fare.

I was, and still am pessimistic about the futures of Deus Ex and Tomb Raider without a high budget. Amazon says "full support" but not "funding" explicitly. We'll see.

But how that hackjob Amos is still there despite the absolute embarrassment of Avengers is mind-boggling.
 

SSfox

Member
Holy motherfucking, i'm not familiar with Amazon but do you think they will lock certain content of the game behind their Amazon prime shit? I'm huge TR fan but def skipping the day one full price if they do some BS of this kind.
 
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ProtoByte

Member
Nothing Embracer does makes sense to me. There is no coherent strategy or calculus.
The reason is because they're too big. They can't have a coherent calculus because there's just too much to manage. They have 132 studios, and a good number of them are making more than one game.

No single publishing arm would be able to deal with those logistics properly. No studio manager would be able to monitor and evaluate each of those studios to any reasonable degree. And having a team of such managers would just create multiple new layers of bureaucracy.

If there was ever an argument against consolidation, Embrscer is probably it. They're a formless blob that's either going to do a lot more deals like this to the point that it may as well not own what it have, or crumble under its own weight.
 
Nothing Embracer does makes sense to me. There is no coherent strategy or calculus.
There's no evidence they know what they are doing either. It's the classic acquire a bunch of shit, see what happens, maybe money gets made. For them, the worst thing that happens is they declare bankruptcy and the studios close. They couldn't care less either way, it's not their money on the line.
 
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Kadve

Member
Makes sense. Embracer doesn’t fund tripple a games, so they are probably partnering with other publishers to minimize risk
Embracer is a holding company, they don't fund anything. Booth Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montréal were put under a new branch of Embracer called CDE Entertainment whose only job seems to be just that. Hold on to them booth and they are free to negotiate their own contracts.
 

hinch7

Member
At least its going to have a good budget seeing as Amazon is publishing it. Though the "Confident and multidimensional hero" sounds a little.. yeah.

Hopefully its a big step up from the previous games because I didn't really like the reboot.
 
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sainraja

Member
Well, considering this is going to be multi-platform and not exclusive to Luna, this should answer the question of or address any concerns people have had about Amazon entering the gaming space (I know they have already entered it). This might still be too early to say....but what I thought MS was about to do, Amazon might actually do it.
 
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