Is a New Tomb Raider Game Coming Soon?
Lara Croft may be dead at Amazon, but she appears to be alive and kicking in the video game world. Last month, The Daily Mail’s sources told them that the announced Tomb Raider TV series from Phoebe Waller-Bridge that was to air on Amazon Prime is dead following Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke’s ousting and Waller-Bridge’s failure to produce a workable script after being signed to a $20 million-a-year deal with the studio in 2019, during which time she has contributed zero seconds of television. (Confoundingly, Deadline reports that Waller-Bridge has a new deal with Amazon, albeit a first-look agreement rather than an exclusive contract; do I need to embed the Kevin Smith “fail upward” clip again?)
However, there is now evidence that a new Tomb Raider game is in development, as VideoGamer reported about a job listing from Crystal Dynamics, the studio that now has the game rights to the adventure franchise. The listing is for a Senior Level Designer, with one of the job requirements being someone capable of “designing levels featuring compelling puzzle elements.” Does that sound like a certain game series about a particularly well-endowed (though not so much lately) British lady who raids the occasional tomb? Moreover, the job description indicates that the new Tomb Raider game – if that’s what this is – is in the late stages of production, as it stipulates that applicants be able to “[s]pearhead strike teams as a high-impact individual contributor.” A strike team is brought in late in development to fix particular issues, like bugs. VideoGamer says they’re called in at least six months before the game’s intended release date, so a new Tomb Raider game could be on shelves by Christmas.
Is a new Tomb Raider video game exciting news for fans of the long-running series? You’d probably assume so, but remember what year we’re in. Crystal Dynamics has earned plenty of criticism from Tomb Raider fans for apologizing for Lara Croft and the franchise’s “problematic” history, which probably doesn’t exist for normal people but triggers the perpetually offended something fierce. When they released Tomb Raider I-III Remastered, they put a warning label before the game started, “warning” players that these games featured “racist” depictions of various people and cultures Lara encounters, effectively calling the games offensive and patting themselves on the back for making money off of them anyway. (They left that evil racist content in the games to “acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it,” not to make sure Tomb Raider fans actually bought the re-release; they’re heroes, you see.) Then, they put out a Tomb Raider tabletop game called Tomb Raider: Shadows of Truth, in which Lara stopped raiding tombs and culturally appropriating lost, buried artifacts that would have been lost forever if not for her and instead busy herself with “seeking out the truth,” whatever that means in this context. Speaking of context, keep in mind that Crystal Dynamics also fumbled what should have been a surefire hit in Marvel’s Avengers by doing much the same thing: coasting on the popularity of the Avengers while making the game a bait-and-switch that put Kamala Khan in the lead role.
This new Tomb Raider game, if it is what Crystal Dynamics is working on, likely won’t be much different. The studio has made it clear what it thinks of Tomb Raider – it’s a cash cow for them, something they can decry as “problematic” and fundamentally change to suit their sociopolitical beliefs while raking in dough by exploiting its fans. Will this work? It depends on how well they hide it, I suppose; if the trailers and marketing make it look like a fun Lara Croft adventure (or if, God forbid, it actually is one), the next Tomb Raider game will probably be a success. But if they wear their wokeness on their sleeve and proudly tell fans that they’re in for a lecture from a group of people who hate their favorite video game franchise, Crystal Dynamics could be looking at its own Assassin’s Creed Shadows debacle.
Let us know what you think of a potential new Tomb Raider game in the comments!
***
Get a META PC today; use code “199” to save on all purchases!
If you want to know what kind of political leanings movies have or just talk about cinema, check out the movie ratings community Criticless.
Get Your Geeks + Gamers merch here!
