Followers keen to listen to extra in regards to the subsequent Tomb Raider recreation are nonetheless being stored fairly at the hours of darkness, with Lara Croft popping up in quite a lot of different recreation collaborations as a substitute of her personal standalone journey.
Since Shadow of the Tomb Raider wrapped again in 2018, Lara has appeared within the likes of Netflix’s animated collection, in addition to Brawlhalla, Name of Obligation, Useless by Daylight, Magic the Gathering, Fall Guys, Pinball FX, and now even World of Tanks as part of a themed Battle Cross chapter. She’s once more being voiced by Keeley Hawes right here, in my view the perfect Lara.
The brand new trailer for World of Tanks, which you’ll be able to see beneath, does give Tomb Raider followers like myself one other take a look at Lara’s unified design. As a reminder, the Tomb Raider crew has stated will probably be uniting the unique Tomb Raider video games with the latest ‘Survivor’ trilogy reboots – which started in 2013 – in its subsequent mainline recreation.
Lara’s look in World of Tanks displays this unification. Her type within the newest Tomb Raider collaboration takes most of its inspiration from the ‘Traditional Lara’ look of previous, together with her tank prime and braid taking satisfaction of place, however she additionally has her jade necklace from the final three mainline video games.
In addition to Lara, Jonah from the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy is featured, as is – considerably to my shock – Amanda Evert. Amanda first cropped up in Tomb Raider Legend as a former good friend turned antagonist of Lara’s. Her look in World of Tanks is maybe most totally different from her authentic design, with the goth aesthetic toned down fairly considerably. Personally, I’ve questions on why she is there in any respect, given her timeline is the Legend Timeline, which is the second recreation timeline within the Tomb Raider collection.
However this query apart, as a fan of Tomb Raider video games fairly than Tomb Raider collaborations, I actually do want we have been being fed extra than simply Lara Croft in different franchises. I perceive the necessity to hold the character related, however at this fee Lara is vulnerable to being featured extra in video games that are not Tomb Raider than video games which are. Fact be informed, I’m turning into more and more pissed off by the comparative silence across the subsequent mainline Tomb Raider recreation.
In 2022, Amazon stated it might present its “full help” to Crystal Dynamics, as it really works on “the largest, most expansive” collection entry up to now. Then, in August final yr, Amazon Video games boss Christoph Hartmann stated improvement on the upcoming Tomb Raider recreation from Crystal Dynamics and Amazon was “going nicely”. Since then, nonetheless, developer Crystal Dynamics has been topic to layoffs, and nothing extra has been formally stated of the following Tomb Raider entry for a while.
Earlier this yr, Embracer alluded to a AAA launch on its docket, which the corporate beforehand anticipated to debut in FY 25/26 however will “seemingly want a number of extra quarters to shine”. Subsequently, this specific recreation will seemingly launch the next fiscal yr. Whereas Embracer didn’t specify which recreation below its umbrella it was speaking about, I believe it was Tomb Raider.
I actually hope the Tomb Raider collection can proceed on efficiently with out the necessity to pimp Lara out to different franchises each couple of months. However proper now, I’m not too certain.
