The recent Lara Croft skin from Call Of Duty (Activision)
Two separate rumours suggest that Tomb Raider is not only open world but involves Lara Croft recruiting a team of allies to help her.
Developer Crystal Dynamics has been working on a new Tomb Raider game for years now, but the only thing we know officially about it, is that it will ‘unify’ the timelines of both the original and reboot games – although it’s not really clear what that actually means.
Nothing has been said about what kind of game it will be, but a new rumour suggests that it will be open world and that the story revolves around the discovery of the tomb of ancient Indian emperor Ashoka the Great.
This apparently leads to Lara Croft racing to collect ‘powerful relics’, ahead of a group of wannabe tomb raiders called ‘The Society of Raiders’ – who sound they’re going to be portrayed as misguided fanboys.
Supposedly, Lara will be able to recruit allies to her own team, although it’s not clear how that will work or what exactly their function will be, from a gameplay perspective.
What is interesting though is that the game will apparently have an emphasis on non-lethal combat. Tomb Raider has always been a surprisingly violent franchise, with OG Lara shooting her way through a list of the world’s most endangered species, but the reboot trilogy went to peculiar extremes, as she ended up killing hundreds of people by the end of each game.
That makes any kind of believable characterisation impossible, so it’s nice to see that Crystal Dynamics is addressing that point, as apart from anything it just turned the game into a generic, stealth-based, third person shooter.
Of course, that’s assuming that the rumours are true, as they come via rumourmonger V Scooper, who is best known for movie leaks – where he seems to have a good track record.
According to him, the new Tomb Raider features, ‘vast sceneries, free use of the motorcycle, parachute, and common Lara’s traversal methods to unrestrictedly navigate across a big map and its challenges.’
They also suggest that the game is supposed to release ‘in less than a year if there are no delays’, although apparently that’s not set in stone.
That seems to imply a release sometime early next year, but if that’s true then you would expect to start getting some proper official information, and a full reveal, this year.
What’s interesting about the rumours is that they match up to an entirely different source, from back in February, who also suggested that the game is open world and will feature companions and vehicles for Lara.
At that point it was described as a ‘Ubigame’, presumably in regard to its generic open world features, and having a structure similar to an MMO. More peculiarly though, Lara was said to be able to use magic.
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A lot of these features are fairly easy to guess at (open world sequels certainly seem to be popular at the moment, with rumours that Resident Evil 9 will also be one) but the companion aspect is peculiar enough that it’s notable that two separate rumours have suggested it.
Although it’s to be hoped that the game will be officially unveiled during one of the summer preview showcases there’s so far been no hint at that, officially or otherwise, but it does now seem a possibility.
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