Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider Return Is Proving More Difficult Than It Should

There are several mysteries within the gaming sphere that I desperately wish I could have answered. For example, where’s the DLC for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 that was so heavily set up? What’s with the Uncharted-esque footage that was teased in Sony’s 2023 ‘Live From PS5’ marketing campaign? Why does a 60fps update for Bloodborne feel like such an impossibility?

I could go on. I’m scratching the iceberg of things that make me feel like a real life manifestation of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s Charlie Kelly standing in front of his Pepe Silvia conspiracy board. If I did somehow get my hands on a working Magic 8 ball though, perhaps the question I’d ask first would be this: What the heck is going on with Tomb Raider? It’s been seven long years since the last mainline entry in the Tomb Raider franchise arrived in the form of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and while there is one reason as to why the franchise has needed to take a break, it doesn’t quite justify the complete and utter absence of Lara in our lives.

I personally was a huge fan of the Survivor Trilogy and while many herald Rise of the Tomb Raider as the best instalment it had to offer, I was always more of a Shadow of the Tomb Raider girl myself. It featured compelling puzzles, a cutthroat and accomplished Lara, and a well realised world teeming with terrifying enemies. I’m not quite sure I’ve ever felt so much like an adventurer myself. Many of those tomb entries were not obvious at all, and entering one only to hear a chilling otherworldly cry or a scuttling sound along the wall truly made me feel like I was entering somewhere that may not have been stepped foot in for hundreds of years. And that end sequence? Exhilarating.

The Survivor Trilogy did such a wonderful job of shaping Lara from a naive explorer to the toughened heroine many have always loved, with each entry intensifying alongside her growing personal resolve. It left me beyond excited for what might be next - the possibility of a new trilogy pushing this brilliant, modern iteration of Lara to her limits. Her growing combat prowess throughout the Survivor Trilogy, if continued, would only open up new gameplay opportunities, and there are hundreds of thrilling locales the series could have taken us to.

And yet, here we are, seven years on in a situation where, on the surface, it appears as if nothing has changed since Shadow of the Tomb Raider launched in 2018. The truth of the matter is that it’s been a hectic ol’ time for the franchise. The Survivor Trilogy was created by both Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montréal under the ownership of Square Enix but in 2022, both studios as well as the Tomb Raider IP were sold by Square Enix to The Embracer Group and now exist under the CDE Entertainment banner.

Square Enix

It’s likely whatever Square Enix, Crystal Dynamics, or Eidos-Montréal had planned for the franchise was canned when Embracer Group took over which, I’m sure, arrived with its own set of ideas. It’s been three years since that acquisition took place though and while, certainly, development cycles aren’t quick these days, you’d think we might now be at the stage where a new game instalment could at the very least be teased, perhaps to be released in the next 18 months.

Already, it’s obvious that Embracer wants to get its money's worth. Lara has recently surfaced in NARAKA: Bladepoint, Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Dead by Daylight to name a few titles, sporting a design that’ll assumedly reflect how she may look in the next mainline entry … whenever that may finally grace us with its presence. I’m not a game developer, so I’m not going to sit here and say that developing a Tomb Raider game is easy because that would be a lie. Game development comes with many challenges.

But at the same time, I don’t believe that Tomb Raider is a difficult franchise to grasp. It’s not exactly one that requires much in the way of reinvention or innovation perhaps beyond some modernisation when needs arise. All us longtime fans want is the heroine we love, flung off a thrilling new adventure where we can seek out treasures, fend off competing goons, and discover locations or items thought to be myths or lost to time. You’d hope that after holding onto this franchise for three years, Embracer Group might have something to show for it.

So what can we say is in store? Well, we know that Crystal Dynamics is helming the next entry, with Embracer enlisting Amazon Games as a publisher. It’s described as a multi-platform, single-player narrative-driven action-adventure title which, admittedly, doesn’t give anything away that we didn’t already assume. The deal was revealed shortly after Embracer acquired the IP in 2022, so the project should have a few years under its belt with Amazon Games’ boss exclaiming that development was going well as recently as 2024.

It goes without saying that none of us want the next entry to be rushed, especially given how long we’ve waited; anything that might be described as ‘disappointing’ would shatter us all. And yet despite this, I just find it incredibly difficult to process that one of gaming’s most steadfast and enduring franchises has floundered for so many years.