A new Tomb Raider game is being developed by Redwood City-based studio Crystal Dynamics, to be published by Square Enix. It is slated to be released in North America on the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, and Windows during the fall 2012 timeframe.
Tomb Raider will deliver an intense and gritty story of the origins of Lara Croft and her ascent from frightened young woman to hardened survivor, armed with only raw instincts and the physical ability to push beyond the limits of human endurance. We're also being promised "superb physics-based gameplay."
The wait till next fall is a long one, so in the meantime, you can have a look at the 45 screenshots of the upcoming game over on tombraiderchronicles.com. For those who prefer video, Crystal Dynamics has also released the Turning Point debut trailer on YouTube. We've embedded the game's first trailer for you below - make sure to watch it in 1080p:
The Tomb Raider video games have together sold over 35 million units, making the franchise one of the best-selling video game series of all time. The first game (released in October 1996) was just called Tomb Raider, and unless we get a new name, this 2012 game will apparently also go by just Tomb Raider.
I remember the original Tomb Raider games quite fondly as I grew up playing them on my old Windows boxes. It's too early for me to say whether I'll be picking this one up, but because it's of the rare Action Adventure genre, I'm much more likely to buy it over one of the other typical shooters.
"Forget everything you knew about Tomb Raider," said Darrell Gallagher of Crystal Dynamics. "This is an origins story that creates Lara Croft and takes her on a character defining journey like no other."