Rise of the Tomb Raider’s Xbox exclusivity isn’t going to last much longer, as rumoured. Square Enix confirmed the launch details for the game’s PC version today, revealing that Rise of the Tomb Raider will come to PC on January 28th. Unlike the Xbox One and Xbox 360 editions of the game, which were published by Microsoft, Rise of the Tomb Raider’s PC build will be published directly by Square Enix, and will be co-developed between the series’ usual developer, Crystal Dynamics, as well as Nixxes Software, who previously put together the game’s Xbox 360 port.
The PC version of Rise of the Tomb Raider will be released physically at retail, as well as digitally via platforms like Steam, the Windows Store, and Square Enix’s own online marketplace. The game’s PC release will be available in three versions, including the standard edition priced at $59.99 USD, a Digital Deluxe Edition that includes the game’s Season Pass, priced at $89.99 USD, and finally, a Collector’s Edition that comes with the game, its Season Pass, replicas of Lara Croft’s journal and jade necklace, a steelbook case, and a 12” collectible statue of Lara, which will be $149.99 USD, and sold exclusively through Square Enix’s online store. Steam is also offering free PC copies of the original 2013 reboot of Tomb Raider to anyone who pre-orders the game there, as well as the Remnant Resistance Pack, which grants a ‘Remnant’ costume, animal skins, Byzantine Armor, the ‘Moon Shadow’ heavy pistol skin, and a foil card that reduces Lara’s damage when hit with gunfire.
On top of revealing the release date and trio of versions to buy, Square Enix also announced that the game’s PC version will feature 4K resolution support, giving it a considerable graphical advantage over its console cousins. Square Enix also revealed the minimum system requirements for Rise of the Tomb Raider on PC (its recommended specs are currently unknown), which are:
- OS: Windows 7 64-bit OS
- PROCESSOR: Intel Core i3-2100 or AMD equivalent
- GPU: NVIDIA GTX 650 2 GB or AMD HD7770 2 GB
- RAM: 6 GB
- HD SPACE: 25 GB
- DIRECTX: DirectX 11
- INPUT: Mouse + Keyboard
Obviously, while these requirements will be fairly reasonable for avid PC gamers, they’re not small either! You’ll need at least a mid-range gaming PC to even start the game by the look of things, as its GPU, RAM and processor requirements in particular pretty much demand dedicated PC gaming hardware that’s fairly recent in design, with the game requiring a modern DirectX 11 driver to function as well. Strangely though, the OS demands are a little more relaxed, as the game apparently even runs on Windows 7, let alone the current Windows 10. Bear in mind that these are just the bare minimum requirements to get the game to function on your computer as well! If you want the PC build of Rise of the Tomb Raider to truly outclass its Xbox One cousin from a technical standpoint, you’ll no doubt need a pretty beastly rig, even with the 4K advantage to consider!
Rise of the Tomb Raider has received lots of critical praise since it first launched on Xbox One and Xbox 360 back in November. We also reviewed the game and were extremely fond of it ourselves, declaring it one of 2015’s best games in our official review of the game’s original build on Xbox platforms. Microsoft and Square Enix were also pleased with the sales performance of Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox platforms, which have so far sold, “Well over a million copies”, despite eliminating PC and PlayStation 4 releases at launch, and despite sharing a release date with the titanic release of Bethesda’s Fallout 4, which still outsold Rise of the Tomb Raider by a hefty margin, with its multi-platform release so far selling nearly eight million copies worldwide, though sales of Rise of the Tomb Raider weren’t cut into by Fallout 4 quite as much as anticipated.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is still set to expand to PlayStation 4 this year, though it won’t hit Sony’s console until towards the end of the year. It’s unknown whether Square Enix will be adding any kind of incentives for PlayStation gamers to compensate for the extended wait for the game, particularly since the Tomb Raider franchise often sees its highest worldwide sales on PlayStation platforms with any new release, not to mention that PlayStation gamers were predictably angry about the timed exclusivity deal with Microsoft over Rise of the Tomb Raider’s initial 2015 launch.
Keep exploring Eggplante for all news and updates on Tomb Raider.