It hasn’t been officially announced yet, but a new Tomb Raider game is an inevitability, considering that the franchise is one of the most beloved and iconic brands in the Square Enix portfolio. A particular Reddit user called ‘tripleh280’ also claims to have found evidence that the third game in the series already has an official title, and may not be too far away from being officially unveiled to the public. The following photo depicts an apparent title for an unannounced third game in the new rebooted Tomb Raider saga, which is allegedly called ‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider‘. You can check out the blurry photo, allegedly snapped on a Montreal subway train, below:
It must be emphasized that this image hasn’t been officially verified as accurate (Square Enix issued the statement that it doesn’t comment on rumours or speculation when asked), though Kotaku did check with one of their sources at Square Enix, who claimed that the title is legitimate, and that the next Tomb Raider game is indeed currently going under the title of ‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider‘. The blurry logo does fall in line with the series’ current logo style too, and the fact that someone was spotted working on a presentation for the game could suggest that it may be announced very soon, possibly at one of the duo of large-scale gaming events this December, The Game Awards 2016, or PlayStation Experience 2016. Another more remote possibility is that the game might be among the third-party game announcements for Nintendo’s upcoming Nintendo Switch platform next January, since Square Enix has already publicly pledged support for the device. Obviously though, this is not any kind of guarantee that the game will show up at any of these events, and this is merely speculation on our part.
There is a pretty considerable wrinkle within the photo’s placement in Montreal however, since regular Tomb Raider developer, Crystal Dynamics is actually based in Redwood City, California, a whole separate country, let alone city. Tomb Raider publisher, Square Enix does have a studio in Montreal, that being Eidos Montreal, but they primarily do work on the Deus Ex franchise, and some insiders claim that Eidos Montreal is already busy with preparing the follow-up to this year’s hit release, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. It’s not impossible that Eidos Montreal could have some involvement with this alleged Tomb Raider game however, since publishers like Nintendo and Ubisoft, among many others, have frequently commissioned the help of other studios to help complete work on a game release or game announcement faster. It’s also possible that Square Enix may simply be making a pre-rendered video presentation with a studio based in Montreal for the game’s announcement, since it would obviously be far too early to show any workable gameplay at this point.
The series’ previous mainline release, Rise of the Tomb Raider, finally launched for PlayStation 4 a few weeks ago, after initially releasing in November 2015 as a timed exclusive on Xbox One and Xbox 360, and soon after coming to PC at the start of this year. Rise of the Tomb Raider was widely praised by numerous critics and fans (including us, as we awarded the initial Xbox-exclusive release of the game a glowing 97% score in our official review), though it was criticized by PlayStation gamers in particular for what was viewed as a needless and inconsiderate withholding from platforms outside of the Xbox ecosystem.
Xbox head, Phil Spencer commented on the matter by acknowledging inevitable pushback, though ultimately contended that the timed exclusivity gave the Xbox One in particular a much-needed competitor to Sony’s highly successful Uncharted games, with Microsoft not currently possessing a comparable action-adventure IP to call its own. On another occasion however, Spencer did also stress that Microsoft doesn’t own the Tomb Raider IP, and the Rise of the Tomb Raider deal is being treated as a one-off as of that point, so it’s not as likely that Shadow of the Tomb Raider would also boast any sort of exclusivity deal, with Xbox or otherwise.
Keep raiding Eggplante for all major news and updates on the Tomb Raider games.