UPDATE: Stop the presses! This is all about to change now that Game Informer have announced that Rise of the Tomb Raider will be their cover story for March 2015! Click here for all the latest Rise of the Tomb Raider developments!
Despite being one of the key announcements at last year’s E3, there has been precious little news about Rise of the Tomb Raider, the highly-anticipated sequel to 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot. Seven months have past since the announcement trailer was released and even though the game is slated for a “Holiday 2015” release, Crystal Dynamics have remained strangely silent about Lara’s next adventure.
Granted, this may be due to the fact that they’ve had to invest their time and energy in promoting Lara Croft & the Temple of Osiris (the game came out in early December 2014) but Tomb Raider fans are beginning to get jittery about the lack of any real information on Rise and some have even taken to passing off fan art as “exclusive artwork”. The rumour mills are at work…
So what *do* we know about The Rise of the Tomb Raider so far?:
- We don’t have an official release date yet but we know it’s likely to be released in either November or December 2015, assuming the release date won’t be pushed back before then.
- We know that Rise will be a timed exclusive, that it will be released first on the Xbox One and Xbox 360, and that the Xbox versions will be published by Microsoft, not Square Enix. We don’t have any official confirmation when (or if) the game will be released for the PS4 or PC, though a PC release is likely.
- We know that the game will explore Lara’s “inner turmoil and motivations” and that the adventurer will be attending therapy sessions. The assumption is that Lara is still traumatised by what happened to her and her crew mates on Yamatai.
- We know that Trinity will likely play a major role in Rise but we don’t really know what its objectives are or why they’re so interested in Lara. The secret GPS documents found in Tomb Raider 2013 suggest that they’re searching for the “Star Phenomenon” but it’s unclear at this stage what this may be or whether it will form part of Rise’s storyline.
- We know that Tomb Raider issues 13 onwards will be written by Rhianna Pratchett and will pave the way for what we’ll see in Rise. It’s possible that the events of this story arc may be the reason why Lara finds herself in therapy so we’ll have to wait and see how it all pans out…
- We know that mova fluorescent paint is being used in the motion capture for Rise, which will allow for a much more detailed and realistic motion capture of Camilla Luddington’s facial features. It’s thought that the paint will give the developers some 7,000 points of reference to work from as opposed to the previous game’s mere 90.
- We know from the announcement trailer and concept art that Lara will be armed with a variety of weapons and tools, including her climbing axe, arrows and at least one type of bow, and that she will face both human enemies and animals (e.g. bears).
- We don’t know which places Lara will visit in Rise but at least one of them is somewhere snowy and forested (North America, perhaps? Or Russia?) and that she will be visiting “some of the most beautifully hostile places on Earth”. We also know that she may be looking for a lost city but it’s all a bit vague at this point.
- We also know that she must “learn to trust new friends” (oh dear) but we don’t know if these will be brand-new characters created specially for the game or whether some of these new friends have been already introduced to us in the comics. Perhaps Alex’s sister Kaz will be added to the game’s supporting cast.
- We know that it’s high time we got some new information about the game. Or a gameplay demo. Or even just a screenshot or two? Come on, Crystal Dynamics. Please?
All the information listed above was correct at the time of writing (23rd January 2015) and is subject to change as more information about the game is released in the coming months.
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