lara-croft posts

Redwood City, California-based game developer Crystal Dynamics is getting prepped to work on an all-original game after working exclusively as the makers of the last few games in the Tomb Raider series. Gamasutra reports that the studio has hired a new executive producer, Scot Amos, that will lead the new game IP team.

Amos comes from Electronic Arts' Visceral Studios where he helped to develop the team's Dead Space games. Currently Crystal Dynamics is working on the reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise for publisher Square Enix that's due out late in 2011. This new game will be the first all original title from the studio since the sci-fi first person shooter Project Snowblind which was released in 2006.

Fans of the PC version of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light have been waiting patiently for the game's promised DLC content to be released for our version Today the wait is over as the downloadable third person co-op action-adventure game from developer Crystal Dynamics now has some cool extras to check out via Steam.

One extra has been released for free as players can now play the games as Kane and Lynch from the game series of the same name. For $3.49 players can also download the Legacy of Kain character pack where you can control Kain and Raziel from that now dormant game franchise. There are also three new challenge map packs (All The Trappings, Things That Go Boom and Hazardous Reunion). Each adds four new maps to the game and each pack costs $3.49.

One of the traditions of releasing a new Tomb Raider game was that a lucky UK woman was hired by Eidos to portray the lead character Lara Croft at various press and fan events.That model achieved international fame and it sometimes lead to other things. The very first official Lara Croft model, Rhona Mitra, has had a solid acting career since her time in the costume in the late 1990s.

But now it looks like the franchise's new owners Square Enix have other plans. The just announced new reboot of the action-adventure game series, simply called Tomb Raider, has a preview in the new Game Informer magazine. According to a post at NeoGAF from a person who has reportedly read the preview the plan is not to hire a model-actress to play the Lara Croft role this time. So you will just have to deal with the tons of non-official cosplay models. Oh well.

As has been rumored for many months, today publisher Square Enix has officially announced its plan to launch a Batman Begins-Casino Royale style reboot of its Tomb Raider action-adventure game franchise. Indeed the game itself is simply titled Tomb Raider and follows the adventures of a young Lara Croft as she finds herself washed ashore on an island after the ship she was on is hit by a massive storm.

Game Informer will have the first preview of the game in its new print issue which will give the concrete details of the game that's being developed by Crystal Dynamics. No release date for the game was announced.

The other character DLC was revealed in a "tweet" from Crystal Dynamics announcing that Kane and Lynch of the game series of the same name would also be included in a Lara Croft DLC pack. In fact the developer is asking its fans which pack (Kane and Lynch or Kain and Raziel) should be released first. We should get a (legal) download of the character packs before the end of the year. In the meantime you can check out the Kain and Raziel YouTube video after the jump:

[Via Joystiq]

Lara Croft And The Guardian of Light has been available to download and play for PC owners for close to two months now but the top down action-adventure game from developer Crystal Dynamics has finally gotten its first patch update. It's a pretty major one as the patch enabled online two-player co-op support for the game,

The patch is now available for automatic download via Steam. It also has some performance and stability improvements along with more audio and graphics polish to the game. The patch also has some unnamed improvements to the game's controls for both keyboard-mouse set-ups and gamepads.

Lara Croft's fans were helped out with this year's release of the downloadable top down game Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. However it was also under understood that there would be a full blown retail game in the long running action-adventure game series at some point.

Now some are speculating that a teaser ad and web site are giving us a hint that the next game would be officially revealed in Game Informer magazine. A two page spread from the current issue scanned over at NeoGaf shows a wrecked ship and the words "A Survivor Is Born" with a cover reveal scheduled for December 6. There also a web site, asurvivorisborn.com, with the same info minus the ship. All of this might hint about not just the next Tomb Raider game but that it will also be a Batman Begins-style reboot for the series.

[Via Eurogamer]

It's always important for icons to reinvent themselves, and few video game characters are as recognizable as the ever agile Lara Croft. Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light is a spin-off from the Tomb Raider series and offers a new perspective to the treasure hunting and puzzle solving formula. The downloadable game looks downward onto the main characters using an isometric view camera, making it possible to see more of the environment to figure out puzzles and dodge hazards... that is, when she's not shooting at dangerous creatures. That's not the only change, since Lara can be joined by a warrior named Totec (the Guardian of Light mentioned in the title) to combine skills and overcome obstacles together. The game diverges from the traditional Tomb Raider formula on a number of different levels, but in this case, that's a good thing.

Check out all Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light downloads

This week is yet another busy one with a new zombie action game, a mech-action title and more. Also folks who purchased the regular edition of Final Fantasy XIV can gain access to the MMO this week (the game's already live for owners of the Collector's version).

Dead Rising 2 - Developer Blue Castle Games and publisher Capcom bring this sequel to the zombie action game to the PC franchise for the first time. Players will get to fight off the undead horde in a fictional Las Vegas-style city with pretty much any item they can get their hands on.

It looks like one of the big features for the upcoming downloadable action game Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light won't be made available when the PC version of the game is released on September 28. The game from developer Crystal Dynamics and publisher Square Enix won't have any online co-op features at first.

While there will still be offline co-op play through the single player campaign for you and a friend who happens to be sitting next to you, the online co-op features will be added "at a later date" . Players can also expect to download additional content for the game over the next few months including new areas and puzzles to explore and new character packs.

[Via email press release]