Rise Of The Tomb Raider: new story & gameplay details
Lara Croft will head to Siberia in Rise Of The Tomb Raider. Here are some of the new details from the forthcoming sequel...
Released in 2013, Tomb Raider was an effective reboot for the long-running series, recasting Lara Croft as a more human character thrust into an extraordinary situation. But while that game explored Croft's origins, Rise Of The Tomb Raider will see her strike out on a bigger, more dangerous adventure.
Expanding the scope of the game from a single island to the wastes of Siberia, Rise will see Croft on the hunt for a hidden city built by one Prince Vladimir around 700 years ago. This is according to the latest issue of US magazine Game Informer, whose coverage of the game has thrown up some intriguing new details which have gradually filtered out across the web.
Some of Rise's new elements could have come straight out of Minecraft. There'll be a day-night cycle, with some particularly dangerous varieties of animal only coming out after dark - Game Informer's cover shows Lara confronted by a gigantic brown bear. Crafting's another new addition, with abandoned items strewn around the map coming in handy for making weapons and medicines.
There may be one or two other locations in the game, too - Eurogamer suggests that forests and deserts may also be in the mix, while some familiar faces from the first Tomb Raider will also make a reappearance. Jonah the cook will return as Lara's sidekick, while VG247 suggests that the secret society glimpsed in the previous game will figure in the story, too.
While Crystal Dynamics is handling the Xbox One version of Rise, the Xbox 360 iteration is in the hands of Nixxes Software, the team behind Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition and the spin-off Lara Croft And The Temple Of Osiris - this means, Crystal says, that it has more time to concentrate on optimising the game for current-gen tech. Since Rise is a timed exclusive for Microsoft, there's still no detail as to when the PlayStation 4 or PC versions are likely to appear.
Rise Of The Tomb Raider is due out this summer. In the meantime, here's a brief video from Game Informer about the game and their coverage.