Tomb Raider publisher says "things are progressing" with the next Lara Croft game and that Crystal Dynamics is "fairly sheltered" from the layoffs wracking Embracer

Amazon Games studio head Christoph Hartmann says Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics is "fairly sheltered" from the volatility of its parent company, Embracer Group, and that the next Lara Craft game is making progress.

In an interview with IGN, Hartmann largely brushes off concerns about the yet-untitled Tomb Raider game, even though the company with the rights to the IP has been at the epicenter of the ongoing industry layoff crisis along with other high-profile publishers. According to Hartmann, Crystal Dynamics is relatively safe from Embracer's wrath despite parting ways with a comparatively minor 10 employees back in September.

"People obviously look at what the parent company is doing, but it never impacted on resources, never led to any changes on management for them, so they're fine," Hartmann tells IGN. "I mean, doing a new Tomb Raider, the bar is so high. The longer you go, the expectation goes higher, so it's a huge, huge task, but things are progressing. I mean, there's some really great ideas here."

Hartmann says there's no news to share about the new Tomb Raider title - Gamescom 2024 viewers know that all too well - but assures "things are going well, things are moving forward," adding, "from what I can tell, Crystal was pretty sheltered, because also when you look before...they went through a couple of ownership changes anyway before, it's not brand new for them."

The long-overdue Tomb Raider game was first announced by Crystal Dynamics more than two years ago, and then a few months later Amazon Games announced it was picking up publishing duties from Embracer. We've yet to see so much as a teaser trailer for the game nor a peep from Amazon or Crystal Dynamics.

Meanwhile, Netflix's Tomb Raider anime gets a new teaser trailer and our best look yet at Hayley Atwell's Lara Croft.