Surprise! Shadow of the Tomb Raider's latest update, entitled Update 2.01, which was deployed earlier this week, brings 4K resolution and 60fps on PS5.
Though not formally announced by developer Eidos nor publisher Square Enix, the patch introduces "support for 4K at high frame-rate on PlayStation 5 in high-resolution mode".
sottr_just_added_a_4k_60_fps_mode_on_ps5_in from r/TombRaider
There's good news on the horizon for Xbox players, too. According to the eagle-eyed Lara fans on Reddit, it looks like the game – which was originally released for last generation tech back in 2018 – has been newly tagged on the official store as now "optimized for Xbox Series X/S".
Apparently, this is in addition to, and separate from, the Xbox "FPS boost" upgrade which had already improved the framerate on a range of back-compat games back in May, including Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
shadow_of_the_tomb_raider_just_got_series_x from r/TombRaider
While it's uncertain what this may mean in practice for the action-adventure game, OP thiccadam hypothesizes that "it seems they’re prepping the patch for this week", as Microsoft "updated the Series X optimization tag a few days before the patch for A Plague Tale: Innocence too. I redownloaded and it’s currently not optimized so far, I would assume better lighting and maybe some ray tracing though" (thanks, Eurogamer).
As for the movies? Future Tomb Raider games will reportedly be set after the 90s classics, and will "unify" the original story with the 2013 reboot trilogy.
In a video at the start of the year that announced the franchise's 25th-anniversary celebrations, game director Will Kerslake explained that "[Crystal Dynamics'] origin trilogy back in 2013 told the story of Lara's early days [...] while the classic games featured a seasoned and confident adventurer, traveling the world, unlocking its secrets, often standing alone against cataclysmic forces".
"We envision the future of Tomb Raider unfolding after these established adventures, telling stories that build upon the breadth of both Core Design and Crystal Dynamics' games, working to unify these timelines," Kerslake teased.
ICYMI, back in January Netflix announced a Tomb Raider anime series that'll take place after the events of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. There's also the sequel to the 2018 film, which recently brought on Lovecraft County's Misha Green as writer and director after Ben Wheatley departed the project.
For a complete list of all the other games that are available on Sony's next-gen console through the back-compat feature, head over to our PS5 backward compatibility guide for more.
