Crystal Dynamics is assuring fans that development of the upcoming Tomb Raider titles is still going fine despite the studio announcing its fourth batch of layoffs in under a year.

Around a year ago, Crystal Dynamics confirmed it was letting go of 17 employees while continuing work on Perfect Dark and the then-unnamed Tomb Raider title. Microsoft then cancelled the Perfect Dark reboot as part of its sweeping layoffs back in July, which in turn saw Crystal Dynamics announce another round of layoffs in August, followed by a third round in November, while the studio was weeks away from announcing Tomb Raider: Catalyst and the Flying Wild Hog co-developed remake, Legacy of Atlantis.

Unfortunately, the excitement around the new releases doesn't seem to have significantly improved the studio's fortunes, as Crystal Dynamics announced this week (via a LinkedIn post) that it will be laying off 20 more team members, marking a fourth round of layoffs in under a year.

"This is a difficult day for our studio, and we never make these decisions lightly, particularly after the restructuring we underwent last year," the post reads, adding, "As our current projects move into new phases of development, we continuously take a hard look at our team structures to ensure they align with our long-term studio goals. While we always strive to transition our people into new roles whenever possible, we have unfortunately reached a point where these departures are necessary."

As for Tomb Raider, the studio noted, "We know that news like this can cause concern amongst our community. Crystal Dynamics remains fully committed to the future development of our already announced Tomb Raider titles." Adding, "however, our priority is supporting our colleagues who are moving on."

Perfect Dark actor Alix Wilton Regan says she was blindsided by the game's cancellation, given just how much had been recorded for it. Thankfully, though, the upcoming duo of Tomb Raider: Catalyst and Legacy of Atlantis offers some relief.

Microsoft's sweeping layoffs earlier this year resulted in a number of project cancellations across Xbox and beyond, with Rare's Everwild, Zenimax Online Studios' unannounced MMO, and even third-party titles like Romero Games' unannounced project, which lost its funding. However, the most high-profile of these had to have been the Perfect Dark reboot, which not only had a strong showing at Microsoft's Xbox Game Showcase the year before but was being developed by The Initiative – a team built specifically to make the game – which was shuttered alongside the cancellation (with co-developer Crystal Dynamics also facing layoffs following the cancellation).

Speaking to The Gamer, Wilton Regan says, "I was as shocked, surprised, and devastated as everyone else was when the funding was pulled, and the studio was closed," adding, "I was absolutely blindsided when the project was defunded."

She adds that the game "had delivered several milestones that the client was really happy with" by the time it was cancelled.

"There was an ecosystem of creativity and collaboration that was in place that we lost overnight. It was really difficult, really difficult for everybody," Wilton Regan explained, and even though there were attempts to revive the project, it never came to pass.

Wilton Regan is still working with Crystal Dynamics, having been announced as the new voice of Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider projects. "The saving grace for me when Perfect Dark fell apart was that I'd already been shooting Lara for about a year as well," she explains, adding, "I just felt so relieved that I still had Lara, but I also felt really frightened about losing Lara. I'm still frightened of losing Lara."

Tomb Raider: Catalyst is Crystal Dynamics' "largest" Lara Croft game yet, and there's "no homework" required to jump in.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis' developers say that the original's brutal difficulty will have to be evolved for modern player tastes.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is the second time Lara Croft has returned to her debut adventure, following 2007's Tomb Raider: Anniversary, with Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog leading the charge in what is described as a "reimagining" of the original 1996 adventure – think of the recent Resident Evil remakes. However, if you don't remember, that original game could be pretty brutal on the difficulty front, something the 2007 edition toned down, and Legacy of Atlantis may be following suit from the sound of things.

Speaking during a presentation to the press, Crystal Dynamics developer Will Kerslake was asked about the approach to difficulty for Legacy of Atlantis, specifically in reference to the likes of instant death traps like spikes and giant boulders that led to a trial-and-error approach (while Anniversary let you save yourself with QTEs, very 2007).

Kerslake explains, "part of reimagining a game right is adjusting that game evolving for modern player tastes," which – while not explicitly stated – feels like a confirmation that frustrating insta-kill traps are probably a thing of the past, if not more easily avoidable than before. That being said, it doesn't mean it's going to lose sight of what the series is. Kerslake also adds, "It is core to the Tomb Raider experience that there are puzzles in combat and traversal and death-defying action."

Pointing out the Legacy of Atlantis trailer, Kerslake notes, "you'll see big rolling balls, and you know, the things that you expect in a Tomb Raider game are going to be there in spades."

Thankfully, the original Tomb Raider (and Anniversary, for that matter) are both still available on modern platforms, so if you fancy going back to the days of tank controls and instant-kill traps, it's right there.

Tomb Raider: Catalyst picks up "years after" 2008's Underworld, continuing from the Legend trilogy after almost 20 years.

Ever the abundance of riches, The Game Awards gave us not one but two bits of Tomb Raider announcements. We've got Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, a full reimagining of the first PS1 game, and Tomb Raider: Catalyst, a more forward-looking entry in the franchise that picks up the timeline where the Legend trilogy left off.

Before 2013's Tomb Raider rebooted Lara Croft's story, Underworld in 2008 capped off a three-game arc for the intrepid adventurer. The 2013 entry's success led to a full trilogy of prequels, leaving Lara's more contemporaneous happenings to fall by the wayside.

Crystal Dynamics is finally picking up the threads of Tomb Raider's latter-day happenings. "From a timeline perspective, Tomb Raider: Catalyst is set years after the events of Tomb Raider: Underworld," Will Kerslake, game director at developer Crystal Dynamics, told GamesRadar+, "with the reboot trilogy serving as her origin story, so we're seeing a more experienced Lara Croft."

Despite following up a game that'll be 19 years old by the time Catalyst is out (sorry), Kerslake is keen to point out fans won't need to dig out their Xbox 360s for a refresher. "What's important to know is that this is a new chapter in Tomb Raider," he states. "So whether you followed Lara from the start, or this is your first Tomb Raider game, Tomb Raider: Catalyst is designed to stand on its own as an adventure that can be enjoyed by everyone."

The setup is classic Lara: she's called to Northern India, where some long-hidden architecture has been uncovered, and she has to deal with some rival relic hunters while trying to figure out the significance of these ruins herself.

There'll be puzzles, gunplay, and plenty of ledge-jumping, in what looks like a stunning environment, going by the first trailer. Tomb Raider: Catalyst arrives in 2027, while Legacy of Atlantis can keep you busy in 2026.

Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics continues to bleed out, laying off "under 30" more employees in third cut of the year: "The realities of the industry continue to evolve."

Tomb Raider: Catalyst is on the way from long-time Lara Croft developer, Crystal Dynamics. The adventuring heroine's first new escapade in seven years was announced during the 2025 Game Awards, the second of two new games coming to the franchise in 2027.

With the developer reaffirming its commitment to the upcoming adventure despite experiencing another round of layoffs, Catalyst is set launch in the same year as Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis (a "reimagining" of Lara's PS1 debut) after the studio delayed the latter from its 2026 initial target window. Unlike Legacy, though, Catalyst won't be another remake, but the start of a new chapter in the series. There's also a new Tomb Raider TV show heading our way, just in case you weren't hyped enough about Lara right now!

As a massive fan of all the best Tomb Raider games, I can't wait for Lara's comeback and have gathered all the information that you need to know ahead of the upcoming title's launch. Below you'll find details from the development team, breaking down story information, as well as details on the Tomb Raider: Catalyst release window, confirmed platforms, and more. So if you are ready to dive into what may just be one of the best adventure games on the near horizon, scroll on.

Tomb Raider: Catalyst release date speculation

Tomb Raider: Catalyst's release date will be heading our way sometime in 2027. This release window was revealed during the 2025 Game Awards, and also came with a snazzy teaser and news that we'd be getting first game remake Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis as well.

The remake was supposed to launch in 2026, but following a delay from the developer, both new Tomb Raider games will be launching in 2027. We don't have a firm date yet for either one of them, but we'll keep you posted once that changes!

Tomb Raider: Catalyst platforms

Tomb Raider: Catalyst has been confirmed to be landing on PC (via Steam), PS5, and Xbox Series X/S when it releases sometime in 2027. Currently, no Switch 2 releases have been announced; but worry not, Nintendo fans, there is still hope.

The Switch 2 does support some games that were developed on Unreal Engine 5, just like Tomb Raider: Catalyst. Games such as Cronos: The New Dawn, Fortnite, and Split Fiction all run on the new hybrid console. So, there is always a chance that Tomb Raider: Catalyst could be added to our list of upcoming Switch 2 games in the future. Stay tuned for updates.

Tomb Raider: Catalyst trailer

Above is the first and only trailer that we have for Tomb Raider: Catalyst. The clip was shown during the 2025 Game Awards and doesn't show a lot gameplay wise. Still, there is enough here in terms of story reveals to keep us excited. So if you want to check out a teaser for Lara's new look and adventure, be sure to check it out for yourself.

Tomb Raider: Catalyst story and setting

Tomb Raider: Catalyst will be following Lara Croft on a new adventure as she heads to North India after a mystical cataclysm has unleashed ancient secrets and forces that guard them. It's up to the badass treasure hunter to uncover the truth behind the event and also work to stop those who seek to use the mysterious power for their own benefit. The stakes are pretty high in the story, too, since it will be up to you to prevent a full-blown catastrophe that could very well shape the future. Exciting times!

While we don't have many story-specific details, we do know the upcoming game is serving as a new chapter in the Tomb Raider franchise. Although it's technically set after the events of the Legend trilogy, you don't need to play those titles or the reboot trilogy either to get up to speed. This timeline information was confirmed to us by Will Kerslake, the Game Director of Crystal Dynamics, during a chat about the future title.

"From a timeline perspective, Tomb Raider: Catalyst is set years after the events of Tomb Raider: Underworld, with the reboot trilogy serving as her origin story, so we’re seeing a more experienced Lara Croft. But what’s important to know is that this is a new chapter in Tomb Raider," he explained.

"So whether you followed Lara from the start, or this is your first Tomb Raider game, Tomb Raider: Catalyst is designed to stand on its own as an adventure that can be enjoyed by everyone."

Who voices Lara Croft in Tomb Raider: Catalyst?

Alix Wilton Regan will be voicing Lara Croft in the upcoming game. That's right folks, that means that Camilla Luddington won't be back from her time voicing the character in the Survivor trilogy.

You may recognise Wilton Regan's voice from the likes of Lies of P: Overture, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Assassin's Creed Origins, and Cyberpunk 2077. So yeah, we are in pretty good hands here. But to put Lara Croft fans even more at ease, in a recent interview with the Press X to Continue podcast Wilton Regan explained how she is studying past Lara performances to make sure no version of Lara is "left behind" in this new chapter for Tomb Raider.

"I like the idea of no Lara is left behind," she said. "I've looked at all of the performances. Obviously, I've got all the scripts, so I know where it's going, and, you know, I think all of the Lara's that have previously come before will also be informing as we move into a new era of Tomb Raider, I would say."

Tomb Raider: Catalyst gameplay

Like past Tomb Raider games, Tomb Raider: Catalyst is a single-player action-adventure game that will have you stepping into the shoes of Lara Croft. This is going to be a story-driven game. So expect to see some cinematic moments and get ready to buckle in for a more linear kind of adventure.

In a press release for the game, it was also confirmed that players will get to explore the largest Tomb Raider map we've ever had. Along with exploration that is apparently increasing in scale, players can also look forward to diving into tombs that are packed with intricate puzzles to solve. So far, it sounds like everything you'd expect from a Tomb Raider game, just taken up a notch. However, we are still waiting on more gameplay reveals to show us more information on what kind of new mechanics and environmental puzzles will be on offer.

Combat details and enemy encounters are also being kept under lock and key currently, so hopefully, we will get more news on those soon. While we wait for more details, you can check out our list of the best action games to play today to keep you busy.

Tomb Raider: Catalyst development

Crystal Dynamics has been developing Tomb Raider: Catalyst since 2022, back when its partnership with Amazon Game Studios was first announced. If you need a Tomb Raider refresher, Crystal Dynamics has been making games for the series since 2006's Tomb Raider: Legend. The studio is also known for the Legacy of Kain and Gex series, so in terms of action-adventure outings, the studio is as experienced as you can get.

Tomb Raider Catalyst is being developed on Unreal Engine 5, and according to a press release following the upcoming game's official reveal at The Game Awards, Scot Amos, Head of Studio at Crystal Dynamics, has stated that the team is looking to push boundaries and innovate the series, thanks to Amazon Game Studios' support.

"Our collaboration with Amazon Game Studios has been truly transformative for these ambitious projects," he writes. "Amazon’s partnership has provided the resources, expertise, and creative freedom necessary to realize our vision for both games without compromise. With Tomb Raider: Catalyst, we're crafting our most expansive and innovative Tomb Raider adventure yet."

It should be noted that in 2025, Crystal Dynamics had three rounds of layoffs that affected various projects and departments in the studio. But it seems like Tomb Raider is safe from any potential cancellations for now, thanks to a reassuring LinkedIn post shared by the developer in November 2025.

The post reads: "as the realities of the industry continue to evolve, we've made these painful choices as a way to optimize the continued development of our flagship Tomb Raider game, as well as shaping the rest of the studio to make new games for the future."

We'll keep you posted on any further news that comes our way, but things seem to be on course right now, which is a great sign.

For more future releases, check out our lists of all the upcoming PS5 games and upcoming Xbox Series X games on the way.

It's been more than seven years since Shadow of the Tomb Raider put a bow on Lara Croft's big reboot trilogy, and since then, series fans have been desperate for even a morsel of information on what's coming next. Now, finally, it seems relief is in sight, as a big Tomb Raider reveal has been teased for The Game Awards later this week.

"Did you miss her?" the official Tomb Raider account asks on Twitter. "She missed you." The message encourages you to tune into the annual TGA showcase on December 11 "for a look at the future of one of gaming's most iconic franchises." The news was initially revealed in Fortnite, as part of a TGA-branded island built for players to vote on their favorite fanmade creations in the battle royale hub.

The teaser includes an image showing a silhouette of Lara Croft posing proudly with the old-school dual pistols that helped define her appearance in the original 1996 game. If you squint just hard enough, you can just about make out pouches and holster straps around her legs that hint at the old costume, too.

It's possible that this reveal is tied to some non-gaming multimedia project, like maybe the upcoming Prime Video series, but I'm inclined to believe it's going to be our first look at the new Tomb Raider game Crystal Dynamics first announced way back in 2022. You don't tease "future of one of gaming's most iconic franchises" without knowing that fans are going to expect a video game reveal.

The most telling bit is the new-look Lara. As far back as 2021, Crystal Dynamics was talking about its intent to "unify" the old-school Tomb Raider timeline with the modern Survivor trilogy, and we've occasionally seen new versions of the character blending '90s camp costuming with a more realistic appearance for the character herself. The idea of a "unified" Lara Croft design has grown powerful in the minds of fans, and this new teaser certainly seems to suggest something along those lines.

For now, we have only two concrete bits of information on the new Tomb Raider game: it's being developed in Unreal Engine 5, and it's going to be published by Amazon Games. For a couple of years now, it's seemed that Crystal Dynamics only emerges from its silence to announce another round of layoffs before going quiet once again. Here's hoping this reveal at The Game Awards turns out to be a little more unequivocally positive.

These are the best Tomb Raider games ever made.

Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics has just announced its third round of job cuts this year. This time, the wound impacts less than 30 staff members across departments.

"Today we've made the difficult but necessary decision to reorganize Crystal Dynamics' studios and teams," Crystal Dynamics shares on LinkedIn, echoing similar announcements it made on the platform in the past, including in August this year. ("Today we made the very difficult decision to part ways with a number of our talented colleagues…)."

Crystal Dynamics' recent history is blister that won't heal; there's been constant friction. The developer has experienced a total of four layoffs in only two years, shaking loose at least 60 positions, and the Perfect Dark reboot it was co-developing was canceled in September.

"We've parted ways with just under 30 team members across various departments and projects as we restructure the company and business for our next generation," Crystal Dynamics now writes on LinkedIn. "Crystal deeply thanks all of those impacted for their incredible talent, hard work, and dedication, which helped shape the studio in so many ways. We are committed to offering our fullest resources and support to you during this transition."

"To our players," continues the developer, "as the realities of the industry continue to evolve, we've made these painful choices as a way to optimize the continued development of our flagship Tomb Raider game, as well as shaping the rest of the studio to make new games for the future."

According to its website, Crystal Dynamics doesn't seem to have any projects scheduled aside from a Lara Croft animated series season two premiere, set to release on Netflix in December. After its second season ends, the show will be canceled.

Despite cancellation rumors, Amazon's new Tomb Raider TV show from Fleabag helmer Phoebe Waller-Bridge with Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner as Lara Croft is moving ahead with a 2026 filming date.

Crystal Dynamics has announced yet another round of layoffs, its third since the studio was acquired by Embracer Group in 2022. The news comes in the wake of the cancellation of Perfect Dark, which Crystal Dynamics was developing alongside Xbox studio The Initiative.

"Today we made the very difficult decision to part ways with a number of our talented colleagues as the result of evolving business conditions," the studio says in a LinkedIn post (via GamesIndustry.biz). "This decision was not made lightly. It was necessary, however, to ensure the long-term health of our studio and core creative priorities in a continually shifting market."

The post concludes by noting that development of the next Tomb Raider "remains unaffected by this decision." Very little about the game has been revealed since it was announced in 2022, other than the fact that it's in development on Unreal Engine 5 and will be published by Amazon Games.

Crystal Dynamics did not disclose how many people were affected by today's layoffs. The company laid off 17 employees earlier this year, citing the need to "better align our current business needs and the studio’s future success." A further 10 people were laid off in 2023, that time to "align the studio with our current business needs." I guess the layoff form letters don't change much over the years.

The last new game from Crystal Dynamics launched in 2020, while the studio was still a subsidiary of Square Enix. That game was Marvel's Avengers, a live-service mishap that launched to mediocre reviews and eventually shut down in 2023. The studio has contributed to some remaster projects, including Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain, in recent years, but we're all still waiting to see what its next big game is.

Crystal Dynamics is responsible for reviving the series and bringing us some of the best Tomb Raider games of all time.

Gadgets, guns, and a badass leading lady. That's what Perfect Dark looks to be offering up, and I am more than happy to take the bait. Last week's gameplay reveal proved a Summer Game Fest highlight for me, and given all the less-than-promising rumors I'd been hearing of the game's supposedly "rough" state (via Giant Bombcast) throughout its lengthy development, Perfect Dark looking like an all-out superspy fantasy is not something I'd had in mind.

Its first-person gunplay looks slick and sharp, the dynamic movement akin to Dishonored levels of acrobatic parkour goodness, but I was most excited to get a closer look at Joanna Dark herself. I'll admit that both she and Lara Croft have always occupied a similar corner of my brain; they're action heroines from some of the most popular games of the '90s and early '00s, but aside from that, I draw a blank. Never being able to gel with something as cool as Tomb Raider has always been a sore spot for me, so I'm excited to get stuck into Perfect Dark's FPS action in a revamped version of what I'm told was an utterly awesome N64 game.

Rise and fall of the tomb failure 

Here's the thing about Lara Croft: she's awesome, but I can't stand to play as her in video games. I do recall gleefully watching my brother lock her butler in the freezer back in the halcyon days of 1999 – at least, as gleefully as any four-year old child could have been about seeing elder abuse on the PS1– but a glaring problem would arise much later. I soon found out that I absolutely and reliably suck at platforming games of all kinds, and ergo, have had zero interest in playing anything that requires gauging distances to jump across. That sadly means Lara's adventures were never to be my plat du jour.

My hopes soared when 2013 saw Crystal Dynamics delivering the first of its new action adventure Tomb Raider games. I'd somehow convinced myself that the three lifetime hours I'd spent pretending to enjoy Mario games had miraculously imbued me with hand-eye coordination. Perhaps at long last, I would be better at not tossing Lara into chasms this time around – especially with tank controls having fallen out of fashion. 

That was the most wishful of wishful thinking. Half an hour with Rise of the Tomb Raider was all I needed to confirm that I still sucked at Tomb Raider. I will always suck at Tomb Raider. I have made peace with this fact and will continue to support Lara Croft's brand of girl power from a safe, fall damage-free distance.

Enter: Joanna Dark and the Perfect Dark reboot. I never had an N64 growing up, so the 2000 original is not something I've ever been able to experience for myself. Honestly, it had me from the elevator pitch of being a spy FPS complete with gadgets and gizmos aplenty. One of my favorite childhood games was (and still is) 007 NightFire, so the opportunity to play a brand new game with roots in a PS2-era secret agent thriller is enticing enough as it is. 

Crystal clear dynamics

To that end, The Initiative's reveal trailer at the 2020 Game Awards had successfully piqued my interest. But when it was announced that Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics had signed on as co-developers in 2021, I started to pay closer attention. 

Even us unskilled puzzle-platformers know an icon when we see one, and the way that Crystal Dynamics has recontextualized and championed Lara Croft well into the 2010s proves her a prime example of one. These newer adventures have cemented Tomb Raider's pop cultural relevance even some 28 years later, turning Lara from a low-poly figurehead into a blockbuster action heroine. Who's to say lightning can't strike twice as Crystal Dynamics turns its hand to Joanna Dark?

Of course, CD's penchant for modern day makeovers isn't the only thing I'm drawn to about Perfect Dark. The story details as reported on Xbox Wire show a mature side to a 24-year old game that makes it feel thoroughly 2024. Cyberpunk vibes and post-apocalyptic ecological warfare are among the biggest gaming trends at Summer Game Fest that we picked out, and Perfect Dark's futuristic spy tech equipment and its setting in the aftermath of an environmental disaster fits the bill on both accounts. Throw in a conspiracy cooked up by global mega-corporations that seek to manipulate, extort, or otherwise harm humanity, and you have a sci-fi epic adventure perfectly befitting our current life and times.

It's been four years in the making, but I couldn't be happier with how Perfect Dark is looking. As one of the biggest and most pleasant surprises of the summer showcase season, my hopes have been renewed that I might finally find my own Lara Croft in Joanna Dark come the (hopefully) not-so-distant future – no platforming required.

Check out the host of other upcoming Xbox Series X games in development, from Fable 4 to Avowed.

Update:

Crystal Dynamics has confirmed that development on Marvel's Avengers is ending and that no further updates will be released after version 2.8 goes live in March.

This comes just a couple of hours after a report surfaced claiming an announcement from Crystal Dynamics could come as early as next week. Seemingly in response, the studio has released a statement on Marvel's Avengers' official website that confirms work on the game is ending.

Following the release of Update 2.8 on March 31, there won't be any new content or features, and then on September 30, 2023, the developers will stop supporting the game entirely. Likewise, the cosmetics shop will also be closing on March 31, at which point credits will no longer be purchasable and all remaining balances will be converted into in-game resources. Click here for a chart showing how your credits will be converted.

Crystal Dynamics also revealed that, "as a show of appreciation," all cosmetics from the in-game marketplace, Challenge Card, and Shipments system will be available for all players free of charge.

"We know this is disappointing news as everyone in our community has such a connection to these characters and their stories. We're so, so grateful that you came on this adventure with us. Your excitement for Marvel's Avengers - from your epic Photo Mode shots, to your threads theorizing who our next Heroes would be, to your Twitch streams - has played a large part in bringing this game to life."
Development on Marvel's Avengers is reportedly set to end soon, which would effectively bring an end to support for the troubled superhero game.

Original story:

The official announcement that Avengers support is ending "could come as early as next week," according to a new report from Exputer. The report suggests that the game would get a set of updates removing time gating and overhauling cosmetic microtransactions to streamline the current experience. The game would remain available for sale on digital marketplaces until "at least September" and the devs are said to be working on keeping the game playable for "as long as possible".

We've reached out to developer Crystal Dynamics for more information and will update this story if we learn more.

The report claims the team working on Avengers has been steadily shrinking, particularly as the studio moves into full production on the next Tomb Raider game. That would leave some planned Avengers content - like the leaked She-Hulk character - on the cutting room floor.

The Avengers game launched to no shortage of criticism, with complaints levied against its convoluted endgame progression and severe technical issues, particularly on PC. Nonetheless, the devs kept putting out a surprisingly robust amount of content updates in the years since launch, even if some recent cosmetic additions have proven pretty disappointing.

Crystal Dynamics has been in a period of notable change, as the studio was sold by previous owner Square Enix to Embracer Group in May 2022. While Embracer owns the studio itself, the new Tomb Raider will be published by Amazon Games.

Maybe one of the big new games 2023 will fill that Avengers-shaped hole.

The next Tomb Raider game - developed by Crystal Dynamics on Unreal Engine 5 - will be published by Amazon Games.

Amazon announced the publishing partnership in a press release, noting that this is the company's "first single-player narrative title", following up on the success of multiplayer games like New World and Lost Ark. The press release also features a few scant details on what to expect from the game.

The new Tomb Raider, which still does not have an official title, will include "all the elements that have made Tomb Raider one of the most revered franchises in gaming, giving players control of the confident and multidimensional hero Lara Croft in an environment that rewards exploration and creative pathfinding, with mind-bending puzzles to solve, and a wide variety of enemies to face and overcome."

This game was previously announced back in April as part of Epic's State of Unreal Showcase, and the devs are continuing to hype the prospects of the new engine for story-driven games. Today's press release notes that "Crystal Dynamics is drawing on the power and cutting-edge technology of Unreal Engine 5 to take storytelling to the next level, in the biggest, most expansive Tomb Raider game to date. The title is currently in early development, and additional details will be announced at a later date."

Take note of that 'early development' part - it seems we shouldn't expect much additional information for some time to come.

Crystal Dynamics is currently owned by Embracer Group, following a massive sale from previous parent company Square Enix earlier this year.

Dig into our big list of new games for 2023 and beyond.

Back in May, Square Enix sold Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal to the Embracer Group in a deal said to be worth $300 million. In doing so, Square Enix gave up around 50 games across its back catalog, including the rights to everything from Tomb Raider to Thief, Deus-Ex, and Legacy of Kain. The implications of that deal were, and still are, huge. And while all I really want is a Soul Reaver remaster in the middle of things, I'm far from alone – GamesRadar+ Senior Guides Coordinator Leon Hurley makes a strong case here for why a Soul Reaver Remake is the perfect way to bring the series back on PS5.  

This might be wishful thinking on our parts, granted, but it seems Embracer Group and Crystal Dynamics may now be thinking similar things. The results of the latter's interest-gauging questionnaire are in (issued last month to players interested in seeing the return of the Legacy of Kain series), having returned over 100,000 responses. "73,000 gamers completed it entirely," said Crystal Dynamics CEO Phil Rogers during an Embracer earnings call. "And if you are one of them, we thank you very much and we appreciate it was quite an effort given the survey was pretty extensive… Rest assured, we hear you loudly and clearly, and we'll continue to update you on the 'what if' possibilities ahead for Legacy of Kain in the future."

Which is pretty exciting. So exciting, in fact, that the Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver community can't believe it. "The cut content from the first Soul Reaver game alone is the stuff of legend," explains long-serving player and Soul Reaver remaster campaigner Federico Barreri, also known online as Wrongnu. "I don't exaggerate when I say many of us would have a heart attack if such a thing were made playable. This is so exciting."

Legacy matters

How Crystal Dynamics chooses to revitalize the Legacy of Kain series, assuming it even will, remains to be seen. But of all the Legacy of Kain games, surely Soul Reaver is the most intriguing? Set 1,500 years after Blood Omen, it has alternate dimensions, exploding vampires, sacrosanct clans and gods, and a son seeking vengeance on his father, all wrapped up in a solid action brawler-meets-RPG with Metroidvania elements before the term was as commonplace as it is today. In this age of video game remakes, where so many classics are being treated to a fresh lick of paint and mechanical overhauls, Soul Reaver ticks all of the boxes. Right?  

Barreri certainly thinks so. He says: "The sense of desolation, loneliness, and free exploration – Soul Reaver does what many games fail to do even today. It lets you make that world yours, it makes you learn the pattern of the enemies, and understand where all the interconnected areas lead. It's not without its flaws, but the idea of playing as the 'son' of the previous game's protagonist, hellbent on murdering his creator? That's a pretty bold narrative choice – it blew my mind back then, and it still does when I think about it now."

"The Resident Evil remakes really started a new era for games remakes too. Soul Reaver is a peculiar creature because while imperfect, anyone I've spoken to who's played it will tell you the pros far outweigh the cons. That said, there is a lot of room for improvement. For me, many things should be reimagined entirely, as I don't think a frame-by-frame remake – similar to, say, Bluepoint's Shadow of the Colossus and Demon's Souls – would work. I think reimagining a significant amount of features from scratch would help bring the essence of the original game in line with modern standards – including combat, puzzles (don't get me started on those stupid blocks), and, of course, graphics. Before Kratos, Raziel was one of PlayStation's main champions. He's a badass, both in design and backstory."

Barreri says the Legacy of Kain community is now abuzz with speculation and excitable guesswork as to where the overarching series might land next. Barreri himself says he'd more than welcome a Soul Reaver remake, incorporating the modern nips and tucks outlined above, while also using EA and Capcom's Dead Space and Resident Evil remakes as points of reference. The game's controls, physics, puzzles, combat, cutscenes, and dub, all should be reworked, reckons Barreri, while maintaining the tone and legacy of the original game. But his true desire would be to see the original 1999 action-adventure game remastered, with prettier visuals and a distinguished twist to satisfy long-standing fans. 

He adds: "I've campaigned on social media for years to see a Soul Reaver remaster (not a remake, not yet at least). With time, I came up with the idea that the best possible solution – and this is something I pointed out in the survey – would be to have the game in its original, unadulterated form, with improved graphics and a twist: after clearing the game once – in pure Yoko Taro/NieR-style – you could replay the game by unlocking an extended version of the game, containing all the never-before-seen cut content restored. That'd include The Undercity, the final brother Turel, the third Kain fight with Ariel's sacrifice to empower the Reaver, and the final onslaught of vampires at the Silenced Cathedral. And, of course, the completely different, alternate ending."

"If you were to check my social media activity, that's pretty much my gaming dream. I'd love a complete Soul Reaver remake,  but a remastered 'Director's Cut' is definitely my own first priority. And I can assure you many others within the community would love to see such a thing. Basically, I think that a series, before moving on with new products, should complete everything that was left unfinished. And, as I said, as good as it is, there's still so much of Soul Reaver that remains unfinished."

Crystal clear

Again, whether or not Crystal Dynamics chooses to "finish" Soul Reaver one way or another remains to be seen – but what is definitely clear at this stage is how celebrated Raziel's adventures still are today. In the process of announcing the conclusion of the questionnaire, Crystal Dynamics CEO Phil Rogers said that, in his experience, a census of this nature would normally return two to three thousand replies. To receive more than 33 times that number tells you everything you need to know about this fanbase. 

Speaking directly to that passion, Barreri says: "I'm biased, but, oh man, you have no idea how passionate this group is. I've seen many fandoms, but the special thing about this one is it's made up of smart, understanding and mature people, all around the world. We might be separated by all kinds of barriers, from language to timezones, but there are many, many Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver fans out there, and today I think we're more united than ever. It's an extremely dedicated but also chill fandom, all working towards the same cause: to see the return of Soul Reaver – be that a remaster or a fully-fledged remake. Today, something that once seemed so unlikely seems more possible now than ever."

If you'd like to follow Soul Reaver remaster campaigner Federico Barreri, aka Wrongnu, you can do so via his Twitter page, or via the hashtags #RestoreSoulReaverCutContent and #SoulReaverUncutRemaster2022.   

The best action games are sure to keep you on your toes 

The Perfect Dark reboot has been cancelled. Reports came to light on July 2, 2025, following the sad news that mass layoffs had hit Xbox. With a leaked memo from Xbox Game Studios president Matt Booty confirming that both Perfect Dark development has ended and that the studio behind, The Initiative, it has been closed.

Other projects were also canceled, including Rare's fantasy adventure, Everwild. The Initiative was first formed in 2018 under the Xbox Game Studios list of developers. Set to be among the upcoming Xbox Series X games we were expecting to see land in 2026, the Perfect Reboot was initially pitched as the long awaited return of Joanna Dark, in what would have been a "fresh take on the secret agent experience.

We even got to see a gameplay trailer released in 2024, which teased an immersive sim that would have let you play as Joanna your way. If you're curious to learn more about the direction of the Perfect Dark Reboot and its development journey, read on below as we cap everything that was revealed about the game before it was ultimately cancelled.

Perfect Dark canceled

Development on Perfect Dark was canceled on July 2, 2025. This disappointing turn of events came following wide layoffs across the Microsoft organization, which impacted the Xbox division. The Initiative – the studio founded by Xbox Game Studios to take on this Perfect Dark reboot – was also closed.

Despite a great gameplay reveal at the Xbox Games Showcase in 2024, there has been speculation that Perfect Dark had a challenging development period – including a full creative reboot in 2022.

While Xbox never locked in an official Perfect Dark release date for the project, it was expected to land in 2026. Sadly, with lead developer The Initiative shuttered as part of layoffs across Microsoft, work on the reboot has now ceased.

Perfect Dark platforms 

Perfect Dark was originally in development for Xbox Series X and PC, and would have been a day-one release into the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription service.

Perfect Dark trailer

The last Perfect Dark trailer was a far cry from the teaser we saw at the 2020 Game Awards (you can watch that one just below). In it, a frankly too-badass-to-be-real Joanna Dark gets suited up to go undercover on a stealthy mission in Cairo.

Cue all the techno-gadget and cybernetic punk-infused sensibilities of first-person action games like Dishonored or Deus Ex, as Joanna slinks about the bustling city like a shadow. Check out the trailer for yourself above if you're keen to see snippets of the what the gameplay would have been like first-hand.

Perfect Dark story

Perfect Dark was envisioned as a full series reboot, designed to give all players an easy onboarding into a series that celebrated its 25th anniversary this year in 2025. You would have played as Joanna Dark, a dataDyne elite agent sent into Cairo to investigate the origins of 'The Cascade' – a strange series of ecological disasters which rendered entire regions of the globe inhospitable to human life.

Dark was set to be sent to Cairo after the capital city becomes a walled-off paradise, following a hypercorporation known as Core Mantis's attempt to set up a solution called the 'GEN Network', which was said to restore ecological balance. As Dark, we would have set out to investigate the corporations' motives and hunt the world's most wanted criminal, Daniel Carrington, in the process.

Perfect Dark setting

The Perfect Dark reboot was set on a 'near future' Earth, one which has been struck by a series of global disasters – each bringing ecosystems around the world to the verge of collapse. That's where Joanna Dark came in, a dataDyne's elite agent who is sent undercover to hunt down whoever is responsible for the technological breakthroughs that threaten the lives of millions of people. The Perfect Dark reboot would have been principally set in Cairo, the capital of Egypt.

Perfect Dark gameplay

The Initiative wanted to deliver the "ultimate secret agent experience," and from what we'd seen of Perfect Dark's gameplay, the studio did look on track to deliver. Envisioned as a first-person action-adventure game, Perfect Dark was supposed to blend fluid traversal and high-tech gadgets with a mixture of gunplay and close-quarters combat, the result being a freedom to define what sort of spy Joanna Dark was going to be. It looked very slick, with the first gameplay trailer offering big Deus Ex vibes.

Other teases from The Initiative suggested you'd have been able to take lethal and non-lethal routes to take down threats. That Joanna can shift her primary weapon between ballistic and stun configurations, and utilize unlockable abilities to dispatch multiple enemies at once. There was also a variety of gadgets to wield; Vocal Analysis to let you analyze an NPC's voice to create a deepfake which can trick security systems, while Manipulation would let you mess around with elements in the environment to create distractions. There was also a scanner which could be used to help you learn more details about the world around you – information is key in the super agent business.

Perfect Dark development

Perfect Dark was in development from The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics. The former studio was founded in 2018 and headed up by Darrell Gallagher – who, funnily enough, played a key role in the 2013 revival of Tomb Raider with Crystal Dynamics.

The partnership of the two studios came off the back of rumors that had been circulating, alleging that The Initiative was struggling to retain staff as development of Perfect Dark became more complex. In 2022, Gallagher later told VGC: "It's no small task to build a studio and reinvent a beloved franchise… In this journey, it's not uncommon for there to be staffing changes, especially during a time of global upheaval over the last two years, and there's plenty more work in front of us to deliver a fantastic Perfect Dark experience to our players."

Previously in 2021, Microsoft announced that The Initiative was partnering with Crystal Dynamics to complete development of the Perfect Dark reboot. In a statement, The Initiative drew attention to the "world class team behind character-driven games such as Tomb Raider" which will help it "to bring this first-person spy thriller to a new generation". Crystal Dynamics was acquired by Embracer Group from Square Enix in 2022, but has since confirmed that it will continue working on the new Perfect Dark in a co-developer capacity.

It was then confirmed on July 2 that The Initiative had been closed following layoffs across Microsoft and the Xbox division, with development ending on Perfect Dark as a result.

Will we ever see a new Soul Reaver game? It's a good question, and one we hope developer Crystal Dynamics will answer sooner rather than later. It was announced in early 2022 that Square Enix had sold Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal to Embracer Group for an estimated $300 million – a deal which includes classic IP like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Legacy of Kain. 

Demand for a Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver remake resurfaced on September 8, following the news that Crystal Dynamics now has "control" of Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain IP. Fans have long requested a Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver remake, and Crystal Dynamics is now in a better position to deliver. 

And it's easy to understand why a Soul Reaver remake is so desired. The original is a classic, and while well over two decades-old, revisiting Raziel's time-bending, dimension-shifting odyssey backed by today's technology could be something special indeed. So, could a new day Soul Reaver ever happen? Only time will tell, but for now join us as we explore everything we'd like to see in a Soul Reaver remake. 

Soul Reaver remake? It's time to recreate what worked

Soul Reaver was the second in the Legacy of Kain series, and saw three follow-ups, (four if you count the quickly cancelled multiplayer-only Nosgoth). Most of the sequels had their merits but were only really cashing the cheques Raziel’s debut earned. Although there are six released games in the series, Soul Reaver is the only one that people really remember, so start there. Something about it stood out and lasted years so don’t throw that away. 

There have been seven canned follow-ups: trying to reinvent the wheel doesn’t work

There have been seven attempts to make a Legacy of Kain game that never went anywhere, if you include spin-offs and linked projects. They include the failed direct sequels Kain 2, The Dark Prophecy, and most famously Dead Sun. Nosgoth was a multiplayer spin-off canned almost as soon as it was launched. Plus then there were the related projects, Sirens and Chakan, and a Kain RPG simply called Omen. There have been plenty of attempts to create something new, perhaps it’s time to stick with what works and focus on a remake or remastering. 

A Soul Reaver Remake would allow the original plane shifting  

The whole ‘thing’ with the original Soul reaver was a plane shifting mechanic that let you move between two dimensions. The real world and the spectral realm, which was basically a twisted, alternate version of it. In the original game, they were both basically the same place, with only colour swaps and geometry shifts to represent each side. More recent sequels approached this mechanic by having two separately modelled levels running at once, with ‘shifting’ changing which one you saw. Obviously that’s pretty intensive for any console to run (the canned Dead Sun apparently struggled to hit 20fps, for example). Going back to the original would be a perfect reason to reuse the original system of a single, shape-changing level, and cut out a major development hurdle. 

It would be the perfect way to update the series rather than reinvent it

As pretty much all the sequels, and failed games, have proven, the Legacy of Kain series has never really managed to hit the heights it did with Soul Reaver. So rather than trying, again to make a whole new game, focus on updating the original to today’s tastes. The Resident Evil 2 Remake is a perfect example of that - it’s basically the same as the original, just through a modern lens. The world, combat and story of Soul Reaver is still strong enough that you can use it all wholesale, just with updated mechanics. 

Tap into that nostalgia

For a game over 20 years old the original Soul Reaver still has active communities, fans and interest. Nearly all of which stems from that one game. It would be anywhere between risky and stupid to throw all of that away trying to make something different, especially given the track record for this series with reboots and sequels. Stick what people know and remember, and just make a new version to tap into that rich nostalgia vein. 

Maybe get Amy Hennig back? 

Okay, this is a bit of blue sky wish but Cory Barlog came back for God of War. Most of the ex-Infinity War team behind Modern Warfare came back for the new one. Both Resident Evil 2 and 3 Remakes have original team members involved. Soul Reaver was ex-Naughty Dog/Uncharted director Amy Hennig’s directorial and writing debut so if it was remade you’d have to wonder if she’s considering coming back. She’s setting up a new division at Skydance Media right now, though, so it’s unlikely, but we can dream. 

Modern Deus Ex developer Eidos Montreal is reportedly aiming to return to the cyberpunk series immediately, and is hoping to outdo Cyberpunk 2077 in the process.

These rumors come from prolific insider Jeff Grubb, speaking on Giant Bomb's Game Mess Mornings podcast. Grubb notes that any internal discussions about Eidos Montreal's next project are very early, but he says that the studio is eager to return to Deus Ex.

"It's early. The rumbling I've heard is that the studio wants to immediately get into Deus Ex. They want to get right back into that. They want to challenge - they want to do what Cyberpunk 2077 couldn't, and stuff like that. That's the word going around. We'll see if that happens. It's so early, like what that will turn into. But there was no possibility for that conversation to begin under the current Square Enix, right?"

Square Enix was the previous owner of Eidos Montreal and the Deus Ex franchise, but sold both - alongside Crystal Dynamics and the Tomb Raider IP - to the Embracer Group as part of a $300 million deal. Embracer named Deus Ex alongside Tomb Raider, Thief, and Legacy of Kain as one of the franchises it saw "great potential" in, hinting at sequels alongside "remakes, remasters, spinoffs, [and] transmedia projects."

Embracer has also said that there are "very sizeable AAA experiences in the pipeline" from Eidos Montreal and its other newly-acquired studios, including "beloved franchises that we will own as well as original IPs." A new Tomb Raider game was announced just prior to the Embracer sale.

Square Enix says it was worried that these western games would "cannibalize" sales of its Japanese portfolio.

Square Enix has reportedly revealed that its sale of studios Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal was driven by concerns their games would "cannibalise" sales of the rest of the company. Looking forward, it also looks like Square Enix may look to sell stakes in some of its studios to improve ‘capital efficiency’ all while resources shift from US and European studios to Japan.

As shared by MST Financial senior analyst David Gibson on Twitter, Square Enix has delved further into the rationale of its decision to sell the Tomb Raider and Deus Ex studios during a recent conference call for investors. According to Gibson, the company felt that sales from the pair would "cannibalise" sales of the rest of the company and that selling them would allow Square Enix to improve "capital efficiency". 

That brings us to the next phase of Square Enix’s plan. The cost of creating games is only rising, so Square Enix wants to be more selective with resources and limit expansion to diversify its studio capital structure. The effects of that will reportedly be felt by European and American studios, with Japanese games benefiting from the additional resource. 

As part of the initiative, Gibson also shares that Square Enix is looking to sell stakes in its studios to “improve capital efficiency”, which is notable with Sony and Tencent expanding. 

Whether any possible sale comes to pass remains to be seen, though we haven’t been short of acquisitions of late. Tencent has made a habit of snapping up studios, and Sony recently grabbed headlines with its acquisition deal with Destiny 2 studio Bungie. Square Enix clearly has a good working relationship with Sony, so rumours of that acquisition are a favourite, though we’ll have to wait and see how that unfolds. 

From the vault, Sony buying Bungie is about way more than games.

The Tomb Raider movie sequel, starring Alicia Vikander as video game icon Lara Croft, is no more. Plans for a follow-up to the 2018 reboot – set to be directed by Lovecraft Country’s Misha Green after Free Fire's Ben Wheatley left the position – were not greenlit by MGM before its May deadline. According to The Wrap, that means the studio has now lost the movie rights to Tomb Raider – with Alicia Vikander also departing the property.

A "complete reboot" is now reportedly planned, with multiple movie studios set to engage in a frenzied bidding war for the popular franchise.

Tomb Raider began life on PlayStation in 1996, spawning multiple sequels and spinoffs, before first being adapted for the big screen in a 2001 actioner starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. A 2003 sequel, The Cradle of Life, was also released to a mixed reception.

No director, writers, or actors have been attached to any potential reboot. Whoever wins the rights to Tomb Raider, though, will be buoyed by the recent success of video game adaptations: Uncharted (starring Tom Holland) and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 both grossed over $400m at the worldwide box office. A separate Tomb Raider animated Netflix series, starring Hayley Atwell, is still in the works.

Tomb Raider’s video game future is also in similarly uncharted, if promising, territory. Embracer Group has recently purchased the Tomb Raider IP, among others, in a $300m deal that also sees developers Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montreal joining the company.

Discover what else made the successful leap from consoles to the cinema screen with our ranking of the best video game movies ever made.

Games like Uncharted promise a sense of adventure, with a variety of experiences set across all manner of settings that capture the action or feel of Naught Dog's iconic series.

As we said in our Uncharted 4 review, the last entry in Nathan Drake's journey delivered satisfying exploration and combat, and in our Uncharted: The Lost Legacy review, we fell in love with the engrossing storyline. The series really has been home to some fantastic entries, and no matter which Uncharted game tops it for you, there are some great alternatives to tuck into if you're looking for more.

From be the best adventure games, to some of the best RPGs, and much more, we've brought together a selection of options to try out across all platforms.

Read on below as we take you through our pick of the 10 best games like Uncharted.

Tomb Raider (2013)

Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

The most common parallel that’s unavoidable to make when you’re talking about Uncharted is Tomb Raider. Both franchises cover similar ground: action-packed, treasure hunting, climbing, puzzle-solving, and getting caught up in outlandish events based on ancient legends. Tomb Raider is like the older sister of Uncharted, and the classic series got a reboot in 2013 that kicked off a new set of adventures with everyone’s favorite Tomb raiding, butt-kicking archaeologist. As the first game in the rebooted series, Tomb Raiders sees a young Lara venture out aboard a ship to find the lost kingdom of Yamatai. When the ship gets caught up in a storm, Lara finds herself alone on an island where she has to fight for her life against the cultist inhabitants known as the Solarii brotherhood. The combat is very similar to Uncharted, and lots of elements will feel very familiar to you. You can approach the fights by opting for a stealthy route, or going in guns blazing, and there are also hunting, crafting, and a new skill tree which lets you become better equipped for certain fighting styles. Exploring hidden tombs and working your way through its puzzles is still one of the best parts about the experience.

Horizon Forbidden West

Developer: Guerilla Games
Platforms: PS4, PS5

It's new, it's gorgeous, it's more Aloy. In Horizon Forbidden West (the sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn), you step back into the boots of Aloy, a young woman living in a post-apocalyptic world filled with robotic prehistoric creatures. Explore an even bigger world than in the original, with incredibly impressive visuals thanks to the impressive power of the PS5. RPG mechanics and rock-solid combat will have you barreling through Horizon Forbidden West - this game will gladly rob you of your free time, and you won't be all that mad about it, either.

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

Developer: Ubisoft
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

Edward Kenway and Nathan Drake have a few things in common, and the big one is namely treasure. Yes, this swashing buckling Assassins Creed adventure takes place in vast open-world setting in the Caribbean during the 18th century. In Assassin's Creed 4, Kenway has made a name for himself as a pirate and master assassin on the salty sea shores of the various islands. Alongside the infamous Blackbeard, Kenway commands the Jackdaw ship who gets caught up in a conspiracy between the templars and the British Empire. With lots of boat-based combat, endless opportunities for exploration, and plenty of climbing assassinating action, many regard Black Flag as being one of the strongest entries in the franchise. And I mean who doesn’t want to be a pirate? Avast ye mateys, it’s time to do what we do best: hunt for treasure. Drake would be so proud. 

The Last of Us 2

Naughty Dog, the studio that brought us the Uncharted series, is also behind the masterful story-driven, zombie infested adventure, The Last of Us and its sequel, The Last of Us 2. If you're looking for a game that will deliver gut punch after gut punch and action that will have you wincing in pain along with every hit, then this series is for you. This isn't for the faint hearted, and is much darker than the Uncharted games, but it has all the character development and set pieces you'd expect from a Naughty Dog title. Expect to rage and cry alongside Ellie, Joel, and newcomers Abby and Dina. The Last of Us 2 will stay with you long after you've beaten it. 

God of War

Developer: Sony Santa Monica
Platforms: PS4, PS5, PC

Santa Moncia studios reunited us with a new kind of God of War experience that brought a new dimension to Kratos thanks to focus on forming a relationship with his son Atreus and trying to move away from his past. The stellar storytelling, gloriously beautiful landscapes and fluid combat cement God of War as a must play title, and fans of Uncharted will no doubt appreciate its narrative approach and attention to detail. The characters are truly at its heart, and you’ll find yourself invested in the relationship between the mighty bearded axe-wielding dad and his son. With figures from legend and mythological creatures, you’ll set out on a journey through the ancient realm of Midgard. Throughout there are also lots of points where you’ll have to solve puzzles and do a spot of climbing to get to the next area. This is one you shouldn’t sit on. 

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Developer: Machine Games
Platforms: Xbox Series X/S, PC

If you're looking for adventure of the whip-cracking kind, then look no further than Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Parallels have been made between Nathan Drake and Indiana Jones for a long time, and there's good reason for that. Both are charismatic adventurers who put their know-how to the test to solve puzzles, and the brawns to good use taking down foes. So if you're looking for something new to jump into, get ready to put on the iconic fedora and venture through Machine's action-packed gem.

Assassin's Creed Origins

Developer: Ubisoft
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

Okay, so we’ve included another Assassin’s Creed game in this list, but with good reason. Assassin's Creed Origins catapulted the series into a bigger open-world environment than ever before in the sandy climbs of Egypt, and any Uncharted oficiando is sure to enjoy solving it’s many puzzles and finding treasure hidden around the beautiful setting with its glittering tombs. You play as Bayak, a Medjay who is tasked with protecting the ruler of Egypt. When things take a turn for the worse, Bayak exiles himself and sets out on stealthy adventure to unravel mysteries and pursue tracking down masked cultist to exact his revenge. With other great characters in the line up such as Bayak’s secret agent wife Aya. With gorgeous scenery, an endless amount of things to do, and an engaging story, this is a great way to occupy your time. 

Prince of Persia

Developer: Ubisoft
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC

As the oldest game on our list, Prince of Persia first released back in 2008, but it still holds up very well to this day thanks to its appealing cell-shaded art style and pretty backdrop. Ubisoft brought the prince back to life with an updated story which originally landed on the PS3 and Xbox 360. When the evil ancient god Ahriman is accidentally set free after being sealed inside the Tree of Life, corruption begins to spread throughout the lands. The prince sets out on a journey to heal the fertile grounds in the kingdom and rid Persia of corruption once and for all with the help of princess Elika. With lots of acrobatics including wall climbing, jumping, there are also plenty of puzzles to solve and areas to traverse. You’ll feel right at home in the likeable prince’s shoes - especially since he has a very good sense of humor. He’s the kind of guy we can imagine Nathan Drake would happily hang out with. And wait, he even sounds like Nathan! Yep. Nolan North is the voice of the prince, too.

Far Cry 4

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Platforms: PS4, PS5, PC

If you’re after more adventures in an exotic location where lots of people shoot at you, you can’t go wrong with Far Cry 4. While it’s storytelling isn’t as strong as the Uncharted series, the sheer scope of the world you can explore still makes it worth your while. And if you loved driving a jeep around in Uncharted, you’ll have ample opportunity to zoom around the vast landscapes of the Kyrat. Played out in first-person, you take on the role of Ajay Ghale who returns to his homeland to spread his mother’s ashes. But Ajay finds Kyrat has become divided by a civil war, and gets caught up in the action between the Royal army and a group of Rebels knowns as the Golden Path who hope to reclaim the land from the rule of the game’s antagonist, Pagan Min. 

Just Cause 4

Developer: Square Enix
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC

Thanks to all its absurd action and over the top antics, Just Cause 4 from Avalanche Studios offers a fun ride of mayhem and chaos. Uncharted’s characters are so likeable, and part of this is how they react to rather outlandish situations. If you’re being shot at by a lot of people as you pursue a legend that may or may not lead you to bountiful treasures, you can’t be serious all the time after all. If you love the tone and action of Uncharted, Just Cause 4 takes it to the next - albeit more outlandish and goofy - level, with a protagonist called Rico who looks like Nathan Drake’s long lost twin. Both Rico and Nathan certainly go up against a lot of enemies during their adventures, but since Rico is a trained soldier, he has a lot more up his sleeve. Armed with a grappling hook just like Drake in Uncharted 4, as well as an endless supply of over the top weapons at his disposal, Rico can tackle an endless number of foes in a whole array of explosive and destructive ways. Oh, and you'll be up against a villain who can control the weather, so you better be prepared for some tornadoes to crash the action-packed party. 

For even more action, check out our list of games like The Witcher 3. 

Lara Croft is dead. This time, she was ripped apart by wolves. Death has also come in a variety of other forms: boulders, bear traps, spikes to the throat--each over-the-top execution a display of vulnerability. These shocking moments are heavy-handed with their message, but it comes across loud and clear: Lara Croft, the new Lara Croft, isn't a pistol-wielding superhero. She's an inexperienced adventurer caught in the middle of a harrowing sequence of events. The only thing more surprising than the brutality Lara endures during Crystal Dynamic's Tomb Raider reboot is just how polished the whole experience is--now even more shiny in the Definitive Edition. Tomb Raider is still a fantastic game and an excellent origin story for one of gaming's original treasure seekers. If you've already played and finished the game, either skip to the end for my verdict on the PS4 / XO Definitive Edition, or check out the new boxout, which details all the fresh features in the game. New to 'Raider? Read on...

After getting shipwrecked on a mysterious island during her first-ever archaeology expedition, Lara finds herself in one life-or-death situation after another. Her crew is missing, and the island's cult-like inhabitants are eager to kill her. The narrative's dark, distressing tone is established right from the start, and never once does it stray during Tomb Raider's 15-hour campaign. This consistency builds a great deal of tension and intrigue, and you'll be eager to keep playing to see what happens next.

Throughout the game, you're tasked with solving elaborate puzzles and taking on sporadic groups of enemies; in addition to plenty of platforming and exploration. After you finish Tomb Raider's long-winded tutorial, it easily rivals the best Uncharted has to offer--and that's not a claim made lightly. Where Uncharted props itself up on Nathan Drake's charm, platforming prowess, and ability to shoot dudes in the head without getting bummed out, Tomb Raider's foundation is one of excellent pacing, and an ominous story of survival.

The development of Lara's character is an integral part of that experience. She's a far cry from the stylish adventurer you used to know. In the stead of a dolled up gunslinger is a do-what-it-takes female lead who's intelligent and capable. It's unsettling to watch her brave some truly disturbing situations--at times, Tomb Raider is more survival horror than action adventure--but she deals with it because death is the only alternative, culminating in her gratifying evolution from a green explorer to a seasoned survivor. It's a shame that caliber of character development doesn't extend to the supporting cast. Her shipwrecked friends are pretty generic characters who, while rarely annoying, just aren't memorable.

But what those characters lack in magnetism is more than made up for by the incredible personality and mystery of the island setting. It's a bizarre place filled with ancient shrines, World War II-era bunkers, and all sorts of relics and trinkets spanning multiple centuries. It's always clear that something strange is going on, and the island's secrets tease you right up until the very end. You explore a huge variety of environments, sectioned off into hub-like zones, all of which give clues that help you uncovering the island's overall enigma. From underground ruins and snow-laden mountain tops to lush forests and grim oceanside cliffs, no one area ever feels like a rehash of another, and the sheer amount of detail in each is impressive.

During Lara's journey, you encounter plenty of dangers. Traps, hostile cultists, and vicious animals alike will stand in your way. Nearly every battle feels like an intense fight to the death instead of just another shootout, despite the fact you rarely encounter more than five or six enemies at a time. The bad-guy AI is great for the most part, as foes will kick over tables to form barricades or shoot off flares to call for help. Best of all, they often react realistically to your shots. Cap an enemy in the leg, for example, and he'll go down to the ground where you can finish him off with a melee execution. Usually a climbing-axe to the skull. Nasty!

Lara's inexperience shows through early on, as her shots are inaccurate and weak. By defeating enemies, solving puzzles, and finding the many collectibles hidden on the island, you gain experience points and resources for upgrading Lara's skills and weapons. Other games that try to emulate the growth of an unseasoned character don't pull it off with quite the same aplomb as Tomb Raider does--by the end of the adventure, Lara's transformation into a powerful heroine is noticeable, and feels natural.

But Tomb Raider isn't all about fighting. It's totally common to spend five minutes exchanging fire with a group of enemies, then go 45 without seeing a soul. These breaks in battle are filled with great platforming segments, clever puzzles, and adrenaline-pumping set piece moments, and the pacing throughout is unrivaled by any other game in the genre. Even the rate at which Lara obtains new weapons and equipment--like rope arrows that open up new sections of some zones on the island--is admirable, as you snag new gear right up until the final chapters.

Tomb Raider's single-player campaign alone is worth the price of admission for new-comers, but its multiplayer component will be a welcome addition for those looking for a bit more longevity. Multiplayer maps are filled with climbable ledges, zip lines, and level-specific traps that are perfect for scoring easy kills. There are some pretty decent modes to keep things interesting for awhile, too, such as Cry for Help in which one team must capture a series of control points before the other kills and loots 20 players. That said, the multiplayer doesn't feel as genre-defining as the campaign, as it doesn't really introduce anything new to keep you interested after a dozen matches or so.

Even if you've never been a huge fan of Lara Croft's fortune-hunting adventures, Tomb Raider is sure to impress. Its expert sense of pacing, captivating setting, and dark tone create a truly memorable experience that's further enhanced by an immense level of detail. Lara Croft, the old Lara Croft, is dead. In place of a dolled-up gunslinger is a do-what-it-takes survivor--and I hope she hasn't had her fill of adventuring just yet.

Is the Definitive Edition worth buying? The improvements are too subtle and gimmicky for me to recommend that experienced Tomb Raiders--people who have already finished the game on PS3 or Xbox 360--drop $50 / £40 on the next-gen version. However, if you own a PS4 or Xbox One, and you haven't yet experienced the new Tomb Raider, then you should leap any chasm and murder any hired merc who stands in your way until you've got this playing on your console... It's still brilliant, and the Definitive Edition is the superior version.

We've heard a lot of back and forth about the new Tomb Raider--controversial cutscenes, interesting changes to the character, worrying adherence to a certain half-tucked formula. Now Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics have offered up 11 minutes of unaltered gameplay footage presenting Lara Croft's harrowing fight through a scavenger stronghold accompanied by developer commentary. They've put up, so we'll shut up:

Preponderance of quick-time events aside, the gunplay looks pretty fun, with the "fluid" cover system making for a less staccato stop-and-pop affair than most modern shooters. The new Tomb Raider is a linear, cover-based action game punctuated by semi-interactive cinematics--at least, these 11 minutes are.

Do you think the game's environmental emphasis, and its narrative arc depicting a privileged liberal arts major's transition into a hardened treasure hunter, will set it apart when it hits Xbox 360, PS3, and PC on March 5?

We'd had hands-on opportunities with next year's Tomb Raider reboot before, but we recently got to play the first three hours of the game in one gritty, glorious session. Think this game will be just another Uncharted clone? Think again.

We've compiled a list of some of the most noteworthy things we did and saw in the game's opening hours to give you a taste of what you can expect come 2013 (and why it's one of our most anticipated games of next year).

The opening scene of Tomb Raider isn't exactly new info, but it's worth repeating just how important it is in setting the gritty tone of the game. It's here we're introduced to a new Lara--a more believable, human Lara. She's not some foxy expert adventurer with dual pistols strapped to her leg; she's a burgeoning archaeologist on an expedition searching for an ancient lost city. Unfortunately, her ship gets torn in half during a brutal storm, and she and her crew find themselves stranded on an island full of hostile creatures and unpleasant humans.

Shortly after arriving on the island, Lara got beaten over the head, knocked unconscious, and left suspended in a cocoon-like prison from the ceiling of a cave. She escaped, got impaled by a bit of rebar, and found the body of one of her crew members crucified on a strange, ritualistic altar. Then, she watched a murderous pursuer get crushed to death by falling rocks. This all occurred within a span of about five minutes, and we genuinely hesitated to continue out of fear of the horrible things that surely awaited us. Like, you know, Lara getting killed or something. Which totally happened a few minutes later when she got crushed by rocks herself.

The new Lara Croft is no superhero. During our three-hour trek through the beginning of the game, we watched her get wounded in some pretty terrible ways. As we mentioned before, she initially gets impaled by a chunk of rebar after falling on it--thankfully, it went clean through her side, presumably missing her organs. She also got caught in a bear trap, punched in the head, grazed by a bullet, and chewed on by wolves and other predatory creatures. Poor Lara!

Some of the game's more tense moments had us escaping caves, enemy encounters, or both, and these often ended with quick-time events. Failing one resulted in rather grim death sequences. We failed most on purpose (really!) to see what would happen. Lara got crushed to death by a cave-in, shot to death by arrows (one of which pierced her throat), and had her voice box gracefully removed by the ravenous fangs of a pack of wolves. So, yeah. Don't fail the QTEs.

Though Lara is a novice adventurer/survivor/archeologist, she's had some formal training by Roth, the captain of her now-destroyed ship. Pressing one of the left shoulder buttons activated her Survival Instincts--akin to Batman's Detective Mode or Agent 47's Instinct Mode--which highlighted objects in the environment that we could interact with. This feature also served to keep the screen mostly HUD-free, as things like objective markers only show up while Survival Instincts are active.

Big surprise there, right? Lara has always been pretty adept at solving puzzles, and we did a lot of that during our brief time with the game. They started off simple, having us use torches to destroy flammable barricades, but the puzzles gradually implemented tricky platforming and some physics-based elements. One in particular tasked us with catching floating debris in a stream with a mesh cage before raising the cage to a nearby platform, lighting the debris on fire, and pushing it down a metal chute to destroy an obstruction farther up the waterway.

When Lara gets stranded on the island, she has naught but the clothes on her back--and even those started to show some grimey wear and tear. Luckily, she found an old-school bow draped across a tree-hanging skeleton pretty early on. Nothing we encountered in the game really ever felt implausible, as every bit of gear Lara uses in her journey is something we came across ourselves.

Using her newfound bow, Lara set off to hunt some deer--after all, a girl's gotta eat. It's here we first got a taste of the combat, which will be pretty familiar to anyone who's ever played a third-person shooter. There are a lot of animals to hunt, and skinning them provided salvage, a resource used to upgrade Lara's equipment. Nabbing their pelts was as easy as pressing a button while standing over an animal's corpse--and thankfully it took all of two seconds to complete, so we never felt like we were wasting our time doing so. We also encountered plenty of destroyable crates that yielded salvage when destroyed.

Equipment upgrades were extremely valuable, and we were eager to scour every inch of each map to find as much salvage as we could. Reinforcing our bow's string gave the weapon a permanent increase to damage and range--and later, when we found a gun, we were able to increase its clip size, damage, range, and other stats. How Lara knew how to use random bits of scrap to upgrade her weaponry, we may never know.

About an hour into our demo, we encountered a group of rather mean dudes with guns. They captured Lara and her friends and started executing them, like mean dudes with guns often do. Lara, of course, managed to escape, and we eavesdropped on their conversations while we snuck around looking for a weapon. It wasnt clear who they were or why they were on an island, but they seemed to be mercenaries, or some kind of military. "We could've used some new recruits," one guard mentioned to another, after being told to execute any survivors. "What came in this time?" the other asked. "Another ship." Hmm....

When Lara escaped her captors, the creep that initially captured her found her and came at her once more. It's here she's forced to kill for the first time by putting a bullet in her assailaint's head. "I'm surprised by how easy it was," she told a friend after escaping. It's worth noting how frantic combat always felt. The camera pulled up close to Lara, highlighting the panicked expression on her face. Her inexperience with weaponry showed in the way she improperly held guns at first, gripping them far from her person as if they're going to explode at any second. Lara couldnt even engage in melee brawls until she found a climbing pickaxe--even then, it was used more for stunning targets than facing them head-on. Every single encounter rarely included more than four or five bad guys, and each feels like a life-or-death situation imbued with a constant sense of urgency. Lara's no Nathan Drake--and we mean that in the best way possible.

In one corridor, we stumbled across an unsuspecting guard who was just kind of hanging out by himself. A small tutorial popped up instructing us to attempt a stealth kill--so we did. We snuck up behind the guy, reached out with our pickaxe, and choked him to death with the handle. Lara gasped as he struggled for air before his lifeless body hit the ground. It was actually pretty brutal, and reminded us of what it might be like if Nathan Drake showed any remorse for tossing strangers off of cliffs. Then we died when his buddies saw us and set fire to the place. Fire hurts. Bad.

Experience points are earned by completing objectives, taking down baddies, and finding collectibles. We were a bit surprised at first, but XP gains were never intrusive, and they compelled us to search for all the collectibles we could find.

Once we had a good stock of experience points, we took a gander at Lara's three upgradable skill trees. The Survivor tree contained abilities that let Lara do things like climb faster, retrieve arrows from targets, or obtain additional salvage from hunting; the Hunter tree bolstered weapon expertise by increasing accuracy or allowing for more ammo to be held; finally, the Brawler tree increased Lara's melee skills, allowing her to blind and stun opponents more efficiently. All of these were meant to emulate her growth as she fought to survive, and none of the skills seemed too over-the-top to detract from the sense of reality that the whole experience is grounded in. But this also let us decide how we wanted to play--we decided to go the stealthier "shoot people from afar" route.

Tomb Raider's mysterious island constantly kept us intrigued. If the various ruins and wrecked ships (which spanned centuries of design) we encountered were any indication, this place has a ton of history. There were a wide variety of collectibles to find, from GPS units to lost letters, all of which provided small clues about the island's past while hinting at the fates of the marooned travelers that came before. We were eager to find as many collectibles as we could to gain more XP, and so Lara could examine them Resident Evil style and derive more clues about the history of the island.

What?! A tomb raider raiding tombs!? Indeed. But the tombs we found on the island werent some hamfisted inclusion whose sole purpose was to provide some kind of connection to the series' past outings. Instead, they provided the opportunity to uncover more of the island's many secrets and expose its rich history. Plus, we earned tons of extra salvage and experience points, and a cool "Tomb raided!" popped up on screen afterward, which was pretty awesome.

We eventually met up with Roth, Laras expedition captain, but he was badly injured. A pack of wolves attacked him and stole his supply pack, which contained the bandages and medicines he needed to survive. So we climbed a few buildings, scaled a decades-old plane, and leapt across a chasm or two to reach the den. Once inside, we snagged the pack, and--BAM--wolves attacked, propelling us into a frantic series of QTEs to survive. Which we did not. Lara died horribly.

Tomb Raider is not an open world game by any means, but it is a large one. We periodically set up base camps, which allowed us to spend experience points, upgrade weapons, and fast travel to regions in which base camps had previously been established. Traveling back and forth allowed us to snag any collectibles we missed as we gained new equipment to access previously unreachable areas. Exploration felt incredibly organic in Tomb Raider; we were eager to explore, as finding secrets unveiled more about the island we were stranded on.

At one point in the game we obtained a pickaxe, which we could use to climb otherwise unscalable surfaces. Our axe didnt just automatically connect when we leapt toward a wall, though--we had to be sure to hit a certain button at just the right time, otherwise we would plummet to our death. This climbing mechanic was intuitive, fluid and fun, guiding us towards our goal while still leaving ultimate success or failure firmly in our hands.

Okay, so, yeah. This kind of happened a lot, which was a bit jarring considering how everything else about the game felt so mature.

Sure, Tomb Raider can be compared to Uncharted in the sense that there's platforming, shooting, and treasure finding in both. But the two are worlds apart in terms of tone and the overall player experience. Tomb Raider is dark, gritty, and always intense, presenting a refreshing take on the action adventure genre. What do you want to know about the game? Ask away in the comments below and we'll be sure to respond.

For more info on games coming out next year, check out the top 10 most anticipated games of 2013.

The tools games can use to tell stories have come a long way, but narrative remains bound to scriptedcut-scenesfor many. Rhianna Pratchett, cinematic writer on the Tomb Raider reboot, sees knocking down that wall as one of her most important tasks.

Ludonarrative dissonance is the ten-dollar term for it, but it just means the way a game plays and the story it tries to tell don't line up--one example would be charismatic rogue Nathan Drake making lighthearted quips between snapping necks in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

"One of the things we've been keen to do with Tomb Raider is explore the idea that action equals character," Pratchett told Gamasutra, and that's unfortunately less common in games than other media. "The key is making the action part of the story and not something that exists outside of it. With Lara we wanted to show that her actions (particularly when she takes a human life for the first time) have an impact on her character and emotional state."

While Pratchett's main role at Crystal Dynamics is to write the game's cut-scenes, she said her responsibilities extend far beyond that. After all, "it's all story, at the end of the day."

"Narrative actually saturates every facet of a game world -- be it the level design, the gameplay mechanics, the characters, soundscape, etcetera. From a narrative perspective, I wanted to make sure that the gameplay mechanics fed back into Lara's character make-up ... Looking at gameplay mechanics is often a good jumping-off point when putting together someone like Lara."

In an announcement today, Square Enix revealed that the lead writer on the upcoming reboot of the Tomb Raider series is none other than Rhianna Pratchett, the writer of Mirror's Edge, Prince of Persia (2008) and Overlord.

“I grew up playing TOMB RAIDER, uncovering the world’s secrets and unearthing its treasures; I have lived and died as Lara Croft, but nothing comes close to the challenge of re-writing her,” said Pratchett. “Seldom do we get the opportunity to reimagine and reinvent a legend, so getting my narrative hands on Miss Croft was a once-in-a-life-time opportunity. It was going back to the genesis of videogame action heroines and exploring how to make such an iconic character meaningful and relatable for gamers today.”

Science fiction fans may also know Rhianna Pratchett as the daughter of legendary sci-fi writer Terry Pratchett.

Pratchett is said to have been involved in the design of Tomb Raider's narrative since early in the development process, and as such has had a large hand in shaping the direction of the project.

She will also be headlining two panels at the San Diego Comic Con so we'll hopefully learn more about the game, her involvement, and how she's helped shape the project over the coming weekend.

According to comments made by Crystal Dynamics' Global Brand Director Karl Stewert, the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot wont be constrained to a single game. Apparently, the reboot will encompass at least one more game in the series.

"I have to be careful because I know exactly where she's going," Stewart said to Videogamer.com. "You have to look at the future, you have to look at where... It's not just one game."

"At the end of this game we want her to be that strong female character that is willing to go and seek out mysteries and seek out tombs. She's going to be going to plenty of tombs in this game, but we're going to have somebody who wants to go on that adventure, who wants to be the person that she now is. That's the goal."

The announcement is not entirely unsurprising given the lavish amount of attention Square Enix has given the title. It all makes a bit more sense now that we know SE has multiple games in mind. Can this renewed approach return Tomb Raider to the pantheon of the games industry's biggest hits? Square Enix seems to be betting that it can.

Survival, Tomb Raider-style

Next year's Tomb Raider reboot will take the series in what's being billed as a gritter, more realistic direction using Lara's struggle not just as a way of depleting your life-bar, but as a series of psychological challenges to mold a hero. Lara Croft, we're told, will emerge from the game's challenges as a character whose struggle players have made their own.

But superhero origin stories have a tendency to fall apart under real-world logic: swinging between rooftops is more fun than nursing a debilitating case of radiation sickness, after all. That's why Lara can be bashed, drowned and dropped overboard only to emerge fightin' fit and ready with the quips. Just how much of this new origin story rings true? We dug out the survival guides for a closer look at Lara's injuries and her real-life chances of making it out alive.

Concussion

One minute the new Lara is dandy, next thing she's being pitched about her cabin like a ragdoll. Nobody comes right out and says you're concussed! because they're all busy drowning but it's plain to see that some considerable measure of cranial insult is being conveyed. Will this slow her down? Will it nothing.

But actually... Concussion doesn't have to be a big problem, provided the injury is minor and recovery is monitored closely. However, according to the US National Library of Medicine, symptoms such as blurred vision, difficulty in walking and weakness on one side of the body suggest a more serious degree of injury, which could lead to brain damage or hemorrhage if Lara doesn't take it easy. Spoiler: Lara won't be taking it easy.

Drowning

One of the trailers' early set-pieces sees Lara trapped in a sinking ship with the water-level rapidly rising. After surviving the initial deluge, our girl finds herself underwater up to her eyeballs with no visible means of escape. She'll die for sure!

But actually... In a situation like this, you're not just fighting for breath. Rapid immersion such as suffered by Lara is liable to induce involuntary gasping, filling the lungs with water. What saves Lara here is most likely the mammalian diving reflex, an evolutionary survival mechanism that's most likely to kick in if you're young, cold, and submerged all the way up to your face. Of course, the MDR will increase your chances of rescue, rather than actually granting an extra life... but, you know, videogames.

Hypothermia

So you've survived a shipwreck, multiple near-drownings and some substantial blows to the head and body. Surely the question of whether or not you're warm enough is pretty low on the list of priorities, right? There's survivin' to be done: no time for childish concerns like would I feel more comfortable in a hat?

But actually... Lara's experiences up to this point are a sure-fire road to hypothermia and the longer she stays in those soaked clothes, the worse it will get. The fact that she doesn't seem to notice the cold actually suggests that the problem is more than a minor one, requiring immediate attention. So yes, we're saying that in this situation Lara needs to get naked, but only because it's a pressing survival imperative, we promise.

Fractures and breakages

Right there in an early promo image, there's Lara, setting her own broken arm after making it through the initial shipwreck. The moment makes the first trailer too, showing our protagonist's strong survival instinct right from the get.

But actually... If the skin isn't broken, a fracture or break probably isn't major, and should be splinted before attempting to move. So Lara's doing the right thing. Note, however, that trying to do anything substantial with that arm will probably result in near-paralyzing pain. Fighting off killer animals and killing lascivious interlopers, btw, counts as doing something substantial.

Starvation

Any of the trials listed above will seriously take it out of a person. The body needs rest and replenishment or things are only going to get worse. It's a good thing our Lara is a trooper, or she'd most likely collapse from malnutrition or dehydration before things even got started.

But actually... The #1 way for things to go downhill fast would be for Lara to pick up the first halfway-sharp thing to hand and use up her remaining energy running around trying to poke something edible. Good thing this game had a trailer at E3 2012, then, meaning there was a bow and arrow close at hand to allow for check me bitch I'm a huntress moments. (Think that's a fluke? Here's a music video tribute to E3 2012's love of archery).

Animal attack

Nature's not always a passive-aggressive dick: sometimes it'll just come right out and throw you into a fight with a wild dog the size of a van. It's a good thing Lara has an... arrow handy?

But actually... If you're looking to get attacked, be sure to litter your campsite with as much appetizing food as you have at your disposal. In a pinch, your own wounded body will probably add to your chances of being mauled. Place yourself between the animal and the ground as soon as possible, and sprawl out to maximize the amount of flesh you're leaving available for biting and tearing. Lara is following all the guidelines... for someone looking to get eaten.

Bear traps

Now we're getting serious. Having put up with no shortage of dick moves on nature's behalf, Lara moves onto injury at the hands of her fellow humans. In fact, no sooner have the game's adversaries shown their faces than our heroine is discovering their bear traps, with her foot.

But actually... Sure, the trailer suggests that Lara needs to be helped back to her feet but if she can stand at all - indeed, if she still has both her feet - that is one half-assed bear trap. The real thing will most likely chew your limb up so badly that the easiest means of escape is just to finish what the trap started. If it's any consolation, by that time you'll probably be in such a state of shock that amputating your own limb is... well, as easy as it's ever going to get, anyway.

Falling (lots)

Which fall are we talking about here? Take your pick. You can go with that epic plummet from the ruptured ship, or the ten-foot headfirst drop that opens the second trailer, or that headlong downhill tumble collecting broken limbs like they were coins, or any of the less-noteworthy drops of a story or more that our girl just shrugs off like they weren't no thing.

But actually... That first fall during the shipwreck scene down what looks like at least six stories, into hard, shallow water is more than enough to kill anyone who, like Lara, isn't correctly braced for impact. But then, there's no falls in either trailer substantial enough to guarantee death. After all, you can fall out of an airplane with no parachute and still have a chance of survival. It's just a really slim chance.

Being set on fire

Most wilderness survival guides don't actually clarify whether being set on fire will lower your chances of survival, because what kind of a cloth-eared paint-eater would ever think that would be a good idea? And completely off-topic, here's Lara Croft, setting herself on fire to escape the ropes she's hung by.

But actually... Tying people up and setting them alight is a pretty sure-fire way of killing their ass. That's why we have no more witches, thank goodness. Lara does take care to stop, drop and... become impaled through the gut, so two out of three ain't bad? But even so, this is going to result in lifelong full-body scarring, and that's with incredible luck and urgent medical assistance. And there's still the matter of...

Impalement

Don't get impaled in the gut if you can avoid it. According to action movies, it's the second most painful part of the body to be wounded (after the knee). Lara Croft is tough, so her ordeal involves falling a story or two, straight onto an inconveniently-placed spike then yanking that sumbitch out and getting on with her day.

But actually... While you're better off being stabbed in the gut than in, say, the brain, entirely preferable is the option of just not being stabbed anywhere. A wound the size of Lara's, while it looks to miss all the major organs, will still bleed profusely enough to kill within the hour. A great way to cut that time down further is to prevent the wound from closing by, oh, say, jumping in dirty cave water and moving around a lot. Top marks, Lara!

Could you survive?

If you want more info on Lara, take a look at our E3 2012 preview and see the Tomb Raider release date revealed in new trailer.

If Max Payne 3 taught us anything, it's that there will always be work for alcoholic nihilists and a developer switch can be the shot in the arm a franchise needs to get back on its feet or stay at the top of its game. True, Remedy's bullet-timey renegade had a huge advantage in that he was adopted by Rockstar, but video game history is marked with developer swaps that have been equally successful with far less muscle.

Stick around as we review the video gaming hand-off that worked, and a few that dropped the ball...

There was once a time when Lara Croft could do no wrong. From 1996 onwards, Core Design's busty raider of tombs was the talk of pixeltown until 2003, when Ms. Croft's fame took a swan dive with the release of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, her first entry for the PlayStation 2. While far from terrible, Angel of Darkness's stiff controls and dated presentation confirmed what fans had long suspected: after pumping out six games in seven years, Core Design's crush on Lara was starting to fizzle.

Realizing the honeymoon was over, Core Designs gave its digital baby to Crystal Dynamics, a studio that was best known then for its Legacy of Kain series. Over the following years, Crystal Dynamics put Lara Croft through her paces; redesigning her looks, moves, and backstory. Even Tomb Raider creator Toby Gard returned for Lara's resurrection. In 2006, their efforts paid off in Tomb Raider: Legend, a game many considered a true return to form.

Hand-off results: Like the freshly rendered Lara herself, Crystal Dynamics dusted off the once-great franchise and made it exciting again. Tomb Raider: Legend became the fastest selling game in the series and remains one of the highest rated games in the Tomb Raider empire. More importantly, it reignited Lara's career, and is one of the reasons we're excited to see where Crystal Dynamics plans to take her next in her second reboot later this year.

Irrational Games broke (drilled, smashed, and shocked) new ground with BioShock in 2007. Designer Ken Levine and his team (then 2K Boston) created an FPS that focused as much on gunplay as it did on creating one of the most compelling worlds in gaming. Rapture and its inhabitants set a new bar in video game storytelling, and the variety of plasmid options and moral dilemmas scattered within gave players a reason to plunge its depths for multiple playthroughs. By the time BioShock sold its 2 millionth copy a few months later, rumors of a sequel were already starting to surface. Trouble was, Ken Levine had other plans.

Now richer from BioShock, 2K opened 2K Marin and approached Ken Levine's 2K Boston crew for talent. Levine agreed to give up members of the BioShock team, but opted to stay back to pursue other projects. As such, 2K Marin went on to continue Rapture's story, eventually adding multiplayer with help from Digital Extremes (among other developers). Meanwhile, Levine and 2K Boston reverted back to its Irrational Games moniker worked in secret on its infinite plans.

Hand-off results: You remember BioShock 2, right? The game we assigned a perfect score and the one that went on to make Take Two Interactive scads and scads of money? It's safe to say the BioShock vets at 2K Marin did Levine's vision proud, and that the Big Daddy and the Little Sisters suffered very little from the hand-off. In the time since, Levine has rededicated Irrational's efforts to the BioShock universe with BioShock Infinite, while 2K Marin has been working on an FPS reboot of PC classic XCOM, a development that hasn't gone all that smoothly.

Supernatural kids are creepy. It's a fact (look it up). And in 2005, Monolith Production played on our collective fear of ghostly underage girls in the freshman chapter of its F.E.A.R series. Inspired by decades of Japanese horror films, F.E.A.R injected a sense of genuine terror to the FPS genre, much of which was owed to a psychic ankle-biter named Alma who (spoiler) turned out to be the leading man's mother. Again... creepy. But also, effective. So effective, in fact, that Monolith Productions was motivated to port its PC creeper hit to PS3 and Xbox 360 with the assistance of Day 1 Studios, the indie team that would later adopt Alma and the F.E.A.R franchise completely one sequel later.

Hand-off results: Day 1 Studio's F.E.A.R 3 is generally regarded as the weakest of its kin, but in all fairness, the F.E.A.R franchise was already losing its edge by the time Day 1 took over. The creepy kid fad was loosing its shock value, and F.E.A.R 3's scare tactics were becoming old hat. Left to rely on its FPS merits and multiplayer tricks alone, F.E.A.R 3 turned out to be an average time-waster; and in the FPS genre, average is a death sentence. In the end, Day 1 Studios didn't sully F.E.A.R's good name, but it didn't help it much either.

2006's Dead Rising was an undead love letter to zombie pop culture. It offered a genuine Romero nightmare in in a morbidly entertaining sandbox that rewarded creativity, quick thinking, and a strong stomach. Capcom's (then) newest IP - starring everyman photojournalist Frank West - became North America's fastest selling next-gen title on the Xbox 360 in a matter of weeks, so it was a surprise to absolutely no one that a follow-up was announced in February 2009. To the surprise of some, however, the honor of continuing Capcom's undead phenom fell to Blue Castle Games, a studio largely known for cracking out baseball titles like The Bigs for 2K Sports.

Fears of a shoddy sequel were quickly put to rest by news that Capcom's Keiji Inafune and other Dead Rising alumni would be working closely with Blue Castle Games. Their efforts gave rise to 2010's Dead Rising 2, a sequel that succeeded in expanding the Dead Rising concept with a larger playground, tweaked mechanics, and a weapon-crafting system that made zombie killing the new national past time.

Hand-off results: Dead Rising 2 didn't have Frank West's star power, but it didn't need it. The sequel sold more than its predecessor, and made a killing on DLC expansions; one of which brought Frank back into the fold in Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. Capcom was so pleased with Dead Rising 2 that it adopted Blue Castle Games as one of its own, renaming the studio Capcom Vancouver. It hasn't been confirmed yet if Blue Castle is attached to Dead Rising 3, but it's a good bet.

John Romero's Ion Storm studio was supposed to change the industry; and for a brief moment in 2000, it did. Shortly after its notorious Daikatana fumble, Ion Storm brought Warren Spector in to head the studio's expansion in Austin, Texas, trusting the new studio with the development of a new IP called Deus Ex for its publisher, Eidos. Spector and his team delivered in spades, introducing PC gamers (and later, Xbox'ers) to a cyberpunk action title that blended elements of stealth, role-playing, and traditional first-person shooter elements to massive cult success. Soon, fans wanted more, and Ion Storm's Austin team answered the call with Deus Ex: Invisible War, the sequel that nearly put a bullet in the head of the Deus Ex franchise.

Seven years later, both Ion Storm offices had shuttered, Spector had moved on, and the future seemed bleak for Deus Ex. Then, like an augmented super-spy, Eidos crept out of nowhere to announce it would be handling development of a brand new Deus Ex: Human Revolution out of its Montreal studio. Fans rejoiced for a split second, before proceeding to pick apart every new image and gameplay detail until its release. In the end, Eidos held its own. Deus Ex: Human Revolution became one of the top games of 2011 and arguably the best title in the franchise.

Hand-off results: Save for the bland boss fights, Deus Ex: Human Revolution did everything it was meant to do. It re-introduced the franchise to a new generation, while retaining the series' moody, cyberpunk feel and emphasis on personalized play. It earned perfect review scores across the board and boosted profits for its publishers at Square Enix. More importantly, it resurrected a franchise many thought dead, and all but secured a sequel down the road. A good one, this time. We hope.

Black Isle Studios's first two Fallout games were groundbreaking on a number of fronts. For one, they proved role playing games could be badass, and they made a generation of gamers yearn for a nuclear war that would turn them into power-armored, Mad Max cowboys. Fortunately (sadly?) those nukes never came; however, the Fallout series put Black Isle and their Interplay overlords on the map. In the early 2000s, Black Isle went back to its radiated well for a new Fallout sequel, codenamed Van Buren. Unfortunately, financial woes forced Interplay to pull the plug on Black Isle and trade off Fallout's single player rights in order to survive. Enter: Bethesda.

Fresh from the Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda set fire to the ill-fated Van Buren project, and built a its own post-apocalyptic vision from the ashes. The result was Fallout 3, an open-world RPG that combined the open-world mastery of The Elder Scrolls and Black Isle's rich Fallout universe. The franchise's rebirth was hailed as monumental success by fans and critics, and it paved the way for Fallout: New Vegas a game that would see former Black Isle developers unite under the Obsidian Entertainment banner to finally take another crack at the series that made their careers.

Hand-off results: Fallout 3 was named Game of the Year by countless gaming outlets and way more importantly awarded our top prize in the 2008 Annual Platinum Chalice Awards. It's popularity earned it a space in the Smithsonian Art Exhibition's video game display, as well as set up Obsidian's Black Isle vets nicely for their New Vegas comeback.

It takes cojones the size of Guilty Sparks to tackle one of gamedome's most respected (and bazillion-dollar making) properties, but that's what Microsoft created 343 Industries to do following Bungie's exit from the franchise after Halo: Reach. Guided by members of Bungie's original crew, 343 Industries hit the ground running with the Defiant Map Pack" for Halo: Reach, and the Halo Waypoint app for Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360's Live Arcade. However, it was only after these bit-sized projects when 343's true test began.

At E3 2011, Microsoft announced its Bungie replacement was not only developing a HD remake of Halo Combat: Evolved for the series' 10th Anniversary, but that 343 Industries would also be piloting Master Chief's return in Halo 4. Fans squirmed. Critics sniped. Then 343 Industries silenced them all (well, most of them) with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, a game that was praised for its fresh look, tight gameplay, and reverence for the Halo universe. Suddenly, Master Chief's future looked bright.

Hand-off results: Halo: Combat Evolved launched to above-average reviews (read ours - now!). It also proved 343 Industries was more than capable of picking up where Bungie left off. We'll know how clean this hand-off was when Halo 4 comes out of stasis on November 6, 2012, but for now we're optimistic.

Since Infinity Ward laid a blitzkrieg on FPS gaming with the first Call of Duty in 2003, the wartime shooter has been passed around developers like a contraband porno mag, cycling through a slew notable game makers who have each added their own touch to the series while maintaining its genre-defining multiplayer and single-player experiences.

The short version of Call of Duty' s history goes like this: In 2006, Infinity Ward tagged in Treyarch for Call of Duty 3, but stepped back in to launch Call of Duty's Modern Warfare series in 2007. Activision's internal team at Treyarch brought the series back to WWII in World at War (giving gamers a taste of Nazi Zombies), then Infinity Ward went modern again with the real sequel to its hit, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Following a legal dust-up between publisher Activision and former Infinity Ward heads, devs Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software were called on to help the MW series running, eventually completing Modern Warfare 3 last year. Meanwhile, Treyarch went to Vietnam with Black Ops, which continues this November.

Hand-off results: Call of Duty games continue to set new sales records and gushing reviews with every yearly installment, despite the the regular cycle community bitching and moaning over the lack of originality that precedes every sequel. It's likely the Call of Duty franchise will outlive us all no matter which developer takes control.

You know it's a successful hand-off when fans barely notice the switch. Case in point: Capcom's string of Zelda games for Nintendo's portable systems, which began in 2001 with dual release of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages for the Game Boy Color. The interconnected chapters were developed by Flagship Co., a Capcom subsidiary headed by Final Fight creator Yoshiki Okamoto. Their retail success led to Capcom's official stamp on the port of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords to Game Boy Advance in 2002; and its direct involvement in the creation of the critically acclaimed The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for Game Boy Advance in 2004.

Hand-off results: Though the styles may be subtly different, most everyone who's played at least one of Capcom's handheld Zelda games would agree they deserve a place in Link's library as much as any other. True, Nintendo jumped back in for the next portable adventures with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for DS, but that was more about The Big N overseeing Zelda's next-gen debut than reacting to Capcom's work. In the end, Capcom's official run may have been brief, but it was memorable.

It's hard to tell now, but Nintendo's original Star Fox for the Super Nintendo was something of a graphical wunderkind back in 1993. It was one of the first console games to utilize 3D polygonal models, and it made Nintendo's Super FX chip look like a miracle worker. It's next-gen follow, Starfox 64, performed equally well for Ninty, doubling as a showpiece for its 64-bit system. All was looking good for Fox McCloud and his barrel-rolling crew... and then came Star Fox Adventures.

Alright, we're being a little dramatic. Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube wasn't a bad game, but it wasn't really a Star Fox game either. As the story goes, Rare was working on an action-adventure title called Dinosaur Planet for the GameCube, before Nintendo stepped in and requested nay, demanded! - it be reskinned as a Star Fox title. As a result, Star Fox Adventures was born looking more like a Zelda game than a traditional, high-flying Star Fox adventure. Thankfully, fans later got their genuine Fox McCloud fix in 2005 with Star Fox Assault, Namco's own take on the series which returned it to its rail-shooter roots, albeit to mixed critical success.

Hand-off results: Under the care of Rare and Namco, the Star Fox series has flexed its wings, but it's never really been able to regain the level of fame it had under Nintendo's reign. Retro Studios is rumored to be working on a Metroid and Star Fox cross-over game for the Wii U, so maybe the third hand-off will be a charm?

Jamming on plastic guitars and pretending to sing at parties was all the rage back in the 2000s thanks in large part to Harmonix and RedOctane who made the rock and roll rhythm game genre famous with the first Guitar Hero game back in 2005. Then, in 2006, Activision stepped in and Yoko Ono'd the duo, taking RedOctane for its own, and sending Harmonix into the arms of MTV Games and publisher EA, where it started its own revenge franchise, Rock Band.

Eager to cash in on the music game craze (and justify the millions it spent on RedOctane), Activision called up its own Tony Hawk developer Neversoft to control the retail beast Harmonix had released for PS3 and Xbox 360, signing on Vicarious Visions, Budcat Creations, and Aspyr Media to spread the Guitar Hero mojo to Wii, DS, PS2, and PC, respectively. Neversoft accepted its most sacred task, and proceeded to clutter living rooms with fake instruments through the release of an estimated 2.9 billion sequels and iterations of the Guitar Hero brand. By 2010, player tastes had moved to the dance game genre (in which Harmonix was already killing it with Dance Central), and Guitar Hero had become a washed-out, drug-addled husk of its former self. One year later, Activision pulled the plug on its once legendary performer, and Guitar Hero has been playing small town bars ever since.

Hand-off results: Under Neversoft's watch, Harmonix's creation went on to become one of the hottest selling properties in Activision's stable. The games sold tens of millions, and the downloadable song market became one of the hottest and most lucrative trends in DLC. As such, it's difficult to lay the blame for Guitar Hero's demise on Neversoft's performance, when Activision's ceaseless milking of the franchise seems a more likely suspect. Could Harmonix have kept the flame alive? We'll never know, but the company is at least trying to reignite it with the upcoming downloadable Rock Band Blitz.

Up until F-Zero GX, Nintendo and Sega were the Coke and Pepsi of the gaming world. That ended in 2000, when Sega announced it was making the switch to third party development. Suddenly, it wasn't so taboo for the two video game juggernauts to be seen in the same room, and soon after Nintendo assigned Sega's subsidiary, Amusement Vision, to the next installment of its futuristic racing series, F-Zero. So began the first official collaboration between the two former rivals.

F-Zero GX was developed by Amusement Vision around the same time as F-Zero AX, an arcade racing game which resembled its GameCube counterpart, and even connected to the game via memory card. Both F-Zero properties were overseen by F-Zero designer Takaya Imamura and Nintendo co-producers Shigeru Miyamoto and Toshihiro Nahoshi, but it was still Sega's Amusement Vision that did most of the heavy lifting. Granted, it may not have been a complete hand-off, but considering the companies' histories, it was valiant first step.

Hand-off results: Despite criticisms (including some from Miyamoto himself) for its steep difficult curve, F-Zero GX released to much acclaim and strong sales. It was the first F-Zero game to feature an actual story, and it succeeded in making Captain Falcon a recognizable face in Nintendo's roster. More importantly, it laid the foundation for an unlikely friendship between Nintendo and Sega that carried forward into other collaborations.

Midway's NFL Blitz series was an arcadey alternative to the more sim-oriented football games of its time. Sporting fewer rules, bigger hits, and exaggerated gameplay, Blitz was a breath of fresh air for gamers who wanted to chuck the virtual pigskin without the hassle of having to become an expert on the actual sport. The series continued to tweak its over-the-top formula for over a decade, until Midway caught a permanent injury in 2008, and the series was benched.

Enough hamfisted football analogies for ya? Here's one more. While Blitz fans feared the series was on a permanent delay, EA later picked up the ball in 2012 with a rebranded NFL Blitz downloadable title for PS3 and Xbox 360, treating Blitzers to an all-star follow-up.

Hand-off results: In addition to giving us a game that actually fits our hand-off analogy, EA gave Blitz fans a taste of their past without tainting it too much with Madden NFL sensibilities. As we found in our NFL Blitz review, the pseudo-reboot was instantly recognizable to Blitz aficionados, if not slightly more mature than it's ancestors. Still, better there be a slightly watered down Blitz than none at all, no?

We don't want to say anything untowards about Nintendo's spacefaring bounty hunter, but for the last 10 years Samus Aran has been stepping out with more than one developer. The first hand-off occurred after producer Shigeru Miyamoto paid a trip to Retro Studios, which had been commissioned to work on four unrelated titles for the GameCube. Miyamoto was so smitten with Retro's first-person shooter engine that he suggested the studio scrap everything it was working on and begin anew on a first-person Metroid sequel. Retro Studios obliged (begrudgingly, we assume) and went on to produce an entire Metroid Prime Trilogy; a chain of games that marked a new era for the franchise, which had not seen a true sequel since Super Metroid for SNES.

The second hand-off took place in 2008. This time, it was Metroid designer Yashio Sakamoto who shopped Samus Aran around, settling on Team Ninja thanks to its proven skill with 3D gameplay and success with the Ninja Gaiden series. The pairing led to the development of Metroid: Other M for the Nintendo Wii.

Hand-off results: While not the bestselling chapter in Samus's career (in fact, it's one of the worst), Metroid: Other M gave the long-running series a new flavor. It was the first imbue Samus with a melee system and a unique blend of third-person and first-person controls. Ultimately, Team Ninja's vision failed to set the Metroid community on fire, but it kept the brand alive all the same. Conversely, the Metroid Prime Trilogy, earned Retro Studios a shinier place in Samus Aran's history.

Look, we know it's become de rigeour to shoehorn Gearbox's Duke Nukem Forever into every article about games that broke our hearts, but you have to admit it fits the theme. We'll spare you a retelling of Duke's belabored comeback, but the short story is Duke Nukem Forever was stuck in development purgatory long before Gearbox took its shot. As such, this wasn't so much of a developer hand-off as much as it was an 11th hour attempt to save the great Duke before he expired for good. And the result? Well...it's a matter of perspective.

Hand-off results: We'll save you the mystery: Duke Nukem Forever was not a great game. We gave it a decent score, but even that was being generous. After nearly a decade and a half out of commission, Duke Nukem Forever's linear structure, uninspired sequences, and baffling long load sequences made the whole thing feel like it had arrived late to its own party. But less we crap over Gearbox for its misstep, it's only fair to say it did the best with what it had. That all said, the game also sold pretty well (thanks in part to 14 years of hype), so Duke Nukem loyalists may still get a true, modern sequel down the road.

This is the part of the feature where we pass it off to you. Tell us what gaming hand-offs we missed, and which we fumbled. Just be civil about it we don't want to have to do some replacing of our own...

Crystal Dynamics is reportedly eying the return of a classic PlayStation bloodsucker. Today, VG247 claimed it “has it on good authority” that the studio behind this year's Tomb Raider reboot is working on a similar resurrection for “Soul Reaver” from the Legacy of Kain vampire series.

According to the site's source, the reboot will sport a brand a new art direction and be a full reworking of the early PlayStation franchise, which began in North America in 1996 with Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. It's unknown if it will star the vampire Kain from the original, or the wraith Raziel who actually starred in 1999's Soul Reaver sequel.

As for what name the reboot will answer to, Eurogamerpoints out Square Enix, Crystal Dynamics' parent company, has been picking the community's brain on a possible title since last May. According to one survey taker at GameRevolution, possible titles and/or subtitles for the reboot include Obsidian Blood, Obsidian Sun, Dead Sun, and Revenant.

The Legacy of Kain series survived nearly seven years from when it first preyed on PlayStation owners. After Soul Reaver, Crystal Dynamics put out two more sequels starring both Kain and Raziel – Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 and Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain – before concluding the series in 2003 with Legacy of Kain: Defiance for PS2, Xbox, and PC. Now that nearly a decade has passed, do you think it's a good time for Raziel and Kain to be reborn?

Lara Croft, some Marvel pinheads, and a slew of other Sony stars are coming home for the PlayStation Plus holidays, as the US PlayStation Blog reports Tomb Raider: Underworld, Marvel Pinball, and a selection of other popular titles will be available for free or at significant discounts to PS Plus members during one of the service's most giving months yet.

Starting today, PS Plus members can pick up Crystal Dynamic's 2008 Tomb Raider tale along with Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Rifto's Rage, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, and PS Minis Orbit and Mad Blocker Alpha for nothing. One week later, on December 13, Sony will also release Zen Studios' Marvel Pinball for free, followed by the PS Mini A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks! on December 20 (which, for the sake of consistency, should be called a Space Shooter for 0 Bucks).

These freebies are part of Sony's PS Plus Holiday Collection promotion. Also on offer are 30% discounts on notable PS3 game packs, including the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Bundle and the LA Noire Bundle/Complete Edition; up to 80% off PSN collections like the Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode 1 and 2 Bundle and the Tales of Monkey Island Bundle; and 50% off Marvel Pinball's Captain America and Fantastic Four DLC tables--all of which will begin competing for your time and cash on December 13.

In all, Sony pegs the total PS Plus savings at over $250, which more than covers a yearly membership. That is, provided you haven't played these games before, or aren't working your way through the wealth of AAA titles that arrived over the past few months. No doubt, Sony is making a big play for your PS Plus allegiance this season. Will you take the bait?