How committed is Crystal Dynamics to their pending reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise? Not very.
According to Crystal Dynamics’ global brand manager Karl Stewart, the “Tomb Raider Trilogy” will be exclusive to the PlayStation 3 and include Tomb Raider Anniversary, Legend, and Underworld, the former two of which were never released on the PS3 but have been readily available on the Xbox 360 for a few years now.
As with other HD combo packs such as God of War, Sly Cooper, and Prince of Persia, the games will add trophy support, but as these are already this-gen titles, it’s unlikely much more will be added to sweeten the deal; for example, the enhanced visuals normally associated with these HD packs.
It seems the company still plans to wring as much money from the over-saturated adventuress as possible, which will likely lead to market confusion. That’s the problem with Square Enix–it no longer plans ahead. It just does what seems like a good idea (to them, anyway) now and regrets it later, as has been the case with the Final Fantasy VII expanded universe and more recently, Final Fantasy XIV.
I see a glimmer of potential in the Tomb Raider reboot, but it’s unfortunately clear now that Lara will be suffering from split personalities as the developers fail to let go of the old while introducing the new.
