New Tomb Raider in development with Unreal Engine 5 – Days Gone director joins team

metro.co.uk:

Crystal Dynamics reminds everyone it’s making a new Tomb Raider as it announces it will be built with Unreal Engine 5.

We already knew that developer Crystal Dynamics is working on a new Tomb Raider game. The studio said as such last year for the franchise’s 25th anniversary, but details were incredibly slim. There wasn’t even a teaser trailer.

While Crystal Dynamics is still staying tight-lipped about the game, it has now confirmed that development has begun and that it will be using Unreal Engine 5. Epic Games’ newest graphics engine can run on last gen consoles but this implies that the new Tomb Raider will be focused on, and possibly exclusive to, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

‘Our goal is to push the envelope of fidelity and to deliver the high-quality cinematic action-adventure experience that fans deserve from both Crystal Dynamics and the Tomb Raider franchise,’ says franchise manager Dallas Dickinson.

Although demos for Unreal Engine 5 have been around for a while now, including the The Matrix Awakens one available on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, it only officially launched this week – with Epic Games making the city area from The Matrix demo available as a separate download.

The only detail that is known about the new Tomb Raider is that it will unify the timelines of the classic games and the modern ones. How exactly it will do this is unknown, but it could mean we’ll see Lara’s personality skew closer to how it was in the original games.

This will be the first Tomb Raider game developed by Crystal Dynamics since 2015’s Rise Of The Tomb Raider. 2018’s Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, which wrapped up the modern trilogy of games, was made by Eidos Montréal – although Crystal Dynamics contributed as a support