New Tomb Raider another reboot?

By Tom Bramwell Published 13 July, 2009

Horse-riding Lara tackles the Far East.

The next Tomb Raider will be an origin story in which a "young and inexperienced Lara Croft" investigates tombs in an island off the coast of Japan, according to a report.

Supposedly leaked details surfaced over the weekend and Kotaku has a few snippets about how Lara ends up shipwrecked and exploring mysterious underground tombs, apparently appearing on horseback at one point firing arrows at ghoulish adversaries.

However, both the original site 4Player Co-op and first responders Joystiq claim to have removed the imagery, and in the former's case the original information, due to legal threats.

Eidos has not responded to our request for comment so far, although to be fair we only sent it off 15 minutes ago. Clip clop.

Kotaku also points out that Eidos life president Ian Livingstone is on record saying the next Tomb Raider will "surprise a lot of people and reinvigorate the franchise".

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (34) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • spliffhead #1 3 years ago

    Let's hope there's more horse than pony.

  • squeakyg #2 3 years ago

    You forgot the mention the two juiciest words of the leaked news: "OPEN WORLD".

  • Darren #3 3 years ago

    Sounds good to me. The Tomb Raider games are usually good but formulalistic and linear. An open world Tomb Raider could be just the thing to bring the franchise into the 21st century. Hope it's good.

  • JCHilton #4 3 years ago

    you can find the screens and the little info accompanying them on gamersyde last time i checked.

  • dominalien #5 3 years ago

    I cannot dislike TR no matter how much they mess up. Even the maligned Angel of Darkness managed to enrapture me.

  • UncleLou #6 3 years ago

    Lara shipwrecked, survival elements, open world? That sounds exactly like an idea I once outlined in the forum.

    /sues

  • GeezaTap #7 3 years ago

    How many reboots does this need?

    Can't we have another Legacy Of Kain if we're going to go down that road? There was a series that KNEW how to do block puzzles.........

  • ZuluHero #8 3 years ago

    @squeakyg

    as well as another 2 'juicy' words mentioned in that Kotaku article:

    "SURVIVAL HORROR"

    I don't know, I really love Tomb Raider esp. Lara's last outing, but i'm worried that trying to be radical different to attract new fans might alienate the very people who have stuck by the series and kept it afloat.

    We'll see though, regardless of the guise of her next adventure - Lara can do little wrong in my eyes.

  • Bazfrag #9 3 years ago

    @Geezatap. Very true. Block puzzles are my main memory of LoK. Still, much better series than Tit Reliance erm i mean Tomb Raider.

  • mkreku #10 3 years ago

    It sounds like Risen! Risen is a new RPG from Piranha Bytes where you're playing as a dude that's shipwrecked and ends up on a mysterious island. It's open world and involves a lot of climbing..

    Good news though, if it's true. It's the linearity of the series that keeps me away (at least since the original Tomb Raider).

  • mrmonkey1980 #11 3 years ago

    As long as it has Lara in tight costumes doing handstands and you can swan dive off cliffs into stony ground 100 feet below, I'm a happy man.

  • darkmorgado #12 3 years ago

    I loved the original TR game and TR 3/TLR. TR2 was too combat-heavy in a series where combat has always been the worst element, AOD sucked. Legend, Anniversary and Underworld were good, but they lacked the head-scratching puzzles, the genius level design, and they were too short and easy.
    An open world TR game, with some real care and attention paid to level design (paths criss-crossing, looking up and seeing a location and thinking "how do I get there?" would be brilliant assuming they don't dumb it down and make it too easy. I finished Underworld the day I bought it with most of the secrets!

    That said, with the talk of the undead and horses, surely there has to be a "flogging a dead horse" joke in here somewhere?

  • mkreku #13 3 years ago

    @CountFapula: Haha, no. I just am REALLY looking forward to Risen. It's being released on October 2, on both Xbox 360 and PC, by the way :p

  • darkmorgado #14 3 years ago

    is there any info on risen on EG?
    *goes to look*
    I had a pm advertising it on here the other day.

  • mkreku #15 3 years ago

    Not much info on Risen on Eurogamer. Or Divinity 2, for that matter. For some reason, all I ever see on Eurogamer UK is articles on Guitar Hero or some shoddy Wii game.

    I know Eurogamer.de has some information about those two games, but since I can't understand German..

  • darkmorgado #16 3 years ago

    Ah... Pirahna Bytes are the guys that made Gothic. Never tried that series, but I know it's meant to be one of those flawed-gem things. I wonder if Risen will be a GFW:Live title and carry achievements.

  • darkmorgado #17 3 years ago

    Anyway, on the TR note, if there's horse riding, I expect a fully-functional physics system on Lara's Breasts. What's Itakagi up to atm?

  • Darkjinxter #18 3 years ago

    1st thing to drop would be the name 'Tomb Raider'.....It's sooooooo nineties.
    How about 'Lara Croft Uncharted'.

  • dominalien #19 3 years ago

    How about 'Lara Croft Uncharted'.

    Yeah, and then, at the end, you could get a trophy called Charted. The description would be: Chart all of Lara Croft.

  • darkmorgado #20 3 years ago

    +1 For the comments about LoK...

    The first one on PS was one of the first games to really make me go "wow". Didn't care much for the sequels though.

    Also: Shadowman! Bring back a proper, non linear sequel (ignore Shadowman 2 - that sucked b*lls)

  • darkmorgado #21 3 years ago

    Just read the EG review of Shadowman on PC. I lol'd. Oh, I remember the times when 70mb was a "hefty" download and a 300mhz processor was "way above minimum spec." Those were the days...

  • dominalien #22 3 years ago

    Just read the EG review of Shadowman on PC. I lol'd. Oh, I remember the times when 70mb was a "hefty" download and a 300mhz processor was "way above minimum spec." Those were the days...

    The strangest thing is that those were fully functional computers that could do SO MUCH. These days, you wouldn't even be able to browse EG on them.

  • zedzee #23 3 years ago

    Stop using a word that's a rehash from the film review world (ie. "reboot";).

  • darkmorgado #24 3 years ago

    The strangest thing is that those were fully functional computers that could do SO MUCH. These days, you wouldn't even be able to browse EG on them.

    Too true! Wouldn't even be able to boot up Vista with that these days

  • the_inchworm #25 3 years ago

    Open World would be such mega fail. As would survival horror. Tomb Raider is fine as it is. I like it. Leave it alone!

  • Kami #26 3 years ago

    ... now that people mention survival horror, Lara does look a little like Michael Jackson...

  • steviepunk #27 3 years ago

    The word 'reboot' get's thrown around a lot these days, so not really sure what it means in this context.

    If they mean they are taking a new approach to the game play, then I'll be interested to see how it turns out. while I like Legend and Underworld, I'm not sure how far they can go with that method of game play without it being too samey. An open world game could work for this and would certainly could be a refreshing change for the series.

    On the other hand, if 'reboot' means, 'pretend the other games never happened', then I think they are making a mistake. There is already a set history and story behind Lara and there is no need to go changing it. Playnig a young Lara in her early adventuring days is fine, but no need to rewrite history for it.

  • Yodzilla #28 3 years ago

    so she's still old enough to be legal right???

  • Feanor #29 3 years ago

    "Legend, Anniversary and Underworld were good, but they lacked the head-scratching puzzles, the genius level design, and they were too short and easy."

    Um, Anniversary was as long as the original and had very similar level design. Unsurprisingly.

  • Darkjinxter #30 3 years ago

    @Countfapula
    Indeed Uncharted nicked its' entire premise from TR, but did it oh so much better than even the Crystal Dynamics TR could manage. The main reason this was achievable was that TR had stagnated into a by-the-book imitation of itself and Naughty Dogs will pinch your dinner off the table if you let them.

  • sd99 #31 3 years ago

    Open World? Sounds like Galleon.... eh, Toby?
    Edited by sd99 at 13/07/09 @ 23:42

  • Matthew_Hornet #32 3 years ago

    What is it with the damn Open World thing? Does *everything* have to be open world these days? It's becoming really annoying.

    No, developers, everything is *not* better with an open world. Sometimes linear works just fine!

  • peak_performance #33 3 years ago

    Not too keen about a survival horror gimmick or the new art style, but otherwise the concept seems fine. Don't like the new Lara though, it's as if they're ashamed of her nerd fantasy past and are trying to distance themselves from it, when these days Lara looks pretty much like any other video game babe. Only she's actually a cool lady instead of a bimbo.

    Rebooting again is the pretty lame as well, the Metroid series didn't need a reboot or change of concept to be updated for 3D gameplay, it was still about exploring an unknown world.

  • malik51179 #34 3 years ago

    I'm not sure open world is the way to go, but maybe select a location option, as well as multi tomb puzzles ie find an item in one tomb to open a section in another.