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Tag: crystal dynamics

  • How the New ‘Tomb Raider’ Games Want to Unite Lara’s Past and Future

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    After years of corporate shuffling and various adaptations getting announced and coming out, everyone’s favorite Tomb Raider, Lara Croft, is finally returning to video games with two titles. At last week’s Game Awards, Crystal Dynamics revealed Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis and Tomb Raider: Catalyst. The former is a remake (or “reimagining”) of the original 1996 game that saw a young Lara look for the Scion of Atlantis. It’s been re-released many times over the decades, and this new version, co-developed with Polish studio Flying Wild Hog, features modernized gameplay and graphics, along with “new surprises.”

    The day after the awards ceremony, Crystal studio head Scot Amos and game director Will Kerslake told press the chief aim with Legacy was to build it from the ground up and make the original game “feel like 1996, but play in 2026.” There was a lot of talk of “honoring” Lara’s debut, and not adding embellishments or divergences that fans would deem unnecessary. (Translation: it’s a single-player only game.)

    “The things you expect in a Tomb Raider game, the characters and creatures you expect [from the original], are in the trailer and will be in Legacy,” said the developers when asked of the game’s locations being in this new version. Likewise, the original game’s puzzles and hard segments will make a return, but like the new controls, those will meet the current generation of players where they’re at.

    Meanwhile, Catalyst puts Lara in Northern India after a cataclysm unearths ancient secrets, including one “that could reshape the future.” While investigating what caused the cataclysm and any other secrets in the region, she’ll team up with (and go against) other treasure hunters whose intentions aren’t as noble as hers. The most important thing to know about Catalyst right now is that it’s set after 2008’s Tomb Raider: Underworld, meaning Lara’s older and “at the top of her game,” according to Kerslake.

    Speaking of Lara, she’s undergone another new look for Legacy of Atlantis, which was previously shown off in 2024, prior to the games’ reveal. Her last big artistic change came with the 2013 reboot and lasted through that trilogy. For this new redesign, Kerslake explained Crystal Dynamics has had the same art director and lead character artist for “many games now”, so they’ve kept core elements of Lara with each game while working within the boundaries of the engine used to make each individual game, and ensured her look fits “the right era for each version [of her].”

    Similarly, Amos said the studio looks at evolving her through a lens of “the right character for the right period of how players experience games today,” focusing on “who Lara needs to be while retaining that core DNA that’s made her iconic.” No mention was made of her specific look for Catalyst, but the same logic applies there, with further insight presumably to come when that game is closer to release than the remake.

    In both titles, Lara will be voiced by Alix Wilton Regan, best known for Cyberpunk 2077 and Dragon Age: Inquisition. The shared voice means players will see the character at two different points in her life, and combined with her redesigned look, it’s all part of an effort by the studio to unify her earlier exploits with the more recent Survivor era: Legacy of Atlantis is Lara when she’s “fresh-faced” (as in, not long after the reboot games and Netflix series), followed by the pre-reboot games, and Catalyst is set at the furthest point in her adventuring career.

    That unification also extends to how the games were made. They were developed in parallel, with Flying Wild Hog tackling Legacy and Crystal Dynamics on Catalyst duty. Amos revealed the two studios have been sharing technology and resources, and are overseen by a leadership team that ensure “everything’s on track, within canon, and makes sense.” Of the partnership, he considered Flying Wild Hog, whose previous credits include Evil West and the Shadow Warrior games, “a dream to work with. Meeting them felt like a natural extension of [us], and there’s been so many similarities in how they’ve embraced this studio culture on their own that very much aligns with how [we] do things.”

    Amos and Scot assured more information on the two titles would emerge when the time was right, and they were equally avoidant about touching on how the upcoming Prime Video show will factor into this new, unified timeline. But they were more forthcoming about their pride in these two reveals: Scot recalled being at the Game Awards with Regan, other Crystal devs, and Flying Wild Hog CEO Michal Szustak and absorbing the excitement from the crowd and online for the two trailers. It’s been a long road for Crystal Dynamics and Tomb Raider this decade, but the hope is that looking to the reimagined past and incoming future can reinvigorate the long-running series and put Lara Croft back on the map.

    Look for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis to arrive in 2026, followed by Tomb Raider: Catalyst in 2027, both launching on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Justin Carter

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  • Video Games Weekly: It’s weird that esports is segregated by gender

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    Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday (Or, I dunno, Thursday), broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who’s covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget.

    Please enjoy — and I’ll see you next week.


    Earlier this week, FlyQuest top laner Bwipo (Gabriël Rau) was suspended for one series of the League of Legends LTA playoffs after saying some wild stuff during a livestream about women and their ability to play esports. Here’s a sampling of what he said:

    • “I think there’s just not enough support for female pro players… women’s anatomy and their monthly cycles are just extremely different from males, and there’s no proper support system for women to go through what they’re going through.”

    • “Even men just tilt out of their fucking minds when they’re playing League of Legends. So, when a woman is on the wrong part of the month and playing competitively, there is a time of the month where you should not be fucking playing competitive games as a woman, in my opinion.”

    OK, Bwipo. His comments received an appropriate amount of ridicule from fellow players, casters and fans, and FlyQuest benched him during a pivotal moment in the race to Worlds. He has apologized and pledged to “reflect, listen, and do better.”

    So, here we are yet again. It’s 2025 and it must be stated: Men are not biologically better at video games than women. Women, femmes and nonbinary people are not physiologically less interested in or skilled at competitive gaming than a player who lives as a dude. Gender on its own has no bearing on how quickly a person can click a mouse, scan a screen or strategize in high-intensity situations, and lines of code react the same no matter how an individual player identifies.

    That said, I find myself agreeing with Bwipo’s initial statement, “There’s just not enough support for female pro players.” I understand, in a backward kind of way, the logical leaps he then tried to make in order to explain a situation that doesn’t make any sense — namely, the absence of non-guy players in mainstream, professional esports. His conclusion may have been laughably misguided, but the core conundrum still stands.

    The professional esports scene is segregated by gender and dominated by men. There are no hard and fast rules barring women or gender nonconforming people from competing at a professional level in any major league, but there are vanishingly few women, femmes or non-male-presenting players participating in mainstream esports tournaments, and this tends to be the baseline. There are separate leagues and competitions established specifically for women and gender nonconforming players, and while I find these events to be extremely exciting, they’re siloed and receive far less financial, marketing and back-end support than mainstream tournaments. Women’s esports leagues exist in a bubble that, for some strange reason, seems to be modeled on the gender segregation practices of traditional sports, with matching gaps in pay, respect and opportunity.

    A handful of women players have broken through on the main stage over the years, including Potter (Christine Chi, CS:GO), Karma (Jaime Bickford, Rocket League), Hafu (Rumay Wang, WoW, Hearthstone) and Scarlett (Sasha Hostyn, StarCraft II). Still, the earnings gap between men and women in esports is cavernous: According to Esports Earnings, the top male player on record is N0tail (Johan Sundstein, Dota 2), with $7,184,163 in prize money to his name. The top female player on that list is Scarlett, with $472,111 in total earnings. There are 619 male players ahead of her, and the totals don’t factor in the lucrative sponsorship deals available to elite gamers.

    I have to say it again. Esports, an industry built around people playing video games really well, is segregated by gender. Isn’t that insane?

    The natural question is, why? It’s not because only men are good at video games, since we’ve established that’s a steaming pile of horseshit. Nor is it because, as Bwipo suggested, some women menstruate. But the actual reason is just as clear.

    It’s sexism. The gender makeup of the mainstream esports scene is the result of everyday, bog standard, garden variety, run of the mill misogyny. In the world of esports, it’s sponsored by Red Bull, drenched in LEDs and proudly hosted by your favorite streamer. At our current stage, when a veteran LoL player is openly trying to bring back the hysteria diagnosis rather than looking at the realities of a system that provides him privilege, I think we have to say it plainly. Put the pivotal issue on the table so we can look at how ugly, regressive and nasty it is. Only then can we start to change it.

    There is a dearth of women, femmes and nonbinary people in mainstream esports because of the sexism that permeates society at large.

    I understand why someone like Bwipo — or other players, coaches, presenters, managers, team owners, league organizers or game makers at the highest levels of esports — wouldn’t want to acknowledge this fact or how much power it holds over the entire scene. I get that some would rather twist themselves into knots trying to blame women for their own exclusion, instead of tackling an uncomfortable social issue that runs far deeper than just the gaming industry. I understand it, but I think it’s cowardly. Ostrich behavior.

    So, let’s look at it. If misogyny in esports is the problem, I think a solution has to lie in the talent pipeline. During the scouting stages, when school-age players of all genders are streaming and climbing ranks from their bedrooms, boys naturally receive things from the community that girls don’t, like enthusiastic support, a welcoming attitude, respect, and, eventually, enough belief in their skills to risk investment. I’m not suggesting toxicity isn’t a thing for everyone, but these positive aspects are also built into the experience for many young men playing games. Young women have to earn these responses, generally by overperforming compared to their peers, and while being belittled, sexualized, threatened with violence, hyperanalyzed and othered, for years on end. It’s exhausting. It silently pushes some women out of video games and esports.

    It’s also malleable. Sexism spawns from an embarrassing and irrational way of thinking, but people change their minds all the time. A simple but widespread shift in perception — oh right, it’s weird that esports is segregated by gender — can make an enormous impact especially on these early stages of esports play. How we think alters how we behave, how we speak and what we allow in social spaces. It really can be that simple, at least as a starting point.

    I think about this each time I turn on a pro match, which is currently every day with LoL Worlds qualification tournaments in full swing (hi, FlyQuest). The esports gender disparity is face-smackingly obvious, especially in concert with the godlike presentation that existing players tend to receive: hype trailers with uber-masculine motifs, walk-out rituals, emotional behind-the-scenes documentaries and epic promotional spots depicting teams as otherwordly superheroes. Of course, most esports players are literal teenagers, which tends to make these macho presentations more adorable than anything — but the fact remains that male esports pros, even teenage ones, are taken extremely seriously as athletes (athletes!) and can find support for their goals at every level. I’d love to see this encouragement, faith and excitement extended to young women and nonbinary players as well.

    The mental shift is the first step. As demonstrated by Bwipo’s offhand comments, it seems plenty of people in the esports scene are still in the early stages of critical thinking when it comes to gender and opportunity, so we’re starting with the basics. Remind yourself that men are not inherently skilled at playing video games and women aren’t naturally bad, and think about how ridiculous those suggestions sound in the first place. Remember that sexism is an artificial barrier limiting opportunities for everyone in esports. Next time you see an ad with a bunch of dude esports players surrounded by ladies in cosplay, take a second to notice how odd that is. Hear how many times the casters say “gentlemen,” “sir,” “boys” and other gendered terms during games, and recognize how daunting this space is for players who don’t fit those descriptions. Get comfortable with the idea that some humans can play video games really, really, really well, and this fact is completely divorced from how they look or identify. It’s easy to do because it’s true.

    Additional reading and viewing


    The news

    007 First Light lands in March

    IO Interactive’s James Bond game, 007 First Light, is heading to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Steam and the Epic Games Store on March 27, starting at $70. Engadget UK Bureau Chief Mat Smith got his hands on the preview at Gamescom earlier this month and he found it to be spectacular in the very literal sense.

    There’s more Stardew Valley coming to Stardew Valley

    What a lovely little surprise. Stardew Valley creator ConcernedApe (Eric Barone) announced another numbered update is on its way, adding significant bits of new content to the game more than nine years after its Steam debut. Update 1.7 will hit Stardew Valley at an unspecified time in the near future and Barone clarified that it won’t impact the release timeline for his next game, Haunted Chocolatier. Barone had the following to say about the whole thing:

    Haunted Chocolatier will be released at some point. And sure, the reality of my life is that I have a very popular 1st game that I still want to take care of, which means that my 2nd game might take a little longer. It is what it is. I didn’t have to make a 1.7 update for Stardew Valley, but the game is still so popular (in fact, still growing), that it’s hard to just stop improving it when there are still things that can be improved. But I hope the approach I am taking for Stardew Valley 1.7 will help keep Haunted Chocolatier on track.

    “About the Stardew Valley team: they are awesome, all very talented, hard-working, and contribute unique things to the development process. We are a very small group, and I like it that way. Also, I am still working completely solo on Haunted Chocolatier without any plans to change that for the time being.”

    Yooka-Replaylee will be here in October

    Playtonic’s bright and shiny remaster of Yooka-Laylee will come to PS5, PC, Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S on October 9. For the Switch 2 version, Playtonic has opted to release the full game on an actual cartridge, rather than relying on game-key card downloads, which is a heartwarming throwback to the way things were. Digital versions of the game cost $30, while the physical edition is $50.

    Diablo developers vote to unionize

    More than 450 developers with Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo team have voted to form a union with the backing of the Communications Workers of America. The CWA is also overseeing the ZeniMax QA union, and is backing recent organization efforts by the Overwatch 2 crew and Blizzard’s Story and Franchise Development group. (Am I the only person who wants that to be Story and Song development? Probably.) The CWA says more than 3,500 Microsoft employees have organized under its banner.

    Diablo producer Kelly Yeo is an organizing committee member of the latest Blizzard union and she said in a statement that multiple rounds of sweeping layoffs at Microsoft prompted the organization efforts.

    “With every subsequent round of mass layoffs, I’ve witnessed the dread in my coworkers grow stronger because it feels like no amount of hard work is enough to protect us,” Yeo said. “This is just the first step for us joining a movement spreading across an industry that is tired of living in fear.”

    Layoffs at Crystal Dynamics and Firaxis

    It feels like nowadays, for every unionization story, there are at least two tales of layoffs. This was sadly true in recent weeks, with news of mass firings at Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics and Civilization team Firaxis. An unknown number of people were fired from Crystal Dynamics and it’s unclear if the cuts were tied to the recent cancellation of The Initiative, which Crystal Dynamics was helping reboot. The Initiative was canceled as part of Microsoft’s huge cuts to its gaming segment in July (which followed similarly large losses the year before, and so on). Crystal Dynamics is still owned by Embracer Group and is working on a new Tomb Raider installment.

    After unleashing Civilization VII on the masses in February, Firaxis has also laid off an undisclosed number of developers in the name of studio restructuring. Firaxis is owned by 2K, which recently canceled a remake of the original BioShock and sent Cloud Chamber’s new BioShock title back to an even-deeper circle of development hell. Meanwhile, Take-Two Interactive, the company that controls all of this, is reporting healthy financials and expectations to grow in the second half of 2025. Grand Theft Auto VI is on its way, after all.

    Ju-DAS, Ju-da’as / Ju-DAS, Ju-da’as

    I swear, if the release trailer for Ghost Story Games’ Judas doesn’t include the Lady Gaga song, I will riot by myself.

    Following all of that weird BioShock news out of 2K, Ken Levine decided to remind everyone that his game Judas is still in development and even has key art. His post on the PlayStation Blog outlines some of the relationship mechanics in Judas, relating them partly to the Nemesis system from Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, which has me all kinds of excited. And, yeah, the new picture looks cool, too.

    The Silksong corner

    The day of its release, Hollow Knight: Silksong singlehandedly crashed multiple game storefronts including Steam, the Nintendo eShop and the Xbox Store. The marketplaces recovered, but players haven’t — the bulk of the post-launch discourse has focused on whether the game is too hard, a suggestion that I find baffling as someone who does not enjoy punishing metroidvanias like Silksong. With this brand of game, I was under the impression that if it’s beatable, it’s not too hard. It’s mechanically precise, tricky, twitchy and super-duper challenging — isn’t that exactly what you masochists want?

    Then again, Team Cherry’s first update for the game includes a “slight difficulty reduction in early game bosses” including Moorwing and Sister Splinter, so what do I know?

    There’s a Nintendo Direct on Friday

    Watch it here at 9AM ET.

    Catch the end of the Flame Fatales speedrunning event

    The Flame Fatales speedrunning event, which features women and femmes playing a bunch of awesome games very quickly, is underway and runs through Sunday, September 14. Check it out here!

    Recent Engadget reviews and previews

    Additional additional reading


    Have a tip for Jessica? You can reach her by email, Bluesky or send a message to @jesscon.96 to chat confidentially on Signal.

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    Jessica Conditt

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  • Crystal Dynamics announces layoffs, but says Tomb Raider will not be impacted

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    Crystal Dynamics, the studio behind the recent Tomb Raider games, announced an unspecified number of layoffs today. In a on LinkedIn, the game developer kept the size of the cuts vague, only stating that “a number of our talented colleagues” would be impacted. In what’s becoming an all-too-familiar refrain, the company cited “evolving business conditions” as the reason for the layoffs.

    “This decision was not made lightly,” the post reads. “It was necessary, however, to ensure the long-term health of our studio and core creative priorities in a continually shifting market.”

    Crystal Dynamics was by Embracer Group in a 2022 buying spree by the Swedish game company. Embracer still owns the studio, but was forced to do some of its own in 2023 followed by a last year. Crystal Dynamics is still working on a new Tomb Raider game, which the company said will not be affected by the layoffs. However, the studio had been tapped to help The Initiative with its Perfect Dark reboot. That project was and The Initiative shut down in a separate wave of massive cuts at Microsoft earlier this year. It’s unclear whether that cancelation was a reason for today’s cuts.

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    Anna Washenko

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  • In Tomb Raider’s New Trailer, Lara Croft Is Back to Her Old Self

    In Tomb Raider’s New Trailer, Lara Croft Is Back to Her Old Self

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    Image: Powerhouse Animation/Netflix

    Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider franchise is taking two interesting roads as it’s got a brand new game in the works. On one side of things, the live-action series courtesy of Phoebe Waller-Bridge has recently moved forward over at Prime Video. And on the other, more immediate end, there’s Netflix’s Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, scheduled to drop in October and looking somewhat like a blast from the past.

    The new show comes courtesy of Castlevania studio Powerhouse Animation and stars Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning’s Hayley Atwell as Lara Croft. In this tale set after the events of the reboot trilogy from the 2010s, Lara’s ditched her friends to run solo as an adventurer. While taking on increasingly difficult jobs, she finds herself on a new hunt after a thief’s broken into Croft Manor to steal an old Chinese artifact. The artifact’s not just old, it’s also dangerous, so it falls on her to do what she does best and save the world from peril.

    Legend may be in the same continuity as those games, but it’s looking more like a globetrotting, action-packed affair. In fact, it seems like this Lara is becoming more like her original incarnation instead of getting beaten around by gravity and nature every other step. While there’s parts of the reboots that’ve carried over, like her pickaxe and bow and arrow, and her trusty friend Jonah (Earl Baylon), there’s a definite change in the air. Here, she’s riding motorcycles, skydiving, and blasting a shotgun in midair like the hypercompetent hero fans originally loved.

    Netflix will premiere Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft on October 10.


    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Justin Carter

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  • Tomb Raider 3 Update Secretly Nukes Lara Croft Pinups

    Tomb Raider 3 Update Secretly Nukes Lara Croft Pinups

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    Image: Aspyr / Crystal Dynamics

    Well, this is weird. Pinups of Lara Croft appear to have gone missing in Tomb Raider I-III Remastered following a patch earlier this month to fix a bunch of bugs. Whether intentional or not, some fans are now calling it out as heavy-handed censorship of retro classics.

    Publisher Aspyr released the game’s second update on April 11 and mentioned a litany of changes, but nothing about up-scaled posters of Lara Croft being removed from the locker room in the Sleeping with the Fishes level for Tomb Raider III: The Lost Artefact. Though they still appear when playing with the original graphics settings on, where they look like pixelated postcards, the walls they’re on are now blank when players switch to the remastered graphics settings.

    Their removal was first noticed on the Tomb Raider subreddit, before the discovery began trickling out to other corners of the internet last week. “I thought it was bullshit, but nope, Crystal Dynamics played the OG fans. They censored out the pictures in the update,” tweeted one person. “Updates should never be used to retroactively censor games, it’s a form of theft. Any company that engages in this bait & switch behavior should go bankrupt,” tweeted another. To be clear, the original versions of the posters are still available in the games when played in the 1990s mode.

    A warning at the start of the remastered collection informs players that Crystal Dynamics, the studio behind the original games, chose to retain offensive stereotypes and imagery to “acknowledge its harmful impact” rather than erase those parts of the series’ legacy. Neither Crystal Dynamics nor Aspyr seemed to have a problem with the pinups previously. In fact, they were promoted as one of “ten remastered details you might have missed” a week after the collection’s launch.

    Shortly after the latest patch removed the posters, NexusMods user Dario108 uploaded a mod to restore them in the PC version of the game. Timur Gagiev, the maker of popular open-source port OpenLara, who ended up working for Aspyr on the remasters, retweeted Dario’s link to the mod without saying anything further. Some took this as a sign that the change was intentional despite some potential disagreement behind the scenes.

    Aspyr and Gagiev did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    .

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    Ethan Gach

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  • Microsoft Explains Why You’re Waiting So Long For Those Xbox Exclusives

    Microsoft Explains Why You’re Waiting So Long For Those Xbox Exclusives

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    Microsoft revealed some exciting new first-party games like InExile’s Clockwork Revolution and Compulsion Games South of Midnight at its June 11 Xbox Showcase. But others like Fable and Avowed were first teased years ago and still don’t have clear release dates. What’s taking so long?

    Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty recently said in interviews with Axios and IGN that the industry is still catching up to a new reality that major projects are simply more complex due to new hardware and rising audience expectations. 4K graphics, ray-tracing and other graphical improvements have made development harder and more expensive, while Microsoft itself had to manage a transition period beginning in 2018 when it snatched up tons of new studios, including those under the Zenimax acquisition like Bethesda, id Software, and Machine Games.

    “I think that the industry and the fans were a little behind the curve on sort of a reset to understand that games aren’t two or three years anymore,” Booty told Axios. “There are higher expectations. The level of fidelity that we’re able to deliver just goes up.”

    “One, gen 9 hardware is awesome—ray tracing, all the stuff we can do,” he told IGN. “But that trickles down through everything through how the assets are build. Like in Forza Motorsport, how the cars have to be built, how the lighting’s got to be done, how the track’s got to be set up, all the detail. The expectation is very high. Games are just getting more complex in terms of the interactions that are expected.”

    There are plenty of examples that back up Booty’s point about games taking longer. Ghost of Tsushima took Sucker Punch six years, the longest the studio had ever spent on making a single game. Final Fantasy XVI is in a similar boat, arriving seven years after the last game in the storied fantasy-RPG franchise. Exceptions like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, a dense 35 hour action adventure and game of the year contender made in just three years, only undermine how rare that turn around time has become.

    At the same time, it’s clear Microsoft in particular has struggled to iron things out in its post-acquisition production processes. Halo Infinite’s anemic post-launch support and the poor state of Redfall at release have shown that even when a big game finally arrives, it’s not without problems. Microsoft founded The Initiative back in 2018 but we’ve yet to see anything vaguely tangible out of Perfect Dark. Instead, it’s now reportedly relying on a partnership with Crystal Dynamics to push development forward on the game.

    While games like State of Decay 3, Gears 6, and Everwild were all missing from the Xbox Showcase, Microsoft is hinting that they could make an appearance at other events throughout the year like Gamescom or The Game Awards. Even so, it’s not clear their re-emergence will include substantial gameplay reveals or definitive release dates versus CGI trailers. In the meantime, fans finally have Starfield and Forza Motorsport to round out the year. And if Booty’s right, a parade of hits will begin to follow shortly after.


                               

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    Ethan Gach

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  • Amazon’s Tomb Raider Show Reportedly Being Written By Fleabag Creator

    Amazon’s Tomb Raider Show Reportedly Being Written By Fleabag Creator

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    Image: Crystal Dynamics

    If you, like me, are having trouble keeping track of all the video game adaptations coming to TV and film, you may have forgotten that a Tomb Raider series is in development over at Amazon. Well, friends, I will not be forgetting about this show any time soon, now that writer/actor/comedian Phoebe Waller-Bridge is reportedly writing the script for the show.

    According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Waller-Bridge is attached to the live-action show as a writer, though there’s no word on whether or not the Fleabag star will be in front of the camera at this time. Alongside writing, she’s set to act as executive producer alongside Ryan Andolina and Amanda Grenblatt, who both recently left Amazon to found their own production company, and have worked out further deals with Bezos and co. to work on projects like the Tomb Raider series.

    If you’re unfamiliar with Waller-Bridge’s work, she is known throughout the internet for her role as the titular character in Fleabag, a two-season series (also produced by and streaming on Amazon) which is also one of the few examples we have of what perfect television looks like.

    Fleabag is two seasons of perfect television.

    Fleabag is two seasons of perfect television.
    Image: Amazon

    You want to watch two short self aware seasons about a woman trying to claw her way out of emotional detachment and grief? It’s streaming on Prime. Don’t thank me, because it will ruin you for days. Come for Waller-Bridge’s sharp writing and performance, stay for Andrew Scott as the Hot Priest.

    This series will be the third time Tomb Raider has seen a live-action adaptation, with Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander portraying Lara Croft in two separate film series. At the moment, it remains unclear if this show will be based on the classic Tomb Raider games or the survival-oriented settings of the reboot series.

    While the Amazon adaptation is in the works, developer Crystal Dynamics is also in the midst of developing a new Tomb Raider game. The studio was recently acquired by The Embracer Group after Square Enix sold it and other studios off in an effort to downsize and shift its focus onto other things like blockchain.

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    Kenneth Shepard

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  • Marvel’s Avengers Is Ending Development, Giving Away Cosmetics

    Marvel’s Avengers Is Ending Development, Giving Away Cosmetics

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    Image: Marvel’s Avengers

    This may come as a surprise to the players who abandoned the game long ago and assumed this time had come already, but Crystal Dynamics and publishers Square Enix have announced the impending end of online support for Marvel’s Avengers.

    In a blog post published on Friday evening, a latter signed by ‘Marvel’s Avengers Development Team’ reads in part:

    To our amazing community,

    After two-and-a-half years and introducing twelve of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, following Update 2.8 on March 31, 2023, we will no longer add new content or features to Marvel’s Avengers. All official support for the game will end on September 30, 2023.

    Even after official support ceases on September 30, 2023, both single- and multi-player gameplay will continue to be available…

    …As a show of our appreciation for our community, starting March 31, 2023 we will make all the game’s Marketplace, Challenge Card, and Shipment cosmetic content available to all players for free. Every single Outfit, Takedown, Emote, and Nameplate from the Marketplace, Challenge Cards, and Shipments will be free for all players from this date onwards if you own a copy of the game.

    Gifting the full library of Marketplace cosmetic content is a way to thank our community by letting everyone experience the breadth and depth of content in Marvel’s Avengers.

    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.

    We hope you continue to play and enjoy Marvel’s Avengers. We can’t thank you enough for your support and for being part of our super team.

    – Marvel’s Avengers Development Team

    While the opening up of the game’s Marketplace is framed here as a gesture of goodwill, it is of course that same marketplace—shackled as it was to some insane notion that every game needs to be a Forever Game, reliant on the grind inherent to a live service experience—that helped kill it off. ‘

    While Embracer made a deal last year to buy the game’s developers, severing them from the publisher that made the Avengers licensing deal, it was made clear at the time that any games released prior to the sale would continue to be supported. Which suggests this decision is simply down to not enough people wanting to play or buy stuff in Marvel’s Avengers anymore.

    As the note says, this doesn’t mean the game is disappearing off the internet entirely. You’ll still be able to play it, even in multiplayer; there just won’t be any further updates or even technical support for it after September 30.

    If you’re a player and want to see the specifics of what’s shutting down when, and what this means for individual updates, you can check that out here in a series of charts and FAQs. One of which contains the deeply funny reminder that Spider-Man must remain a PlayStation exclusive, even in death.

    Image for article titled Marvel's Avengers Is Ending Development, Giving Away Cosmetics

    Image: Marvel’s Avengers

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    Luke Plunkett

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