TerribleAtThisGame
Member
Corpo speak corpo speak committed hard decision beep boop market very talented corp corp
Madflavor
Member
It's actually crazy it's been this long with not even a teaser for the next game. Like wtf?
They are in a really tricky spot imo.
They've had back to back commercial failures, their lifeline via MS is cancelled, and tomb raider sits at a very uncomfortable nexus of ideology.
It began as a very male centric "hot girl with big tits and guns blows things up and raids tombs on epic adventures" males were overwhelming the primary audience.
They then unsexified her, made her gay and "decolonised" the IP, lost a lot of their original audience, not all but enough to weaken the brands pull, somewhat offset by a smaller contingent of new audiences.
Since the last release we've hit an inflection/tipping point in the culture too, for many years this stuff was perhaps disliked, but tolerated, and now as political polarisation has become more extreme, their current approach has become "toxic" to many of the core demographic. They could keep the "modern audience" approach, release it, but be hit with borderline boycotts AND due to a sizeable loss of talent/knowledge it also be a worse quality game than their last.
Or they could reverse course (likely expensive as it's been in dev for years), retcon some of the prior games as a soft reboot, and aim to appeal to a younger male audience in the spirit of the originals. Is the brand so poisoned they'll come back? Maybe? But doing so would also seriously piss off a lot of the fans of modern tomb raider. Embracer doesn't really live up to their name sake either, and I suspect another failure would 100% be the death of the company.
Can't say I envy them.
They've had back to back commercial failures, their lifeline via MS is cancelled, and tomb raider sits at a very uncomfortable nexus of ideology.
It began as a very male centric "hot girl with big tits and guns blows things up and raids tombs on epic adventures" males were overwhelming the primary audience.
They then unsexified her, made her gay and "decolonised" the IP, lost a lot of their original audience, not all but enough to weaken the brands pull, somewhat offset by a smaller contingent of new audiences.
Since the last release we've hit an inflection/tipping point in the culture too, for many years this stuff was perhaps disliked, but tolerated, and now as political polarisation has become more extreme, their current approach has become "toxic" to many of the core demographic. They could keep the "modern audience" approach, release it, but be hit with borderline boycotts AND due to a sizeable loss of talent/knowledge it also be a worse quality game than their last.
Or they could reverse course (likely expensive as it's been in dev for years), retcon some of the prior games as a soft reboot, and aim to appeal to a younger male audience in the spirit of the originals. Is the brand so poisoned they'll come back? Maybe? But doing so would also seriously piss off a lot of the fans of modern tomb raider. Embracer doesn't really live up to their name sake either, and I suspect another failure would 100% be the death of the company.
Can't say I envy them.
Rivdoric
Member
My favourite of the LAU trilogy indeed. I liked the intertwined level redesign a lot.
Judge Magister
Gold Member
Same. I don't care about Legend and Underworld that much to be honest.
I love Anniversary though and still have the X360 version. Shame we never got another remake in the same style, like Nicobass fan made demo.
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BigBeauford
Member
Real shame.
Oh well, chin up lads.
Oh well, chin up lads.
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cinnamonandgravy
Member
loooooosers
MiguelItUp
Member
If there's a studio that's working on something that we haven't seen or heard about for several years, there's a chance things aren't going so well.
Saber
Newd Member
Willing to bet those are the type of people that would rather be lay off or bankrupt rather than make games with sexy characters or to appease gamers. Wouldn't be the first honestly, the guys behind Saints Row are a clear example.
As for Crystal yeah, its not like we actually lost anything of value.
With how much soy this new generation have she better off be a treasure of past where people can still love her.
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drotahorror
Member
Guess we're not gettin a new Gex anytime soon.
Mark Mocherad
Neo Member
I think they need to change a leadership
TerribleAtThisGame
Member
Nu Tomb Raider did nothing for me. I liked the old games for their very particular atmosphere, music, challenging platforming and sense of mystery. The very first one particularly is such a cool, unique game. I wish someone would revisit the elements that made that game so unique and built something modern on those ideas.
John Bilbo
Member
They could do so much cool things with Tomb Raider. Do not copy Uncharted. Take the original idea of the games and innovate on it.
The exploration platforming puzzles are ripe for a big gameplay design shakedown. No more "hold the analogue stick for half a minute and press one button every now and then". Take notes on how Breath of the Wild blew traversal wide open and how Death Stranding made a simple task of hiking more engaging.
Make the exploration itself interesting and challenging again. Create something new.
The exploration platforming puzzles are ripe for a big gameplay design shakedown. No more "hold the analogue stick for half a minute and press one button every now and then". Take notes on how Breath of the Wild blew traversal wide open and how Death Stranding made a simple task of hiking more engaging.
Make the exploration itself interesting and challenging again. Create something new.
Angry_Megalodon
Member
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Well for starters it hasn't been in development for 5 years. Many of those guys were working on the Perfect Dark reboot that just got cancelled in July.
I know that we tend to do a lot of armchair quarterbacking around here, but this is a bit excessive.
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Calverz
Member
Aye they were publisher no? Not developers. Give it to a japanese dev.
Angry_Megalodon
Member
Koreans would be a better fit. I wouldn't trust Square Enix these days. Just look at what they are (not) doing with the Nierverse. Pathetic, to say the least.
Anyway, the next TR will be shit, so Lara won't really come back till the one after the next, in ten years or so.
RetroGamingUK
Member
I suspect Tomb Raider was paused while they fucked about with Perfect Dark.