Amazon Games boss Christoph Hartmann says that the next proper AAA game in the “Tomb Raider” franchise is progressing well. Amazon is publishing the next game in the franchise, which is being developed by Crystal Dynamics who were behind both the “Tomb Raider: Legend” trilogy and the more recent reboot trilogy that ended with 2018’s “Shadow of the Tomb Raider”. Crystal Dynamics is also owned by Embracer Group, the Swedish holding company which has famously undergone major restructuring and layoffs hitting many of its subsiduaries – including Crystal Dynamics.
That led to concern of studio closures and cancelled projects, but Hartmann tells that Crystal Dynamics has gotten through mostly unscathed: “The studio, from what I can tell, is fairly sheltered from everything going on with Embracer,. I mean, it has to because Embracer never was one company. It was just an accumulation of an incredibly large amount of independent businesses; and it’s not just games development, they’re like books and games and this and that.
And they always were very sheltered. People obviously look at what the parent company is doing, but it never impacted on resources, never led to any changes on management for them, so they’re fine.” With the game in development for so long, Hartmann says he’s aware expectations are high: “I mean, doing a new Tomb Raider, the bar is so high.
The longer you go, the expectation goes higher, so it’s a huge, huge task, but things are prog.