Tomb Raider devs offer a peek at their new ‘unified’ Lara Croft

Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics launched a new website for the franchise on Wednesday — Valentine’s Day is also Lara Croft’s birthday — with another peek at the impending “unified” design for its action heroine. New artwork of Lara sporting a post-Survivor trilogy look that evokes her classic design supports the theory that the Lara we saw last fall in Call of Duty is basically the character’s future appearance.

That new artwork of Lara is accessible on TombRaider.com after solving a simple glyph puzzle on the website. But it shows Lara Croft in her old-school tank top and shorts, twin pistols in hand. No more bow and arrow for future Lara. But the artwork is clearly for a post-Shadow of the Tomb Raider Lara, thanks to her jade pendant necklace, jewelry worn in the Survivor games as a memento of her first archaeological dig.

It’s also a slightly older, stronger-looking Lara than the one seen in 2013’s Tomb Raider, 2015’s Rise of the Tomb Raider, and 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The ending of the last game in that trilogy hinted at new adventures to come, one that would send Lara back to Egypt and face Tyrannosaurus rex, just like she did in the original Tomb Raider.

Lara Croft fans can revisit her earliest adventures in the recently released collection Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered, which is now available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. It’s a wonderful way to experience those classic games again.

Crystal Dynamics is confirmed to be developing a new game in the franchise, with Amazon Games set to publish. The developer has said that Lara’s next adventures will unify the timelines of Lara’s Survivor era and the Core Design-developed games (1996’s Tomb Raider through 2003’s Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness). Crystal Dynamics hasn’t said much about the new Tomb Raider, other than that it’s being developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5.

Other projects in the works include a Tomb Raider animated series for Netflix, which will see Hayley Atwell voice Lara in a story set after the Survivor era; and a live-action series at Amazon, which writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) is developing.