Amazon said last month that it
would publish the next iteration of the popular video game franchise “Tomb
Raider”, a coup for the tech giant’s video game business.
اضافة اعلان
Tomb Raider, an action-adventure title
developed by a California game studio called Crystal Dynamics, features the
character Lara Croft, a British archaeologist who traverses unexplored tombs
around the world, solving puzzles and fighting villains.
Recent versions of the game, like the well-regarded
2018 title, “Shadow of the Tomb Raider”, were published by the Japanese company
Square Enix. The franchise has also inspired several feature films.
Crystal Dynamics is still the developer for
the upcoming game, which does not yet have a release date and is early in
development. But Amazon will be the publisher, meaning the company is working
closely with Crystal Dynamics on “creative support” and is responsible for
tasks like marketing, shipping the title on various retail and online platforms,
and advertising.
A first for AmazonThe new “Tomb Raider” game will be the
first major, single-player game published by Amazon Games, which struggled for
years to break into the challenging, insular world of
game development before
eventually finding a niche with multiplayer online games. Placing a flagship,
single-player game under its portfolio could be a significant step and a boost
to Amazon’s credibility in the industry.
“If someone told you four years ago Amazon is making games, you would have laughed.”
“It’s a huge moment for us,” Christoph
Hartmann, the vice president of Amazon Games, said in an interview. “If someone
told you four years ago Amazon is making games, you would have laughed.”
Under Mike Frazzini, a longtime Amazon
executive who departed the company this year, Amazon’s decade-old video game
unit floundered. In 2018, the company brought in Hartmann, an industry veteran
who founded 2K Games, which produces popular titles like NBA 2K, to report to
Frazzini.
In 2021, Google, which had also made a
foray into video games, shut down the in-house game development arm of its
gaming service, Stadia, before announcing this year that it would be ending the
entire service. Some thought Amazon and its video game ambitions could meet a
similar fate.
But Amazon finally released a popular
multiplayer title, “New World”, last fall, and followed that up with another
well-received game this spring, “Lost Ark”.
“Tomb Raider” could build on that success.
Though Amazon is a late entrant into
video games and trails other deep-pocketed
companies like Microsoft, Hartmann says he thinks time is on his side, because
he is just one part of a larger company that is patient and not asking for
immediate financial success.
“I’m not part of that rat race for who is
outperforming the other one — I’m here to build great games,” he said.
Plots and partnersAfter wrapping up a trilogy of games
detailing Lara Croft’s origins, the new “Tomb Raider” game will go “back to our
roots”, said Scot Amos, the studio head at Crystal Dynamics, though he said it
was too early to give many details.
“I’m not part of that rat race for who is outperforming the other one — I’m here to build great games.”
“There’s a logical evolution of what we can
do next there, as far as how we can actually give a bigger adventure and even
more things for her to do and more worlds and mysteries for her to explore,” he
said.
For Amazon, bringing in
video game veterans
has paid off. Amos’ studio had some initial questions about partnering with
Amazon, he said, given that it’s a relative newcomer in gaming, but they were
won over.
“We didn’t know what Amazon’s group was
like when we started this conversation,” Amos said. “We had known they had a
few games out there, but we started talking to Christoph, and it’s like, ‘Oh,
by the way, we all have 25, 30 years of history in this business.’ ”
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