Crystal Dynamics has announced a new Tomb Raider game, and revealed that it will be built using Unreal Engine 5.
Announcing the game during the State of Unreal 2022, Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider franchise general manager, Dallas Dickinson promised a "high-quality cinematic action-adventure experience", but showed no gameplay or images, and didn't reveal a release window or title. Dickinson said the team is looking to "push the envelope of fidelity", and is looking to create an experience fans deserve from Crystal Dynamics and Tomb Raider as a series.
Crystal Dynamics becomes the latest major developer to move its next project to Unreal Engine 5. Other developers include The Coalition and CD Projekt Red, which has already announced that the next Witcher game will be developed using Unreal Engine 5.
This will be the first new mainline Tomb Raider game since Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which was released in 2018. Crystal Dynamics is best known in recent years for rebooting the Tomb Raider series, showing us a fresh look at Lara Croft's origins in a grittier setting. In recent years, it has developed Marvel's Avengers and has been assisting Microsoft's Initiative studio on a reboot of Perfect Dark.
During the 25th anniversary of the Tomb Raider franchise last year, Crystal Dynamics game director Will Kerslake spoke about unifying the storylines between the reboot trilogy and the original games, where Lara Croft is a more seasoned explorer. However, Kerslake also said Crystal Dynamics wasn’t ready to announce a new game at that time.
For more, check out the full Unreal Engine 5 announcement, which includes two sample projects developers can download and play to help build their next game.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.