With the release of new Tomb Raider film adaptation, Square Enix decided the timing was right to give us a teaser and a release date for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the upcoming entry in Lara Croft’s rebooted series. This is the first official announcement from publisher Square Enix, but Shadow was actually leaked a couple years ago. From a 2016 Reddit post, one user riding a Montreal train found a man on his laptop, and on this laptop’s screen was title that read: Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
It’s really no surprise that we’re getting another sequel, as I’m sure the series was always intended this to be a trilogy at the very least. Starting back in 2013’s Tomb Raider, developer Crystal Dynamics decided to take a more grounded and gritty approach to the beloved franchise, aiming to explore Croft’s origins. Towards the end of 2015, we then got its follow up, Rise of the Tomb Raider (in my opinion an extremely underappreciated title that was overshadowed by Fallout 4 upon it’s release).
There are no details as of yet as this teaser is a merely a cinematic trailer, but many fans are hoping this third entry will introduce a fully realized open world. Rise did give players huge open environments to explore, but it was not considered a true open world by today’s standards. We do know, however, that Shadow will most likely take place in either Central or South America as one shot shows Croft gazing at the Mayan pyramids. At the end of the short teaser, Square Enix not only announced that a full unveil of the game will occur on April 27th, but also Shadow will be released this year, September 14th for PC, Xbox One and PS4.
