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Eidos Talks New Tomb Raider, Hitman, Kane and Lynch
Ian Livingstone, recently appointed as Eidos’ life president following the publisher’s acquisition by Square Enix, has revealed future plans for a number of the company’s key properties.
Speaking in a wide-ranging interview with Gaming Indians, Livingstone confirmed that new Hitman and Kane and Lynch games are in development at Denmark-based developer IO Interactive, with the latter targeted for a September 2009 release.
Despite earlier Eidos comments to the contrary, Livingstone also claimed that sales of Tomb Raider Underworld “met our target expectations.”
“… As a franchise, I don’t think Lara Croft is going down at all,” he said. “In fact, her popularity continues to increase… The next Tomb Raider, I think, will surprise a lot of people and reinvigorate the franchise. There are some remarkable things we’re doing in the next Tomb Raider.”
Livingstone also moved to explain the decision to delay the release of Batman Arkham Asylum until late summer.
“We’re expecting review scores in the 90s and clearly when you have an amazing game like Arkham Asylum, you want to maximise its potential. So we think it’s worthwhile going that slightly extra distance to make it the game it has to be.”
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Subscribe To Edge Magazine / Corrections / Terms & Conditions / Privacy Policy
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
I'd rather see Legacy of Kain as opposed to Kane and Lynch, personally.
Brian
www.brianwoods.com
Developers really need to start looking backward at design "rules" of the 80's & 90's while they're pilfering those time periods for ideas. "Reivigorating" the franchise used to have a term. It was called a sequel.
The sequels being released for games now used to have another term also. They used to call them expansion packs: ie - the EXACT SAME GAME with new levels.
Modern developers would do well to understand the difference.
Well, what do you expect? Turning Tomb Raider into a racing game?
Tomb Raider: Legend was clearly a reinvigoration of the series, while Underworld was pretty much more of the same, but nonetheless very entertaining and well done. Anniverary instead was a faithfully and perfectly delivered remake of the very first Tomb Raider and had its own look and feel. So while I can understand the tiredness of many people regarding Lara Croft, I cannot understand why Crystal Dynamics attempt on the series is so often accused falsely of ripping of the series.
A racing game? What?
Not a genre shift. Look at Legend. That's what a sequel should be. Nintendo is still excellent at this. Love 'em or hate 'em, Zelda-1 is different from 2, or 3, & so on. The direct line of platform Mario games also. You don't need to release a sequel every 14 months to keep a franchise active.
Companies used to release sequels when a new play experience is discovered. Now, it seems, games come out when a new shader is discovered. Side projects around the main franchise is a great way to keep a franchise alive - like TR: Anniversary, or Mario Kart. Looking at the timeframe, if a reinvgoration comes out next year, it would be about 5 years after Legend. & that would be about right for a sequel.