Developer Crystal Dynamics is currently in charge of making two games based on some of the most badass female protagonists in the industry – Joanna Dark’s Perfect Dark and Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider.
The latter franchise has, of course, been handled by Crystal Dynamics (except for the Shadow of the Tomb Raider, whose development was led by Eidos Montréal because CD was busy with Marvel’s Avengers) ever since 2006’s Tomb Raider: Legend. Perfect Dark, on the other hand, is owned by Rare, which in turn has been a subsidiary of Microsoft since 2002. Ten years after the release of the last franchise installment, Microsoft announced that the newly established studio The Initiative would take care of developing a Perfect Dark reboot.
However, the following year we learned that Microsoft and The Initiative sought help from Crystal Dynamics since the San Francisco studio was very successful with its most recent Tomb Raider reboot. Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty plainly said the availability of Crystal Dynamics for the Perfect Dark project was too good of a resource to be passed on.
Unfortunately, the development of the Perfect Dark reboot encountered some troubles on the way. Insider Miller Ross, who correctly anticipated that Crystal Dynamics was about to halt any further development on Marvel’s Avengers, shared some tidbits on the ResetEra board:
Tomb Raider is full steam ahead; Perfect Dark I’ve heard has hit a road bump or two. You’ll see the former before the latter. I would indeed expect at least a year between them.
The next Tomb Raider game is apparently coming along much faster despite the engine switch announced by Crystal Dynamics in April 2022.
Tomb Raider has actually been in development for a lot longer than people know, though it did restart when they shifted from Foundation to UE5. It’s been in the cards for a while now.
Given that Tomb Raider isn’t likely to release before 2024, Perfect Dark may not be in the cards until 2025, roughly five years after its announcement.
As a reminder, Crystal Dynamics was sold to the Embracer Group alongside Eidos Montréal for $300 million. The next Tomb Raider game will be published by Amazon Games, though, as revealed last month.
