Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition Detailed, Hits PS4 January 28th

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Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition Detailed, Hits PS4 January 28th
Tomb Raider

Hi everyone, I’m Scot Amos, executive producer at Crystal Dynamics. On January 28th of 2014, we’re bringing the award-winning Tomb Raider experience to PS4 in the form of Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition.

Recreating our franchise for PS4 was a true labor of love for the team. The critically acclaimed story and action adventure remain solidly intact and as riveting as ever. However, we took the opportunity to use the increased horsepower of the hardware to create the Tomb Raider we always envisioned.

We had a core team here at Crystal collaborating with the super talented teams at United Front Games (who worked with Square Enix on Sleeping Dogs) and Nixxes (whom Crystal has partnered with since the Legacy of Kain days). Together, we pulled the game apart and painstakingly rebuilt it with enhanced visual fidelity, realism, and a new immersive richness to the world.

Getting our gameplay up to native 1080p meant increasing all of our texture resolutions by over 4x so the details and nuances can be seen in their full glory. However, it’s subtleties like our subsurface scattering technology — how we manage realistic lighting effects through solid/semi-solid matter — that we’re so proud of, which bring a new glow to Lara’s skin. All of these elements working in conjunction drive a much more realistic world than we’ve ever had.

The entire game world — the perilous island of Yamatai — is alive as well. Foliage bends as Lara pushes through it; trees whip in the wind; even cloth moves courtesy of new, more sophisticated physics modeling. Weather effects lash the island with unprecedented levels of venom, and rain particles are dynamically lit as they slice through piercing searchlights. The in-game cast has also enjoyed an upgrade — characters and enemies alike have been enhanced visually, while in-game destructibility has been given additional refinement to increase the sense that you are leaving a mark on this world.

However, as always, it’s Lara who’s the star of the show. As such, one of our boldest changes was to handcraft an all new, even more realistic head and face model for her, taking advantage of the increased power of PS4. This is our first glimpse of our next-generation Lara. We also drastically improved shader and lighting effects, adding dynamic sweat, mud, and even blood for a new level of visual acuity that reacts on Lara in different situations. Objects on Lara’s person like her climbing axe or arrows now independently react to her movements and sway or jostle with an obsessive eye for detail, further adding that nothing was too small for us to tackle.

Lara’s hair now benefits from TressFX technology — her hair strands are independently simulated and interact with environmental effects, as well as react to her every movement, delivering unprecedented, lifelike motion. This all-new Lara is Crystal’s first steps towards the future. It’s a promising, compelling beginning.

“Promising, compelling beginning” is a good description for our first few weeks in the PS4 era. We’re very proud of what our combined teams at Crystal, United Front Games, and Nixxes have accomplished with Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition. Whether you’re a diehard fan who collects every Tomb Raider title, or just looking for a gripping, cinematic action-adventure to recommend to friends, we’ve got a great game for you. We’re thrilled to launch the game and hear your reactions. It’s been a privilege and a labor of love for us, and we hope you relish playing it as much as we did making it.

All the best for the holiday season.

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164 Comments

  • @96 I agree. As soon as I read 30fps=no buy, I just shook my head and wondered how many awesome games people like that are going to miss out on over something so petty.

  • @98

    I don’t consider it petty at all. When a NEW game comes out with face melting graphics and a persistant open world, yeah, I get it, 30fps locked is understandable. A Last Gen single player non-open world, linear scripted game at 30fps is kind of an insult. They’re basically saying the PS4 is maxed out a month into its lifecycle.

    Now granted, they haven’t confirmed its only 30fps, and I’ll be the first to apologize if they say its 60fps, but their silence is deafening at the moment. If you’re going to shake your head at anything, it should be the pricetag, and not the people expecting a last gen game to run at next gen speeds for $60.

  • @ vp1940

    30fps is not an “insult” and you shouldn’t take it as one. The PS4 is still in it’s infancy.

    As with every generation, the first crop of games are always the least impressive, graphically. The games we see 3 or 4 years from now will probably feature those “face-melting” visuals you speak of, but I wouldn’t be expecting it, and surely not demanding it just yet.

  • @PrimeroIncognito

    You’ll find no argument from me on infancy games my friend. Fact of the matter though, is this is not an infancy game. All the graphical additions he describes above are present in the PC version, with the exception of her new face. We have a year old game, running year old PC graphics that weren’t state of the art even then, on a machine that’s specifically build to mimic PC architecture, and I don’t see anyone boasting that it has 60fps (and believe me, they WOULD be boasting it). That’s frankly baffling and not acceptable for full price, when the same game can be had for $10 with all the same graphical enhancements, double the framerate, on a less powerful machine.

    Patience is one thing, laziness is another. With full disclosure, I’ll be picking it up regardless because I’ve never played it on PS3 and am a trophy kinda guy, but if this is 30fps locked, Chrystal Dynamics just pulled a fast one.

  • I’m not sure if the horsepower has that much to do with whether or not a game can run at 60fps. Maybe it does, I’m not certain, but I remember some PS1 games back in the late 90s ran at 60fps (I had 3 games that did – Turbo Prop Racing, Ehrgeiz, and Motorhead) and we know how incredibly weak the PS1 hardware is by today’s standards.

    With Turbo Prop Racing and Motorhead, I believe 60fps was achieved due to incredibly low polygon counts… I remember those 2 games were very simple in design, but still looked nice at the time (the 60fps helped with that, although it’s actually an illusion, since frame rate has nothing to do with the detail or complexity of the graphics, it’s just easier on the eyes) but more importantly, they were fun games.

    With Ehrgeiz however, I’m not sure how they pulled it off. If I recall correctly, that game had a lot more detail and action going on in the background and yet still held steady at 60fps, even during the random dungeon mode when enemies spawned or died, no slow down ever occurred. I thought it was amazing at the time, but frame rate doesn’t make or break a game unless it’s so terrible that it plays like a slide show.

    Nothing wrong with 30fps.

  • the released a trailer last night, just go watch

  • Not the biggest TR fan but did pick up the game digitally for 20 (Flash sale of 30 -10 from the free 10 bucks that sony was seeming throwing out) and it was worth it. I do agree with some of the post here. Get rid of that multiplayer and put in some PS4 exclusive DLC. I plated the game but I remember how a ***** it was to get to lvl 60 in the the multiplayer. First of all TR doesn’t do Multiplayer in the first place. SE and CD just put that in so “Players could keep playing longer” BS if you want to make us keep player longer give us some DLC Tombs or something like that. That feature is easily forgotten and should have never been there in the first place

    As far as 1080p and 60fps is concern I don’t really care as long as the game runs smoothly. And last gen systems were able to run 60fps or did we all forget Ninja Gaiden Sigma

  • Hahahahahhaaa nice try crystal dynamics i’d rather play the sequel thank you :) or better yet uncharted for PS4
    yeah take notes from naughty dog and develop a new game

  • I hope its not full priced. $60 = no buy for me since I already bought and beat it a while ago. I’d be happy to rebuy at somewhere around $30 but thats about it

  • It also doesn’t help your case that there was no single player DLC released and thus included here. I didn’t touch multiplayer the first time around and I won’t this time either if I rebuy. Please focus only on single player in the sequel- imagine how much more awesome it might be with the focus only on single player. The game is already pretty awesome

  • Seems like a cheap port with just 1080p. Not even 60fps.

    The funny thing is that you will probably ask $60 for this.

  • @ dragon if you mean most fans have played the game then say that. qut being such a **** to everyone. if people wanna buy it on next gen so what. no need to come in here and pretend like you know all. im sure some wil pick it up and if you dont want it then dont buy it.

  • Not the biggest TR fan but did pick up the game digitally for 20 (Flash sale of 30 -10 from the free 10 bucks that sony was seeming throwing out) and it was worth it. I do agree with some of the post here. Get rid of that multiplayer and put in some PS4 exclusive DLC. I plated the game but I remember how annoying it was to get to lvl 60 in the the multiplayer. First of all TR doesn’t do Multiplayer in the first place. SE and CD just put that in so “Players could keep playing longer” BS if you want to make us keep player longer give us some DLC Tombs or something like that. That feature is easily forgotten and should have never been there in the first place

    As far as 1080p and 60fps is concern I don’t really care as long as the game runs smoothly. And last gen systems were able to run 60fps or did we all forget Ninja Gaiden Sigma

  • Cool, I missed this for PS3, I’ll pick this up, even at $60.

    Glad to see this on PS4 with some improvements.

  • Please remove multiplayer trophies. They were terrible.

    Thanks!

  • I want my next-GEN Tomb raider to have 3-D. for 60 bucks they better add something more than just a couple of pixels and change those horrible online trophies :-)

  • Definitive Collector’s Edition perhaps…?

  • I am thrilled to see Tomb Raider being re-released for the PS4! Will definitely be picking this up!

  • I want my next-GEN Tomb raider to have 3-D. for 60 bucks they better add something more than just a couple of pixels and change those horrible online trophies :-/

  • Even though I bought and played fully the PS3 edition, it’s a definite buy for me. Thanks for bringing it to the, PS4 from a long time fan! Now I have a reason to be excited for January ^^

  • You know why it sold “poorly” when it first released? Because people like me cancelled pre-orders after you unveiled the MP aspect and the horrible online trophies. I eventually caved and bought the digital bundle with Quantum Conundrum for $25 during a flash sale, as that was an acceptable price for the game when I knew I wouldn’t be bothering with an entire portion of it, and thus not getting the platinum.
    This “definitive” edition, besides all the upgrades, simply bundles in all the MP DLC that a lot of people probably didn’t bother buying. Unless you get rid of the online trophies like AC: Liberation HD is doing, don’t expect me to buy this again. I mean, I loved the game, it had an amazing story and looked great on PS3. But I’m not paying for it on another console and not getting the platinum again. Leave the MP in if you must, but get rid of the trophies. If you do that, I’ll buy it when it’s around $40. If you add 3D into it like the PC version has, I would buy it again for $60.

    And please, make the sequel a single-player only experience. We don’t need another empty, ignored online mode that becomes a ghost town after the first few months, like so many games.

  • I doubt it’s 1080p AND 60 fps – also they said they’re using advanced effects like TressFX which is very demanding. I’m expecting 1080P with a LOCKED 30 fps – similar to AC4 as that runs amazing. As for the multiplayer I would expect 1080p60fps and nothing less.

  • if it’s $60 I’m not buying plus the multiplayer is the worst I’ve ever seen

  • PLEASE, PLEASE add 3D options, i played it 3d on the pic with nvidia 3dtv ,my god, its soooo good!!! its really meant for 3d , lots of its camera angle, framing of shots are create for 3d in mind.. its just add so much depth to the game, especially wide scenic views and close up tight corners in caves.. its really is awesome..

  • Not exactly “detailed” as the title would suggest, is it?

    Just so you guys know, it’s apparently confirmed at $60 since that’s the price for Amazon pre-orders. Ported to the “other” console as well.

    As others have said, it includes all previously released DLC. Just not sure why none of this info could be included in the post, or why nobody could stick around for even 10-15 minutes to type a few replies.

    …but I’m used to it by now. -_-

  • Got the Collector’s edition with the cool metal box and Lara croft figurine (next to my Nathan Drake figure). I enjoyed the game’s campaign, didn’t bother to try the mp component…Not even once. The only way i would spend money on this “Ultimate” edition would be via $10 upgrade to digital via PSN store.
    Not a dime more.

    My .02

  • Any plans for an upgrade option? Not intent on paying full price for minor improvements.. really figured this would be at the least $40 and would be great if there was a upgrade plan like other games have done.

  • awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • $59.99 is too much money. What incentive does a customer have buying it at this price when they could buy the game for cheaper on a PS3 already? All that definitive/complete edition stuff pertains to the multiplayer who actually played that? Make this $39.99 or give digital PS3 purchasers the option to buy this at $10 upgrade for PS4.

  • This is, honestly, one of those games I would buy 1,000 times over. I love it. I am anxious to see what they can do with it on PS4. It is already a gorgeous game on PS3. I even bought this game for someone, just because I liked it so much. I am definitely getting this on PS4, also.

  • If it has the right price and it also runs 60 frames I might get it. Please don’t disappoint us.

  • Great game but not a great price at all. It’ll be pretty much a PS3 port with a better looking Lara (which isn’t a bad thing).
    From the VGA’s the dev said things like “better hair”, etc… that’s not enough to warrant $60

  • Thats some bulls***…what now?…every PS3 game gonna come over to PS4?….thats some straight bulls***.

  • I purposely avoided this game on PS3 because of the universally negative opinion of the multiplayer & its trophies. I will definitely get this on PS4 if the mulitplayer trophies are removed, otherwise I’ll pass.

  • Only thing that would make me buy it is if it has Story DLC the PS3 version won’t get.

  • Oh and import my save from PS3!

  • like most have said, it better be 60fps. However my concern is, along with everyone else, what about those who brought the PS3 version? I purchased the PS3 version day one, i hope i dont have to spend another $60 for the PS4 version, there should be some sorta of discount to users who already have the PS3 version, maybe price the PS4 version at like $40 or something. Other than that i cannot wait for this game, i loved it on PS3 and wanted to play through it a second time, now i will play through it a second time on PS4, damn i cant wait to see how it looks and plays! this is very exciting, bring on January!

  • + DragonIrons on December 8th, 2013 at 2:27 am said:
    “Not a lot of people even HAVE a 3-D tv still, so guess what that means? Not much demand…..

    next post:

    + hotandserious on December 8th, 2013 at 2:29 am said:
    “Please patch in stereoscopic 3D support.”

    ’nuff said. Now back to your hole troll, unless you want to show us how much further you’ve wedged your head up your a**

  • Re: 97 Coody-Baroody, EXACTLY! Could not have said it any better myself.

  • excited to see one of the games i skipped on PS3 available soon on PS4. now if we could just get Arkham Origins in January that’d be awesome.

    excited to finally get to check this game out.

  • Don’t get me wrong, Tomb Raider is a fantastic game, my top 3 of 2013 as far as the main campaign went, I played multiplayer once and just wants into it. But at the $60 price tag I won’t buy this again for ps4 when it doesn’t really add anything new besides a graphics bump. I was pretty satisfied at the end of the original edition ,graphics weren’t anything I complained about because in my option the game looks great as it is on ps3

  • Unless there’s going to be a Ps3 to Ps4 ‘Upgrade’ fee for the game, I will not be buying this. If your going to be giving me an ‘Upgraded’ game, you’ll be getting an ‘Upgraded’ profit from me… or none at all, seeing as that is how much thought went into this project. Why would I purchase this for Full Price January 28th, with Infamous Second Sun coming out weeks later & Watch Dogs down the road soon after. Square will be getting my money when FFXV launches. Square Enix, either have Crystal Dynamics make new a Tomb Raider game, or send Gex door to door selling Auto Insurance, cause it may look like Crystal Dynamics(/the two Unknown Companies being ‘farmed’ out) is going for a “Money Grab” with Low Content on New Consoles to You, cause it looks like they’re Aiming with One Eye open at their/your Feet with their Tongue out going Miley to the Left to the Rest of Us.

  • Do a promotion with Final Fantasy XIV so I can get a cool bow and some cool Lara Croft items. Or don’t! But I think it would be fun.

  • i also own a 3D TV and I’d be more inclined to buy this if the game supported 3D.

    Trine is a great example of this. I wish 3D wasn’t so shunned on the PS4.

  • I want Titanfall for PS4,Sony bring Titanfall to PS4 pretty please.

  • Anyway make sure Tombraider runs at a native 1080p and 60fps, plus fix the a.i.

    Also I don’t want this game costing £49.99 here in the U.K maybe £24.99 yes. I don’t want to be paying more for a game I already played on ps3 just for better graphics.

    Anyway where is The Last Guardian I and everyone else have been waiting 8 years and counting this is ridiculous.

    The Bird Cat Dog hyena Chicken feet thing lives on.

  • Agree with the rest; I’d buy it for PS4 because the single player was so amazing. But the multiplayer was just not fun and if I the PS4 version had multiplayer trophies again, I would just play my ps3 version =P

  • Meanwhile the ps3 version is going on sale this week and is dirt cheap for plus members.

  • Definitive Edition seems more like Game of the Year Edition to me. But I can’t wait for that. Thank god I’m in love with Lara Croft again!

  • I am pissed about this.. I bought the special edition to this game… if I knew that there would be a better edition I would have waited…

    No way am I getting this game… I hope this is coming to an end soon… I hate when the PS3 games are pushed to the ps4. sure it looks like the ps4 has some games… but when I already have the game that does not help me..

    Give us a new game… not something we played already. Square Enix is just pissed this game did not sell to 5 million fast enough.

    I am passing on this.. and every other “upgrade”

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