Have you picked up Lara Croft’s first adventure yet? If you haven’t taken a tour of Yamatai, now’s the time to book a ticket. Tomb Raider is currently 50 percent off in the PlayStation Store as part of a sale that runs from now until Monday, April 29th at noon. The sale is available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina.

Tomb Raider marks a reboot for the seasoned franchise, exploring Lara Crofts origin story and transformation from an untested young woman to a hardened survivor. Series staples of combat, exploration & traversal, and puzzles return to Tomb Raider, reimagined through an action/adventure experience rooted in survival. New offerings include skill and weapon upgrades, fast travel throughout the island, and online play with friends.

If you’re in the mood to tackle Tomb Raider with friends, keep an eye out for premium DLC such as the “Caves & Cliffs” or “1939” multiplayer map packs too. Weapon packs, multiplayer characters, and alternate outfits for Lara are also up for grabs.

Don’t wait – download the game now!

Crystal Dynamics – where the Tomb Raider team works – can be found in a complex at the end of a long road in Redwood City in San Francisco. Without laboring the comparison, Tomb Raider’s journey from inception to being in stores today has some similarities. You exit a freeway – in our case the conventional expectations of what Tomb Raider should be, you negotiate a lengthy curve (securing support for a bold new direction), negotiate through the stop signs of constant testing and second guessing before finally enjoying what appears to be a smooth home stretch.

Here’s where my comparison breaks down however. While the Crystal team has learned to watch their velocity on approach to avoid speed tickets, Tomb Raider on the other hand has hit the gas and enjoyed a breakneck ride in the past few months to launch. It’s a clichéd term but it truly has been a rollercoaster ride for the team – an unforgettable one – to get to this point.

There’s a reason why we have been using the hashtag #Reborn to accompany all our discussion of Tomb Raider at launch. It truly does represent a new beginning for one of gaming’s most beloved franchises and protagonists. We wanted to make Lara Croft a real, relatable person – prone to the doubts and setbacks we all occasionally experience. What truly sets Lara aside from the average Joe on the street isn’t her biceps, her appearance or what firearm she carries – it’s force of will. Absolute power is compelling in theory but boring in execution – especially in a game. Will to power – or more accurately in Lara’s case, will to live – is the distinction we celebrate with in Tomb Raider.

Under the watchful eyes of the Tomb Raider community we’ve created an experience that tells a truly gripping origin story for Lara Croft, while including best of class combat, an elegant control system that makes traversal second nature, and a living breathing island setting that is not only gorgeous to look at, but perilous at every turn. We didn’t forget about exploration either – with tomb raiding being important both in the game’s critical path as well as forming one of the integral parts of multitudes of diversions on offer. But I’ll let you discover that for yourself.

It’s been my privilege to work alongside a truly dedicated and committed team at Crystal Dynamics. There’s an awe-inspiring level of passion that has gone into crafting this game from our home team as well as our valued colleagues at Eidos Montreal, who worked on the game’s multiplayer. So many people have been integral in the game reaching stores, however, it would be remiss of me not to draw attention to our head of studio, Darrell Gallagher, who has driven the game and pushed the Crystal team from day one to deliver something truly special.

Revisiting my analogy up top: Tomb Raider may have reached its destination, but by no means is it the end of the road. As any Crystal staffer can tell you – the road doesn’t end at Crystal – it loops all the way around. The final verdict on whether we’ve succeeded is a more personal one – but the early indications are we might have struck the right chord. The Tomb Raider community would expect no less from us than absolute commitment to excellence, and neither would we as a studio tolerate less.

In addition to all of this, I am delighted to announce that Tomb Raider is a day 1 download on PSN — you’ll be able to grab it as soon as PlayStation Store updates today.

I sincerely hope you enjoy your time with Tomb Raider. Let us know what you think – we’ll be listening.

Injured. Scattered. Hunted. Shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Japan, Lara Croft began armed with nothing more than her wits and will to live. Forced to forage for food and defend herself from hostile natives, Lara is forever changed when her friends are captured and she realizes she is the only one who can save them. Pushed to the limits of human fortitude, Lara knows that if she doesn’t survive, none of them will. Watch Lara transition from “survival” to “Survivor” in our new trailer.

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The US PlayStation.Blog team is taking a break for Independence Day, that uniquely American holiday fueled by smoked meats, cold adult beverages and deafening explosions. But we didn’t want to leave you empty handed, so we’re publishing this week’s PlayStation Blogcast a full 24 hours early. Listen and enjoy!

In today’s show, we put the spotlight on the new Tomb Raider, a survival-based re-imagining of the classic series that’s heading to PS3 in March 2013. Karl Stewart, Global Brand Manager for Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics, sheds new light on the creative process driving the game’s ambitious goals, from re-introducing the iconic character of Lara Croft to integrating RPG-style character progression and redefining the series’ trademark action, platforming, and puzzles. This is a great discussion about the video game creative process, and worth a listen even if Tomb Raider isn’t on your radar.

Of course, we also share first details on next week’s PSN lineup, answer several user questions, and serve up another head-scratching Mystery Theme. Click the Play button already!

Update: In this podcast, we incorrectly reported that Mickey Mania would be coming to PlayStation Store. There are no plans to release the game on the North American PlayStation Store as the game only supports PAL video output, which is incompatible with North American television sets.

Stuff We Talked About

Tomb Raider (2013)

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Tekken 3

The Walking Dead: Episode Two – Starved for Help

Oh, and here’s a special Independence Day bonus! PlayStation Blogcast’s celebrated DJ Dormilón recently broadcast a scintillating set in PixelJunk 4am, and you can listen to the toe-tapping results below.

The Cast

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game
details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating
descriptions.]

• Thanks to Cory Schmitz for our beautiful logo and Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music. Special thanks to Astro Gaming headsets for providing audio gear.

How does it feel to be bringing Lara back in an all-new take on the Tomb Raider series?

Noah Hughes: It’s an honor to be able to not only work with Lara Croft and Tomb Raider, but also to be able to reboot the franchise. I’ve been at developer Crystal Dynamics for a while now, and we’ve had the pleasure of making a few games starring Lara. We’ve learned a lot. To be able to distill everything we want to do with the franchise into an entirely fresh take is inspiring.

So it’s a totally new direction for the series?

NH: It is. It’s a reboot and not directly related to the timeline of Lara as such, but it will touch on familiar elements of her character. You’ll see her grow into the hero figure that fans know and love.

Is it going to reference the events of past games at all?

NH: It starts a whole different timeline. There’s not necessarily an assumption it will connect directly to past events. We are projecting our own Lara, taking this origins story, recreating and her launching her off into a new adventure. We love catering to some of the fan favourites, but we’re not beholden to all of the story points within the series. We like playing with the signature Tomb Raider themes from this new angle.

I saw the use of an Instinct system in the game, similar to fellow Square Enix title Hitman: Absolution. Is that the result of sharing between studios?

NH: We actually share a lot of assets between studios. The guys at [Hitman: Absolution developer] IO Interactive are such a talented bunch. Having said that, the idea of the Lara’s intuition, this detective-like ability, is something we’ve admired in a number of games, but what’s important to us is the way fans play through this tale of survival. We’re really going to be selling this idea of Lara fighting and scraping through the unknown.

Who’s the resident physics genius responsible for the grand puzzle set pieces?

NH: One of the great things about working on a game of this size is that you attract people with all kinds of different backgrounds. These people then step up and become champions of various disciplines. The environmental challenges that we present and the physics of any given situation determine how you interact with the world.

Devising these puzzles is one of the more complex level design problems that we tackle, so it is something that we will not only get our best minds on, but iterate a lot – that means we’ll put something in, play with the system, try to figure out what the players would do and go from there.

Is the climbing axe a tool Lara constantly has access to?

NH: Yes, that’s an example of one of our gear-ups. Lara gets a gear item and you’ll have that available to you for the rest of the game, along with whatever abilities that brings to the table. On the game design side of it, when we give you gear like that, it really is multifunctional. The obvious application of it is as a climbing aid, but there’s a heap of other uses for it besides.

So is Lara now a serious heroine, after the cartoonish adventures of the 90s?

NH: Rather than change her for change’s sake, we just decided to make her as real as we could. Everything then kind of came out of that – the character design, the story we were telling, the whole look of the game. We really tried to ground that in a human experience. That was the starting point.

You can see that once you start down the road of bringing her to life, it can influence so much of the rest of the game. So, yes, she is, but that was the result of the changes we made, not the cause.

How far did you push Lara’s pain threshold?

NH: Pain and hardship are what help forge Lara into this hero – I mean, she’s a fledgling archaeologist who becomes the Tomb Raider. There has to be some trial and tribulation! Ultimately the boundary was: what delivers that sense of survival at all costs, without being gratuitous?

Where did inspiration for this environment come from?

NH: What we try to do is trace our initial ideas back to their roots. The idea we keep coming back to is that of survival being a core human instinct. We want the history of a place or a situation to really hook you in and pull you through the story.

We also take inspiration from a number of real-world stories. You hear about these people who have gone through extraordinary situations and come out alive. Films like Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours are where we’ve been looking. That’s what we’re trying to capture, that core human spirit.

Lara Croft is back, and this time she’s joined by a fierce Mayan warrior named Totec. The Guardian of Light is a new, multiplayer co-op title coming to the PlayStation Network. Qore Host Veronica Belmont visited developer Crystal Dynamics to bring you up-to-date on Lara’s action-packed, puzzle-solving adventure…a departure from the Tomb Raider series.

It’s hard to believe 16 years ago Green Day achieved mainstream success with the release of Dookie, and today they’ve got a Broadway musical and their own version of Rock Band. Qore caught up with Billie Joe, Tre, and Mike in advance of the release of Harmonix’s Green Day Rock Band, which features — for the first time — new motion-capture technology of the power punk trio to bring their live stage performances to life.

Kyoto-based Q-Games is famous for its PixelJunk series of PSN exclusives, which includes PixelJunk Racers, PixelJunk Monsters, PixelJunk Eden, and PixelJunk Shooter. Veronica previews the upcoming PixelJunk Shooter 2 and PixelJunk Racers: 2nd Lap, and talks with company president Dylan Cuthbert about their special brand of 2D creative magic.

With Greek mythology popping up everywhere in pop culture, Audrey Cleo visits Game Republic in Japan for a preview of Clash of the Titans. This is the studio behind the PS3 games Folklore and Genji: Days of the Blade, and they’re looking to recreate the look and feel of the film while adding all-new creatures and environments.

All subscribers can download the demoscene title “detuned” for free, and all purchasers will have access to a Clash of the Titans PS3 theme. As usual, Audrey has a rundown of the latest Blu-ray releases, and this month we spotlight our first “Geek Hero”, Gary Whitta—a PC magazine editor turned Hollywood screenwriter. Green Day fans can test their knowledge in the “Name That Tune” mini-game, and don’t forget to try the Lara Croft-themed memory match puzzles to unlock Veronica’s outtake videos.

Look for Episode 25 tomorrow on the PlayStation Store update.