Shadow of The Tomb Raider leaked trailer

[Deleted member 1852]

Tomb Raider is now just a copy of whatever action game style is popular at the moment I guess. At least they are going back to the ultra-violence of TR2013, that was more or less what made the first reboot fun. When they removed the ultra-violence from RotTR it just got boring as shit. Since they are no longer pretending there will be anything resembling a coherent narrative with real character development we'll just have to settle for the good old ultra-violence. I'm fine with it. I enjoyed TR2013 quite a bit.

 

[Hexer]

I wouldn't worry about her face. It's just a CGI trailer, they are rarely accurate, besides a few people that claimed to have seen/played the preview said that she looks like she does in Rise.

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Oh that's extremely good to hear! Thx :)

 

[Vuze]

I really liked the two other titles but this trailer did little for me. I found the violence in TR2013 annoyingly exaggerated and this seems to restore it as a more or less central element :s

Well, time to wait for an actual gameplay reveal. Locale seems interesting at the very least.

 

[Plumpbiscuit]

Tomb Raider is now just a copy of whatever action game style is popular at the moment I guess. At least they are going back to the ultra-violence of TR2013, that was more or less what made the first reboot fun. When they removed the ultra-violence from RotTR it just got boring as shit. Since they are no longer pretending there will be anything resembling a coherent narrative with real character development we'll just have to settle for the good old ultra-violence. I'm fine with it. I enjoyed TR2013 quite a bit.

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Rise had reduced violence, how?

 

[Kaswa101]

Oh no, the brownies are doing human sacrifices again! How exotic and barbaric! *stabs priest* But who is the real monster now? dun dun dun

Fucking hell, this series just needs to die already.

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Yeah I really don't understand the point this trailer is trying to make. It feels incoherent.

 

[Nintendo]

Rise had reduced violence, how?

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No violent death animations and not as much blood.

 

[Fantastical]

Can't believe we didn't get any gameplay footage :/

 

[X1 Two]

I really liked the two other titles but this trailer did little for me. I found the violence in TR2013 annoyingly exaggerated and this seems to restore it as a more or less central element :s

Well, time to wait for an actual gameplay reveal. Locale seems interesting at the very least.

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You realize that this trailer is setting the mood of the game and literally tells you that Lara struggles with how violent she has become and what her future should be?

 

[Nintendo]

You realize that this trailer is setting the mood of the game and literally tells you that Lara struggles with how violent she has become and what her future should be?

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Does it set the mood? I remember the therapist CG trailer for Rise. The game was nothing like it.

 

[Deleted member 13155]

TR 2013 was fun but Lara was a fucking killing machine in that game. The initial plans of having to survive with minimal resources sounded so much better than what we got. Those tombs were like, oh yeah this is Tomb Raider, here's your single room puzzle.

Rise was somewhat worse, still fun but not as focused. She was even more of a killing machine here. Barrels everywhere, because hey, don't bother with good enemy placements.

Shadow does seem to go back to 2013 which is a plus but really I'd rather have the franchise go back to classic TR exploring. Which probably won't happen anytime soon.

 

[Linus815]

Does it set the mood? I remember the therapist CG trailer for Rise. The game was nothing like it.

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People keep saying this, but context is important: ROTTR CGI trailer came out more than a year before the game's release. Shadow is only a few months away.

 

[boris_feinbrand]

Oh no, the brownies are doing human sacrifices again! How exotic and barbaric! *stabs priest* But who is the real monster now? dun dun dun

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Yeah... I really had to shake my head at the theme of the trailer. I hoped till the end that the ritual was something in the past (setup for a curse) but no, they used a tired old trope to show how grimdark Lara has become. Laughable

 

[TsuWave]

Oh no, the brownies are doing human sacrifices again! How exotic and barbaric! *stabs priest* But who is the real monster now? dun dun dun

Fucking hell, this series just needs to die already.

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yeah, i was watching that trailer thinking "really?"

 

[Kneefoil]

-After Shadow, there will be more games. But the classic Lara will not return. They will be independent adventures with the same Lara that now.

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Well... What about them dinosaurs?

Eh, I'll probably play the game at some point, but I'm in no hurry. I haven't even bothered to play Rise yet, and this trailer really does nothing to get me excited.

 

[Jenea]

Do we have any info when they will release gameplay video ? Thx

 

[RevenantAxe]

Not for a 5 year old. Also complyingc the game isn't the same as doing all puzzles, far from it.

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Dude most puzzles involved looking at shit. He was watching me play game entire time and was able to pick out stuff easily.

Admit it puzzles are nothing special in this game.

 

[Monogatari]

Just the kind of thing fans of Tombraider love to see in a game about raiding tombs ... BANG! BANG!

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Exactly. That opening was embarrassing to the legacy.

 

[RevenantAxe]

Tomb Raider is now just a copy of whatever action game style is popular at the moment I guess. .

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Same can be said for Gow and many modern AAA games.


Ok Let me see in what games I have seen Metroidvania style gameplay with third person cinematic combat? ? Hmm let me think hmm. WAIT, IN EVERY THIRD PERSON GAME THIS GEN lol. So there's zero originality or innovation in Gow, Uncharted and TR games and i have no problem with it coz I just want to play fun and polished game.Uncharted originally took inspiration from TR and other games and movies.

So bottomline is every game is copy of some other game today and you can't use this point to attack TR. No sir I will fight you if you do that. :P

 

[RevenantAxe]

I played the first two and thought they were pretty good, but this didn't really get me hyped at all :/. Don't really like her new look either. Not sure why they felt it necessary to change her face, again. I'll wait to see some gameplay, and then see if they've changed/added enough to make it more interesting.

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Such trailers are for mass casual market and not true representation of games sometimes. Wait till actual gameplay reveal.

ROTR trailer were also not that great but final game was good.

And Cg face will look like actual face.

 

[Jader7777]

I'm tired of her being this tortured soul. I just want her to smirk at the camera and backflip out of an exploding building like old times.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

Human sacrifices... Temple of Doom like racist fiction... whew, what a ride

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Oh no, the brownies are doing human sacrifices again! How exotic and barbaric! *stabs priest* But who is the real monster now? dun dun dun...

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Yeah... I really had to shake my head at the theme of the trailer. I hoped till the end that the ritual was something in the past (setup for a curse) but no, they used a tired old trope to show how grimdark Lara has become. Laughable

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Also this, the trailer is so unbelievably tone deaf...

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...Yeah at this day and age you'd think developers have learned better.

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yeah, i was watching that trailer thinking "really?"

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This looks very heart of darkness.

Not a good thing.

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The points above are very much worth considering, of course, and I really hope that the devs have been hiring/hearing from Cultural Consultants, for this game:

...Note that, a lot of the problems [with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom] would have been pretty easy to fix if they cared enough to spend 0.5% of the budget on a consultant. Then what made the movie memorable (the darkness and tension, the inventive action scenes) would stand the test of time better. The idea that the stereotypes were somehow necessary to make it a success imply that there isn't enough creativity out there to work a few more constraints into the million other constraints people already face when creating movies. Which should offend movie-goers and movie-makers alike…

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[In December 2016, in relation to Cyberpunk 2077]… CDPR has posted some new positions on their website, among them: Cultural and Linguistic Consultant

This individual will play a part in designing the cultural/linguistic aspects of the game world. They will also be called upon to provide various references and source materials/knowledge about the melting pot that is American culture (California in particular) to be used in game design, implementation and dialogue writing…

[1] Working closely with the Story, Quest and Localization teams to catch cultural misconceptions and errors.
[2] Providing various references to the melting pot that is American culture (California in particular) to be used in game design, implementation and dialogue writing.
[3] Deep understanding of American society and culture.

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...As researchers who have spent our lives studying and teaching about the Maya, we cannot help but be disappointed, and even outraged, by the movie. Consider all the violence in the movie; though the Maya practiced warfare and treated their prisoners harshly, the depiction of wall paintings of blue-painted and decapitated prisoners is just wrong.

Stereotypes of bloodthirsty savagery and moral degeneracy have been used to vilify indigenous peoples for 500 years - by every government that has sought to justify the denial of civil rights to native peoples.

During the first 200 years after the Spanish conquest of the New World - beginning in the 1500s - an estimated 75 million indigenous people were killed. But the genocide of Maya peoples is not merely a thing of the past. Some 200,000 Maya were killed in Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which ended only a decade ago. These "entertaining" images affect ordinary people too...

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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/jan/10/news.melgibson
...More than half of the population of Guatemala are descended from the original Mayans… Cajas said the level of bloodshed is historically inaccurate and makes the Mayans seem savage. "It's a case of Western civilization imposing its view about other civilizations," he said.

"It shows the Mayans as a barbarous, murderous people that can only be saved by the arrival of the Spanish," Cajas told the Associated Press. Cajas's criticism follows the comments of Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation that promotes Mayan culture, who slammed Gibson's film for purveying "an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another... and thus deserved rescue"...

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness#Reception
Chinua Achebe: "I never said at any point that you should stop attaching artistic merit to Heart of Darkness; if you want to you can. There are all kinds of sophisticated readings of Heart of Darkness, and there are some people who will not be persuaded there is anything wrong with it. But all that I'm really demanding [is that] my reading stand beside these other readings… Although he's writing good sentences, he's also writing about a people, and their life. And he says about these people that they are rudimentary souls...The Africans are the rudimentaries, and then on top are the good whites. Now I don't accept that, as a basis for... As a basis for anything..."

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On the other hand, I did notice some positive impressions from some TR fans, who were invited to play the game:

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Melonie Mac's Gameplay Impressions Thread
Member Join Date: Feb 2002 / Posts: 24,203
...Now let's talk Camilla. This is another huge topic of discussion here, and I have been very vocal about not liking her direction in the reboot and rise as she sounded so dramatic and forced. I'll be honest and say I expected the same for Shadow, but to my surprise I was wrong! I'm a believer now, Camilla can voice Lara forever like this and I'd be over the moon, I feel she finally is able to use her potential! No more dramatic sounding cadence... she sounds natural and it makes Lara feel infinitely more real…

At the beginning of the demo Lara is nerding out to Jonah about her findings, and it's about time we see Lara get actually excited about archaeology. She sounds like such a nerd in that part and it excited me, that's how Lara should be, very into her studies. When the gameplay started in the town I walked around a lot so I could trigger more dialogue between Lara and Jonah, which was really fun. Both Jonah and Lara have much more personality, and it's really fun to see...

...Finding the Dagger was a cool moment, because it felt like Lara cared a lot, she was really into the moment and after rapelling down she smiled and was in awe of what she saw. Her curiosity and fascination was really great to see, it felt like a side of Lara I have wanted to see for so long...

Some of you may remember how I complained that Lara looks perpetually scared 24/7 in Rise, her brows are always angled up and look fearful in that game, but this time around she doesn't have that expression. She looks confident at all times, and I'm living for it!

...She doesn't always make the best decisions, and she made a huge mistake this time around. Even so she still made excuses when confronted, but reality hits her hard and she has a traumatized moment. It's all portrayed so well though, nothing overdramatic, it's just real and shocking. I love this Lara, I'm absolutely fascinated by her and I want to see more. I want to know her better. In the reboot and Rise her personality was so bland to me, and I felt like she was such a drama queen that I couldn't find her relatable or anything more than just a shell of a person, but this time she feels much more real with a dynamic personality. I'm here for it.

I was able to play twice, and I wish I had the demo at home because I want to play it so much more to hold me off while I wait for the game. I really think this will be the best Tomb Raider since Last Revelation, but I need to see more exploring and tombs before I can be confident in that. But regarding Lara's portrayal and the setting and story, this has far exceeded my expectations...

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And from other previews:

https://www.polygon.com/2018/4/27/17290134/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-preview-release-date
...Ludonarrative dissonance is not a problem unique to the Tomb Raider franchise, but… It's an issue that Eidos Montreal, the developer taking the reins for Shadow of the Tomb Raider from Crystal Dynamics, is aware of and is trying to solve with the conclusion of Lara Croft's origin story…

It felt like a mixture of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy's introduction and the opening scene from James Bond's 2015 adventure Spectre. The walking segment also highlighted the "living tombs" feature that Eidos Montreal is introducing, in which Lara can interact with local culture through conversations with nonplayer characters. The walk was filled with opportunities to talk to locals and learn more about the the village's history, as well as the game's story…

"We're aware of the perception that Lara's a killer, but when she engages in violence, it's a matter of life or death," Smith said. "She's going dark, using fear tactics, and even learning from the enemy and the cultures she's studied," Dozois added. "She's become an apex predator even if she didn't mean to."

It was an odd thing to hear, since I had never imagined Lara Croft as an "apex predator." That explanation came off as a peculiar justification for the senseless killing she commits, rather than something more meaningful to the narrative...

...It was incredibly brutal — and exactly what Dozois, Smith and the team wanted. "It's a moment that's shocking and a moment that teaches Lara that there is a true consequence and human cost to what Trinity is doing, and what she's doing to an extent," Dozois said. "People are suffering. That couldn't be expressed with raging waters filled with dangerous objects; it had to be something real."

It's a powerful moment that puts a lot of the story elements in context, pushing Lara's character to show remorse, and to look at her own actions and how they might be hurting others...

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[GinoFelino]

You say you hate it so much, but admit it has 'decent gameplay' but simply cast that aside as if it's the least important aspect.

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Well, it's a reasonably well-made game. Most AAA games these days get the basics right, at least.

Tomb Raider has uninspired gameplay and my earlier complaints about it remain, but it's pretty good at nailing the base mechanics. Nuance when discussing a game is a good thing, no?

 

[RagnarokX]

Jesus, since when did gamers feel so strongly against killing enemies in video games? This shit started as a literal joke in reference to Uncharted years ago, but some people actually took it seriously and now we're here.

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It depends on the game. Tomb Raider always had killing, but it was never the focus of the game. Now that's mostly all you do and the aspects that made the series special are shoved aside. It robs the franchise of its unique identity to be another shooty shoot action blockbuster.

 

[Gamer17]

So can anyone confirm if it is running on same engine as rise ? Cause to me it looks worse but it could be just the bad captures .

 

[Arklite]

^ It's running on the same engine. Some shots have looked rough but previews have said it looks good.

 

[Metalmurphy]

Dude most puzzles involved looking at shit. He was watching me play game entire time and was able to pick out stuff easily.

Admit it puzzles are nothing special in this game.

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I already did they aren't difficult, I still stand by what I said that a 5 year old wouldn't solve most of them.

 

[RevenantAxe]

It depends on the game. Tomb Raider always had killing, but it was never the focus of the game. Now that's mostly all you do and the aspects that made the series special are shoved aside. It robs the franchise of its unique identity to be another shooty shoot action blockbuster.

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I'm sick of people complaining about killing in TR games. I like they purposely trying to ignore reality of modern AAA gaming . Every AAA game involves killing today. TR audience now is different from classic TR audience . Today's audience will get bored to death if game is pure puzzle based. TR budget is not same as Witness. You can't expect just exploration and puzzles in TR games and then hope to sell 5m. Combat with some killing is important coz it's fun and appeal to more Mass audience.

Gamers needs to stop take everything seriously and stop pushing agendas with every AAA game now. I'm brown Asian and I have no problem if I see some white murdering brown in video games. I'm mature enough to understand that it's a video game and should not be taken seriously coz we have enough problems in real life and should not worry about if game is morally correct or not. Who cares play the game have fun and move on with your life. If you want to change society then join politics and get in power only then you can actually make difference but please stop pushing agendas in video games. Forcing such changes in games will not change society mindset .

Since I have entered this thread I'm seeing nothing but totally nonsensical posts where members are shitting on the game for no reason. It pisses me off really as I'm huge TR fan .


That's all I have to say. Sorry if I offended anyone

 

[RagnarokX]

I'm sick of people complaining about killing in TR games. I like they purposely trying to ignore reality of modern AAA gaming . Every AAA game involves killing today. TR audience now is different from classic TR audience . Today's audience will get bored to death if game is pure puzzle based. TR budget is not same as Witness. You can't expect just exploration and puzzles in TR games and then hope to sell 5m. Combat with some killing is important coz it's fun and appeal to more Mass audience.

Gamers needs to stop take everything seriously and stop pushing agendas with every AAA game now. I'm brown Asian and I have no problem if I see some white murdering brown in video games. I'm mature enough to understand that it's a video game and should not be taken seriously coz we have enough problems in real life and should not worry about if game is morally correct or not. Who cares play the game have fun and move on with your life. If you want to change society then join politics and get in power only then you can actually make difference but please stop pushing agendas in video games. Forcing such changes in games will not change society mindset .

Since I have entered this thread I'm seeing nothing but totally nonsensical posts where members are shitting on the game for no reason. It pisses me off really as I'm huge TR fan .


That's all I have to say. Sorry if I offended anyone

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That's part of the problem. What TR does is what so many games do instead of having its own identity like it used to, and the way it goes about doing it is extremely off-putting.

Devs are are just doing what everyone else is doing. There's nothing to backup the idea that games that aren't shooty shooty bang bang fests won't sell. It's like Square saying that traditional RPGs are dead and they gotta dumb things down for a modern audience and then Persona 5 and Xenoblade 2 come in and sell very well; not to mention games like Pokemon and Dragon Quest being as popular as ever. It's ludicrous to assume that shooters are the only thing that would sell when games like Minecraft and Mario and Zelda are kicking ass. The real issue is that it takes more effort to make a good platformer puzzle game than a run of the mill shooter.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

Just to be clear: the concerns expressed about the CG trailer's depiction of the Maya culture/people (see above) are distinct from concerns about who/how Lara may or may not kill. As noted in relation to the 2006 movie, Apocalypto:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/jan/10/news.melgibson
...More than half of the population of Guatemala are descended from the original Mayans… Cajas said the level of bloodshed is historically inaccurate and makes the Mayans seem savage. "It's a case of Western civilization imposing its view about other civilizations," he said. "It shows the Mayans as a barbarous, murderous people that can only be saved by the arrival of the Spanish," Cajas told the Associated Press. Cajas's criticism follows the comments of Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation that promotes Mayan culture, who slammed Gibson's film for purveying "an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another... and thus deserved rescue"...

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And again, the hope is simply that the devs have hired (or will hire) Cultural Consultants, as Polish developer CDPR (for example) chose to do, for their upcoming game, Cyberpunk 2077:

[In December 2016, in relation to Cyberpunk 2077]… CDPR has posted some new positions on their website, among them: Cultural and Linguistic Consultant

This individual will play a part in designing the cultural/linguistic aspects of the game world. They will also be called upon to provide various references and source materials/knowledge about the melting pot that is American culture (California in particular) to be used in game design, implementation and dialogue writing…

[1] Working closely with the Story, Quest and Localization teams to catch cultural misconceptions and errors.
[2] Providing various references to the melting pot that is American culture (California in particular) to be used in game design, implementation and dialogue writing.
[3] Deep understanding of American society and culture.

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[Fart Master]

Tomb Raider is now just a copy of whatever action game style is popular at the moment I guess. At least they are going back to the ultra-violence of TR2013, that was more or less what made the first reboot fun. When they removed the ultra-violence from RotTR it just got boring as shit. Since they are no longer pretending there will be anything resembling a coherent narrative with real character development we'll just have to settle for the good old ultra-violence. I'm fine with it. I enjoyed TR2013 quite a bit.

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Rise was just as violent

 

[ejoshua]

These games are right up my alley. I loved the first two and have no nostalgia towards the classic style games to look to when I play them. I know their darker tones and angrier Lara aren't for everyone, but she's definitely a character I love inhabiting whenever one of these come out.

 

[Dr. Caroll]

Devs are are just doing what everyone else is doing. There's nothing to backup the idea that games that aren't shooty shooty bang bang fests won't sell. It's like Square saying that traditional RPGs are dead and they gotta dumb things down for a modern audience and then Persona 5 and Xenoblade 2 come in and sell very well; not to mention games like Pokemon and Dragon Quest being as popular as ever. It's ludicrous to assume that shooters are the only thing that would sell when games like Minecraft and Mario and Zelda are kicking ass. The real issue is that it takes more effort to make a good platformer puzzle game than a run of the mill shooter.

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The reason Tomb Raider pivoted to what it is now is because the sales of Tomb Raider: Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld were not keeping pace with the rapidly increasing costs of AAA game development.

The following quote from Eric Lindstrom expresses the central problem that can be extrapolated much further because LAU tried to preserve the design of Core's games as much as possible, while 2013 onwards abandoned it:

The segment of the gaming audience that is interested in and patient with the kind of difficult and fatal gameplay you miss is too small for current AAA games to support. There is no model for making a game that cost as much as Underworld cost that could recoup that investment without appealing to a broader audience. This flies directly in conflict with much of what made Tomb Raider great at the start, and trying to find the right balance was a big part of my job. I know that the answer we presented disappoints the hardcore fans, and it was unavoidable. We can strive to make games as exciting as the past, but you likely won't ever see games as demanding as they were in the old days.

It's not just about being difficult. The core gameplay model for anything resembling class Tomb Raider is unsustainably niche. Modern Tomb Raider costs WAY more than Underworld did.

You mention Persona 5, for instance. That game sold so poorly it would have killed a normal AAA game series. Look at Alien: Isolation. Sold 2 million copies, killed the series. Look at Tomb Raider: Underworld. Sold almost 2.5 million, resulted in the series having to be comprehensively rebooted.

 

[unknownspectator]

I say that it's more of the failing of the AAA market then anything else.

 

[Plumpbiscuit]

The reason Tomb Raider pivoted to what it is now is because the sales of Tomb Raider: Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld were not keeping pace with the rapidly increasing costs of AAA game development.

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This chart is inaccurate because it's both outdated and based on outdated info to be used in 2018. TR2 is the best selling game in the franchise incl. retail, digital and platform units. TR 2013 has sold around 09m, TR2 has sold around 11-12m, both are whole rounded estimations.

 

[Imitation Of Life]

Tomb Raider is now just a copy of whatever action game style is popular at the moment I guess. At least they are going back to the ultra-violence of TR2013, that was more or less what made the first reboot fun. When they removed the ultra-violence from RotTR it just got boring as shit. Since they are no longer pretending there will be anything resembling a coherent narrative with real character development we'll just have to settle for the good old ultra-violence. I'm fine with it. I enjoyed TR2013 quite a bit.

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+1. It's a discount buy now though.

 

[Dr. Caroll]

This chart is inaccurate because it's both outdated and based on outdated info to be used in 2018. TR2 is the best selling game in the franchise incl. retail, digital and platform units. TR 2013 has sold around 09m, TR2 has sold around 11-12m, both are whole rounded estimations.

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The list doesn't even feature TR2013. The data predates modern Tomb Raider. The digital sales of earlier TR games are irrelevant. Like, if Alien: Isolation proceeds to sell 5 million copies does that matter? No, because the game sold 2 million during the period that actually mattered. So no Alien: Isolation 2 for you. Tomb Raider was rebooted because attempting to be faithful to classic Tomb Raider resulted in consistently poor sales.

 

[Plumpbiscuit]

The list doesn't even feature TR2013. The data predates modern Tomb Raider. The digital sales of earlier TR games are irrelevant. Like, if Alien: Isolation proceeds to sell 5 million copies does that matter? No, because the game sold 2 million during the period that actually mattered. So no Alien: Isolation 2 for you.

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How do you define "what actually mattered"? It varies from game to game, studio to studio, the market is constantly changing. There is no fixed term that dictates the essence of valuable statistics.

 

[Dr. Caroll]

How do you define "what actually mattered"? It varies from game to game, studio to studio, the market is constantly changing. There is no fixed term that dictates the essence of valuable statistics.

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No publisher is going to fund a game that won't be profitable within 6 months. This is singleplayer AAA game development we're talking about here. Someone comes to you and says, "Give us 100 million dollars." And you say, "How are you planning on recouping that investment?" And they say, "Well, we estimate that within 5 years, we might barely break even!" Are you really going to give them that money? Like, imagine if Hellblade cost 100 million like a typical AAA game does. And they're all "We're gonna sell 500,000 copies in 4 months!" And the pen pushers look at that giant pile of money, look at the game, look at the money again, and then say, "So when do you sell the other 4-5 million necessary to avoid going bankrupt?"

 

[MegaBeefBowl]

Yikes.

Like it just kept getting worse with the whole "Natives doing barbaric ritual stuff" then slams you with the last shot of the white savior above all those natives.

YIKES.

 

[Plumpbiscuit]

No publisher is going to fund a game that won't be profitable within 6 months. This is singleplayer AAA game development we're talking about here. Someone comes to you and says, "Give us 100 million dollars." And you say, "How are you planning on recouping that investment?" And they say, "Well, we estimate that within 5 years, we might barely break even!" Are you really going to give them that money? Like, imagine if Hellblade cost 100 million like a typical AAA game does. And they're all "We're gonna sell 500,000 copies in 4 months!" And the pen pushers look at that giant pile of money, look at the game, look at the money again, and then say, "So when do you sell the other 4-5 million necessary to avoid going bankrupt?"

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Oh right, because every single player AAA game costs $100m to make nowadays.

They don't and most games find profit within 6 months anyway, even if those profits are small or didn't meet sale expectations, a prophet is still a prophet. Hellblade didn't see profit until about 2 months and it was a smaller scale game, but to reply to your 500k hypothesis, if the game had cost $100m to make it would have had more features and be much more expansive than we could imagine. You, among many others, also conveniently leave out mid-tier developers (like the devs of Yakuza) and indies (like the devs of Frostpunkj, which incidentally sold 250k copies within a week). A profit is still a profit.

Anyway, if you take 6 months as the time that matters, then what happens to the other 6 months when there are yearly game releases? Do publishers just twirl their thumbs for 6 months or do they do extra things to help sell their games more? Even after a few games they release collections, remasters, additional hardware ports, etc., do these not count as permissive sales data?

 

[VanDoughnut]

Was not feeling this trailer.

Problematic racial overtones aside, Predator Laura just seems so boring and uninspired, generic.
Like we gonna be on a murder spree with a ice hooks or we raiding tombs?

 

[CHC]

Also, why are all the headlining characters in Square / Eidos games such unpleasant assholes? Noctis, Lightning, Adam Jensen, nu-Lara.... all just so incredibly surly and unlikable. Jensen was borderline in Human Revolution but went full on dick mode in Mankind Divided, and the rest are just no_fun_allowed, all the time.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

How do you define "what actually mattered"? It varies from game to game, studio to studio, the market is constantly changing. There is no fixed term that dictates the essence of valuable statistics.

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The most important period is when the game is full price, or not far from it. If two games both sell 5 million copies, but one sold 2.5 million during the first two months on the market, while the other only sold 1 million during that period and the rest after deep discount, then one game was far more successful than the other. This sort of thing is invisible in broad statistics like "total copies sold" but do matter. The further complication is that some games get discounted heavily within weeks while others take months.

 

[Arklite]

Was not feeling this trailer.

Problematic racial overtones aside, Predator Laura just seems so boring and uninspired, generic.
Like we gonna be on a murder spree with a ice hooks or we raiding tombs?

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Both. There's some pretty good previews around the net, some explaining that the tombs seem to be better integrated now. The designers haven't shied away this time from the fact that Lara is basically Rambo, though.

Can't say I'm feeling racist tones from the trailer. It's an Indiana Jones type of adventure, meeting different cultures, and Lara interacting with them. As for her actions in the trailer, in previews and interviews they state that she basically fucked up big time there and that's part of the plot. She's blinded by obsession.

 

[Dr. Caroll]

Oh right, because every single player AAA game costs $100m to make nowadays.

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It's the standard napkin math cost. The whole reason Epic sold Gears of War was because Gears 4 was going to cost over 100M by their estimates, which was way more than the 12M they spent on the first game back in 2005-6ish. Games like Tomb Raider are extremely expensive. Underworld was 2008, and it sold 2.5M despite being rushed (and therefore cheaper), and that resulted in layoffs and a complete reboot of the series. We don't know how much modern TR costs, but it'll be very, very expensive. It comes with the territory. (Anything that can be described as "cinematic" tends to balloon the budget.) If 2.5 million copies was "Welp, we'll have to fire 30-40 people" material in 2008, imagine how bad that result would be in 2018.

They don't and most games find profit within 6 months anyway, even if those profits are small or didn't meet sale expectations, a profit is still a profit.

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Publishers don't hand over money on the promise of a slim profit margin. They want tangible results. Games that just kinda break even typically don't get sequels, unless the publisher sees a way to pivot the property into something commercially viable.

You, among many others, also conveniently leave out mid-tier developers (like the devs of Yakuza) and indies (like the devs of Frostpunkj, which incidentally sold 250k copies within a week).

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Those developers are not making AAA games. Yakuza is not a AAA game. The rules are different when you're spending a lot of money. There have been a number of low budget Tomb Raider spinoff titles. If you try to make Tomb Raider on a budget, you typically get some kind of isometric affair. People who don't have money make isometric games. (Look at Obsidian.) A low budget game getting super lucky, like Frostpunk, doesn't change the realities of AAA game development which is extremely expensive and correspondingly extremely risk averse. You simply cannot make a game like Shadow of the Tomb Raider without a lot of money. (It's one reason why hardware companies such as Microsoft and Sony are likely to fund such games.)

Anyway, if you take 6 months as the time that matters, then what happens to the other 6 months when there are yearly game releases? Do publishers just twirl their thumbs for 6 months or do they do extra things to help sell their games more? Even after a few games they release collections, remasters, additional hardware ports, etc., do these not count as permissive sales data?

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That stuff is a bonus. You can't run a publisher if you're spending more money than you're making in the short term. (Loans and such notwithstanding.) Publishers have to be profitable so they can absorb the impact of severe failures. This is why they tend to diversify their portfolios and such. Long term revenue streams are valuable, but you can't use them to pay hundreds of employees short-term.

 

[VanDoughnut]

Both. There's some pretty good previews around the net, some explaining that the tombs seem to be better integrated now. The designers haven't shied away this time from the fact that Lara is basically Rambo, though.

Can't say I'm feeling racist tones from the trailer. It's an Indiana Jones type of adventure, meeting different cultures, and Lara interacting with them. As for her actions in the trailer, in previews and interviews they state that she basically fucked up big time there and that's part of the plot. She's blinded by obsession.

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Yeah I'm sure there are tombs I just have some problems with what's in this trailer. There had to be a better way to communicate what's cool about the new Tomb Raider than what we got here. I like reveal trailers because they set up a first impression for me, and I wish I was feeling more positive about it.

And yeah even Indiana Jones had this problem with Temple of Doom. Not saying anything was racially motivated but it's just a bad look here. The whole white savior looking over the crowd thing atop the temple. I'm sure that wasn't their intention at all, but man it's a bad look.

 

[OutofMana]

That looked dark. They have always strayed away from the light hearted Indy feel right? I played through most of the first game and about half of Rise of the Tomb Raider and just never felt the story or characters compelling enough to finish. The gameplay was fun though. Maybe the story in his will turn out better than the previous installments.

 

[Gonzalo]

This looks racist as fuck, Temple of Doom-style. Brown villains, inscrutable, evil non-Eurocentric culture, white knight to save the day.

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Oh no, the brownies are doing human sacrifices again! How exotic and barbaric! *stabs priest* But who is the real monster now? dun dun dun

Fucking hell, this series just needs to die already.

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What an incredibly patronising pair of posts. I doubt the Mayan's will appreciate you treating them like an alien species incapable of producing anyone "bad" or villainous.

 

[RevenantAxe]

That's part of the problem. What TR does is what so many games do instead of having its own identity like it used to, and the way it goes about doing it is extremely off-putting.

Devs are are just doing what everyone else is doing. There's nothing to backup the idea that games that aren't shooty shooty bang bang fests won't sell. It's like Square saying that traditional RPGs are dead and they gotta dumb things down for a modern audience and then Persona 5 and Xenoblade 2 come in and sell very well; not to mention games like Pokemon and Dragon Quest being as popular as ever. It's ludicrous to assume that shooters are the only thing that would sell when games like Minecraft and Mario and Zelda are kicking ass. The real issue is that it takes more effort to make a good platformer puzzle game than a run of the mill shooter.

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Yeah coz SE is not making games to please small handful of old school TR audience. They're here to make money like everyone, action and killing appeals to majority of gaming audience and walking and searching shit doesn't, it's simple. Name one pure exploration and puzzle based game sold 5 to 8m copies like TR Reboot did in its life time?. Old school TR will not work today trust me .

I remember someone created a thread here that they don't want guns in RDR 2, I mean what? Lol Game based on crime drama should not have guns? Lol Seriously? RDR 2 is such a expensive game and will not even make half of its money if there's no action in the game .

My problem is the some handful of members pushing their nonsense social agendas here. If you have problem with violence and white guy killing non whites then boycott all such games which do that for example - Uncharted ,Cod and gta nd all. Don't target TR franchise and Lara character alone .

Talk about the game and it's features as this is a gaming section of the forum and not off topic section. Also posting such things on a gaming forum will not bring any change in violence in games or society mindset. Change comes when you go out there and come in power .

That's all I have to say .

 

[NeoRaider]

This chart is inaccurate because it's both outdated and based on outdated info to be used in 2018. TR2 is the best selling game in the franchise incl. retail, digital and platform units. TR 2013 has sold around 09m, TR2 has sold around 11-12m, both are whole rounded estimations.

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Actually reboot sold 11m copies (news from November last year).

Also can you post a source for TR2 numbers?