The news of the interruption of Marvel’s Avengers support has brought the Crystal Dynamics guys back into the spotlight, which indeed they have been claiming quite often lately. It has been a very eventful year for the American studio, which has several very interesting projects on its hands.
During 2023, Crystal Dynamics will permanently abandon the development of Marvel’s Avengers. On March 31st it will release the last update, while on September 30th it will permanently end support. This means that he will be able to devote himself body and soul to his other projects: among the well-known ones, there are the Xbox exclusive reboot of Perfect Dark (in partnership with The Initiative) e the new Tomb Raider.
Both games are still largely shrouded in mystery, however thanks to an insider we can get an idea of the state of play. According to what was declared by Miller Ross, a well-informed personality on the events that occur in the corridors of Crystal Dynamics (he anticipated the announcement of the end of Marvel’s Avengers support, among other things), “the development of Perfect Dark was going to hit a snag or two”. The game, we recall, was announced at the end of 2020 as a first-party Xbox project developed by The Initiative, a studio founded in 2018 in its first work. In September of 2021, however, Microsoft asked for help from Crystal Dynamics, which has been co-developing the reboot ever since. Despite repeated reassurances, it is possible that something is not going right, and the prolonged absence from the scene would only confirm Miller’s indiscretion.
According to the insider, the development of Tomb Raider Next would instead be going swimmingly. Despite being presented later, the new adventure of Lara Croft in Unreal Engine 5 produced by Amazon Games, could, according to the insider, could see the light a year before Perfect Dark. Per Miller’s sources, the development of Tomb Raider Next would be proceeding long before what we knowalthough it was probably restarted when there was the transition of the graphics engine from Foundation to Unreal Engine 5. In light of this, the insider expects the reveal of Tomb Raider Next in the course of 2023.
