Originally announced at E3 2014, Rise of the Tomb Raider has now been revealed to be an Xbox exclusive title. Developed by Crystal Dynamics, Rise of the Tomb Raider is a sequel to the highly successful prequel to the series, simply titled Tomb Raider. Given the large number of platforms that that previous title was featured on it was assumed that Rise of the Tomb Raider would follow suit and end up on Sony and Microsoft’s consoles. With this latest announcement we know that we were wrong.
This is especially odd since there was a special release of 2013’s Tomb Raider just for the new-gen systems. So PS3 and PS4 gamers both had a chance to fall in love with Lara Croft all over again. Now, if they wish to continue enjoying the franchise, they’ll need to switch over to Microsoft’s side.
Rise of the Tomb Raider will be released Holiday season 2015 exclusively for Xbox systems. Whether this is simply a console exclusivity and the game will be available on PC will have to be revealed later on.
UPDATE: The phrasing has been very specific since the announcement. As Geoff Keighly tweeted, they always say “Rise of the Tomb Raider is exclusive on Xbox for Holiday 2015″. Perhaps this is a timed exclusivity, and the game will hit PS4 at a later date. Still, missing an entire holiday season would be detrimental to sales of any other version.
UPDATE: Further clarification, such as this tweet from Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg and this post by Crystal Dynamics Head of Studios Darrell Gallagher all seem to conclude that Rise of the Tomb Raider is totally exclusive to Xbox One.
UPDATE: The Xbox exclusivity deal has been confirmed to have “a duration” allowing other platforms after an unknown amount of time.
