Given that Crystal Dynamics hasn't done much of anything other than Tomb Raider since 2005, and given that Eidos/Square Enix have telegraphed a "reboot" of the Lara Croft franchise, sounds like it's a good bet that's your prestigious AAA franchise. Unless they're referring to Legacy of Kain, of course.

The ad listing mentions multiplayer maps, which indicates competitive online, not just cooperative campaign support.

Next Tomb Raider has Multiplayer? [CinemaBlend via Joystiq]

Right now, Gard (pictured above) says, the m.o. is to fire a bunch of people at the end of a project, but keep around a core team for future work on the IP. "[A]nd it's not really working out the way it should be," Gard said.

It seems like the industry wants to move to a more Hollywood model by bringing in experts for shorter periods of time and then leveraging their outsourcing, but also building small teams for projects.

But they haven't actually fully embraced that yet and I'm just wondering whether or not there's a way people will actually start doing that. The industry is still very stuck in its ways of building their internal teams.

Gard's consulting business - ding ding ding - could exploit that short-term need for experts, which is one reason he left Crystal Dynamics. Another, according to his remarks, is that he'd taken Tomb Raider about as far as he could, and he wasn't working much with Lara Croft anymore.

It's always difficult doing that but you can get stuck doing the same thing over and over, The only real way that I can really effect Lara Croft is to be in charge of a project. More and more as I was working at Crystal, especially on Underworld where I was just doing cinematic work, the reality is the control of the characters is in the hands of the creative directors and the publisher.

Gard: Time was right to leave Tomb Raider [GamesIndustry.Biz via GamerReports]

We first heard stirrings of these new layoffs earlier this week, receiving several tips from people purporting to be former employees or friends of former employees. Now an Eidos spokesperson has confirmed the layoffs, citing the need to "focus resources" as the underlying reason behind them.

"We can confirm that Crystal Dynamics has made a reduction of approximately 25 people at the San Francisco studio. This decision is a reflection of the continued drive to focus resources at the studio. We would like to thank all of the employees affected by this difficult decision for their hard work during their time at Crystal and we wish them all the best in the future."

This latest round of cuts follows rumors in January of another 30 or so employees cut loose from the developer following poor performance of the latest Tomb Raider title, Tomb Raider Underworld.

With no currently announced projects and the recent acquisition of parent company Eidos by Square Enix, one cannot help but worry about the future of the remaining Crystal Dynamics employees. Tomb Raider was a large part of the allure of Eidos to Square Enix, so we wouldn't be surprised if they took Lara out of Crystal Dynamics' hands in an attempt to revitalize the franchise once again.

I'm personally hoping that the developer sticks around long enough to deliver a new Gex title.

True to the original game’s roots, Underworld's gameplay is 75 percent platforming and puzzle-solving, 20 percent action and 5 percent cut scene. The old quicktime events where you had to wait for that magic button to pop up before you could order Lara to move out of harm’s way have been replaced by “situational adrenaline” moments where everything slows way down and you retain complete control of Lara – so if she dies, it’s totally your fault and not the game’s for tricking you into pressing the wrong button.

Hit the jump to find out how we weighed in on Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Loved

The Music: Good video game music doesn’t distract you from the action; the best video game music adds something to the atmosphere. With Lara running all over the world from Thailand and Mexico to mystical locations like Valhalla and Niflheim (the theme is Underworld – get it?),there’s a lot of atmosphere to account for. The score, supervised by British Academy Award-winner Troels Brun Folmann and composed by Colin O’Malley, features fragmented music that kicks in specific to events in the game and (usually) does not loop. This is really helpful during puzzle-solving chains when you’re not sure if you’ve done something right; a swelling crescendo of choral music is a pretty big hint that you’re on the right track. And during the action-packed scenes where Lara’s racing the clock, the music really gets your blood pumping in the best way.

The Water: A big gimmick in Underworld is swimming, so expect to be doing a lot of it. Fortunately, the swimming mechanics are fairly easy to master and the water looks damn great – even greater than Lara’s collection of skin tight wet suits. Usually, when a game touts its pretty water effects, it’s a bad sign that there’s nothing much to talk about. Not true for Underworld. There’s a lot of stuff to talk about; it’s just that you’ll be seeing so much of the water that it’s worth mentioning how gorgeous it is: an ocean shimmering in a Thailand sunset, raindrops glazing temple walls in Southern Mexico, and the glorious site of Lara Croft’s bare legs scissoring through the murky depths of the Arctic Sea (never mind that she’d freeze to death real life).

Thor’s Hammer: Underworld, like several other games released this year, has a preternatural obsession with (and weak understanding of) Norse mythology; which explains why you’d be looking for one of Thor’s gauntlets in Thailand. If you can ignore the sheer impossibility of Mayan temples being built around ancient statues of Thor (you did it for Aliens vs. Predator – you can do it again), the plot point of finding Thor’s entire ensemble so you can wield his hammer, Mjolnir, is actually pretty compelling. There’s other stuff in there that ret-cons wraps up plot points left hanging in Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Anniversary, but for first-timers and those that couldn’t be arsed with the last two games, the find-the-Thor-stuff is fairly compelling. A good rule of thumb for game designers is: if you’re going to include a huge plot point about mythical weapons, it’s good manners to let the player use said mythical weapons. It’s even better if said mythical weapons are freaking amazing, clearing entire corridors of bad guys in a single swing.

Hated

Twitchy Controls: It’s been 12 years, Lara, could you please learn to jump where I tell you to jump and not where you think you ought to jump?! I enjoy your blood-curdling screams as much as the next gamer forced to repeat an entire puzzle 11 times over, but when I mash the analog stick to the left, where the climbable ledge is, I expect you to jump LEFT, not forward into the acid pit. It’s weird when a character handles better underwater or on the back of a motorcycle than they do on their own two feet. The Tomb Raider control scheme has always been a bit of headache with the occasional suicidal leap from Lara, but in Underworld, where a single missed jump a) fails to kill you and b) means you have to backtrack through an entire level to repeat the puzzle, these headaches quickly become murderous rages.

Gameplay Extension: Underworld is pretty generous with checkpoints, but don’t be fooled by the apparent generosity of the developer; the checkpoint system is a diabolical plot to make a six hour game into a 10 hour game. Because many of the puzzles are non-linear (that is, you could complete any part of it at any time and still get the same result), you have to rely on the magical chime sound to tell you that you’ve reached a checkpoint (also, look for health packs, that’s a huge tipoff). You’ll only hear the chime when you hit the checkpoint the first time, but the checkpoint will be reactivated if you happen to go past it again.

So imagine this: You go all the way into an ancient temple to a burial chamber to do… something. Instead of teleporting you out when you’re done, you’ve got to go back through the temple – only you can’t go back the way you came because you blew shit up on the way in and now you have to climb over it. But – oops! – you fall from a ledge and wind up in the middle of the temple that still has the entrance blocked off. Well, it’d take another 20 minutes to work your way back to the burial chamber, so why not plunge off that cliff there and spawn back at the last checkpoint before you blew that jump? Ha! Fooled you, says the game. You don’t go back to the checkpoint before the jump, you go back to the last checkpoint in the room you fell into. Now a 20 minute backtrack has become a 25 minute backtrack because you’ve got to sit through the level loading screen while Lara respawns.

Bugs: I’m curious whether the 360 version will have as many hiccups as the PS3 version. There were no show-stoppers but the frame rate took a nose dive every time there was lightning (mind you Thor’s Hammer generates lighting, so this bug happened a lot towards the end), and there was an odd flicker on the screen every so often in the Southern Mexico level. Also, Lara clips through the environment an awful lot (which can be amusing when the ragdoll physics kick in during death). These aren’t big deals in bug land but for a game that seems so wonderfully polished in appearance and atmosphere, it’s kind of a slap in the face (albeit a hilarious one) when Lara falls from a ledge and lodges herself headfirst in the floor with her legs splayed and arms twitching.

Tomb Raider: Underworld might remind players of another pretty game on the PS3 — Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune features almost as many lush tropical locations, as much dynamic lighting, and the same amount of water effects as Underworld. To be fair, Tomb Raider established itself way before Nathan Drake was even a glimmer in Naughty Dog's eye, and how different do you really expect jungles to look? But as you play through Underworld and start to notice more than a few similarities (up to and including the camcorder narrations), you might start to wonder if you're really playing Uncharted: The Chick Version instead of Lara Croft's Super-Awesome Next-Gen Comeback.

Tomb Raider: Underworld is a gorgeous game that doesn’t deviate from what we’ve come to expect from Lara Croft over the years. The puzzles are logical, the plot is not, and even though Lara’s boobs have gone down a couple of sizes over the years, she’s still got a backside you won’t mind watching as you scale walls over and over again in nothing but a bathing suit (take that, Nathan Drake!). The additions of swimming, motorcycle driving, and melee combat to gameplay manage to add something to Underworld without reinventing the wheel. But maybe that’s the game's biggest failing: it didn’t try to do anything revolutionary; it only tried to bring Lara Croft up to speed.

Tomb Raider: Underworld was developed by Crystal Dynamics and Nixxes Software and published in North America by Eidos Interactive. It released on November 18, 2008 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii and DS, with the PS2 version delayed ‘til January 2009. Retails for $39.99 to $59.99 USD. Completed PS3 story mode, tested treasure hunt mode.

Just a heads up the video does reveal a major plot point so if you don't want to know anything about the story then you might want to skip this one.

The demo started by delivering new depth to the series, plunging a scuba diving Lara Croft deep into the ocean to recover an ancient artifact. Lara swam smoothly, using a harpoon gun to take out circling sharks as she solved a puzzle that opened a door to an ancient temple.

Once inside and on semi-dry land, Lara crawled, jumped, and shimmied her way around a giant octopus (or kraken, if you prefer), bringing the roof down on its head in order to progress before the demo ended. While I didn't get to control her myself, the gameplay and mechanics seem in place, but what about the look of the game? As the demo ended, a man behind me stood up and offered his opinion.

"You got her ass perfect." The assembled crowd shifted uncomfortably.

"And the dimples beneath her..." Thankfully he stopped before I tackled him to the ground. Lara Croft does strange things to a man.

ESRB Game Ratings

"I'm very, very interested in digital distribution and the potential it has," said Cooper, speaking during GDC Lyon last month. "PlayStation Network is extremely interesting because it's a more flexible space."

Tomb Raider Anniversary developer eyes PlayStation Network [GamesIndustry.biz]

That's why we're so excited about $29.99 Tomb Raider: Anniversary for PS2, PC and PSP. Not only has the famous original title gotten a pretty makeover, but mechanics have been refined and...why don't you just hit the jump for our Frankenreview and hear more from people who've actually played the game?

Spong
As in Legend, Lara has a grappling device, this time it's a mechanical one, not the high-tech magnetic one she had last time. This is meant to be 1996 after all! However, Lara can now use her grappling hook to perform wall runs, which are great fun and a nice change to the normal jump-based navigation that we are all used to.

Computer And Videogames
While each level is bigger and more complex than those from original, you never feel lost or disorientated. The re-designed levels and puzzles have all been well thought out and implemented perfectly to suit Lara's smooth new moves.


Eurogamer
Although you can generally win out by diving around randomly and taking advantage of the generous lock-on, it's more fun...by performing the slo-mo 'adrenaline dodge'. It's not the usual lazy bullet time crap, but a genuinely tense, exciting way of capping a determined enemy just as they're about to pounce. Just as Lara dives out of the way, two reticules slowly move over the target, and once they're together you can loose off a deadly shot...

IGN
Plenty of times you'll be faced with a seemingly easy leap from a ledge to a landing, but the camera — which is almost always in too tight — will restrict you from being able to take in the whole scene. Most of the time it's just a nuisance, but sometimes it's going to be the motivator behind Lara's grisly demise. But, hey, that's Tomb Raider, right? Crystal Dynamics has done an excellent job at staying true to the original game — for better or worse.

Pro-G
If you imagine the 1996 game as a student film, this PS2 and PC modernisation is a big budget spectacular...Whereas the 32-Bit classic struggled to convey the size...Anniversary has no such problem...so large you'll wonder where to start....

Some reviewers can be SO distasteful. Still, Tomb Raider: Anniversary looks like another reason to dust off the PS2 (unless you have a decent PC because that version is nothing but better). Mark Wilson

It had been the subject of rumors for weeks, with a leaked video containing a scratch soundtrack showing off the graphically improved, original Tomb Raider hitting the Web, which was then promptly pulled from just about everywhere. Then, on Thursday, Core Design, original Tomb Raider dev house released the following statement:

The video of Tomb Raider: 10th Anniversary Edition that appeared on certain sites was an unauthorised release of an internal presentation of a game that was being developed by Core Design until very recently. It was running on PSP and used a Core-developed engine. However, following a recent review this project has been officially cancelled by SCi.

That seemed to pretty much wrap it up for the Tomb Raider remake. That's a shame. It was looking so good.

But then...

...parent company and publisher Eidos revealed that the game was still coming, courtesy of current Lara Croft reign holders Crystal Dynamics. They're the ladies and gents responsible for the generally well-received recent Tomb Raider: Legend. They'll be bringing the "one-off" title to the PlayStation 2, PSP and PC, but what exactly this game will contain is still somewhat of a mystery. The previously available video was apparently the work of Core Design's vision of the game, so what Crystal Dynamics will have to offer is, like the release date, to be determined.

Maybe someone from either CD would like to send us a tip and shed a little more light on the story?

Here's the full, somewhat clunky, press release:

Eidos Confirms 10th Anniversary Edition of Tomb Raider

June 16, 2006 - Eidos Interactive, one of the world's leading publishers and developers of entertainment software, confirms today that they are developing a special '10th Anniversary Edition' of Tomb Raider.

The new game is being developed by Crystal Dynamics, who recently launched Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend on Xbox 360, PS2, Xbox, PC and PSP, with versions on Nintendo DS, GBA and GameCube later in 2006.

"Our '10th Anniversary Edition' of Tomb Raider, is a one-off title to celebrate both Lara and Tomb Raider, it will appeal not only to the loyal fans of the Tomb Raider series but will also attract a totally new audience." Said Larry Sparks, Head of Brands Management at Eidos.

Tomb Raider originally launched in 1996 and is still one of the best selling videogame franchises of all time, with over 30 million copies sold.

The special '10th Anniversary Edition' of Tomb Raider will be available on PlayStation 2, PSP and PC.

It seems Lara is now really into nature ("She would be interested in joining the Sierra Club." Okay...) and animals and less so into killing people (and the aforementioned wildlife). She's also snobbier, more fashion conscious, and decidedly less chesty.

I'm upgrading my interest rating on Tomb Raider Legend to "cautiously optimistic".

Lara Croft Trades Bust For Brains, Regrets Killing Animals In 'Legend' [MTV]