Crystal Dynamics has just announced the next Tomb Raider game, which has entered development on Unreal Engine 5. Epic revealed a host of details on the new engine as part of its ‘State of Unreal’ stream today, and officially launched Unreal 5 for all developers. The stream was capped off by an announcement from Tomb Raider’s franchise GM, Dallas Dickinson.
“Crystal Dynamics is proud to be a part of the launch of Unreal Engine 5,” Dickinson says. “This new engine translates into next level storytelling in gameplay experiences. And that’s why we are thrilled to announce today that we have just started development of our next Tomb Raider game powered by Unreal Engine 5. Our goal is to push the envelope of fidelity and to deliver the high-quality cinematic action-adventure experience that fans deserve from both Crystal Dynamics and the Tomb Raider franchise.”
The main Tomb Raider series has largely been in the hands of Crystal Dynamics since Tomb Raider: Legend in 2006, outside of Shadow of the Tomb Raider in 2018, which was led by Eidos Montreal. All of those games, including the modern reboot trilogy, have made use of an in-house engine.
A number of upcoming PC games have been announced for Unreal Engine 5, including The Witcher 4. Currently, Epic’s own Fortnite and The Matrix Awakens demo are the only publicly available Unreal Engine 5 games.
You can watch Epic’s full stream above for a better look at what the engine can do.