Last week during The Game Awards, Crystal Dynamics brought out the big guns. While it was known that the team were hard at work on the next Tomb Raider, what we didn’t know was that two Tomb Raider games were in development and the second one was actually a reimagining of the very first title in the franchise. So when we were offered a chance to find out a little more about the future of Tomb Raider, we made sure to seize the opportunity.
We sat down virtually for a lengthy ‘Q&A’ with Scot Amos, Head of Studio and Will Kerslake, Game Director at Crystal Dynamics to talk a little bit more about the big reveal, and what’s next.
The below interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
How are you feeling following the big reveal of not one, but two Tomb Raider games?
Scot: It’s certainly amazing. I had the privilege of being inside the actual Peacock Theatre where it was being held live and actually was surrounded with some of our Amazon partners as well as with Alix (Wilton Regan), our actress, and some Crystal folks. So being there live, I just love those kind of events, getting that energy from the crowd who are both colleagues as well as fans and just having it come up there and that surprise of, “This looks really good. Oh, wait, that’s Tomb Raider! Oh, wait, there’s a second one!” And there’s that little hesitation of, wait, is this more of them the same? And then, oh my gosh, it’s two games. The crowd just erupted at these spikes of seeing both games and then at the end seeing both dates come up and realizing it. And then Geoff Keighley cementing it like, no, there was two different games and this is great. So it was super exciting to be part of that and getting to experience that live with the team.
Will: As a game dev, we rarely actually get to see people experience our games. It’s just, you spend all this time working and building a thing, and then it just kind of goes out there. And so events like The Game Awards are that rare moment where an entire audience reacts to your stuff at once. So that’s always super exciting and it’s fulfilling when you’ve spent a lot of time building up this thing and you want it to land. And I’ve had a brief chance to look at a few, reaction videos and streams. And it’s always a joy seeing people recognize the little Easter eggs and nuggets and then recognize that it’s going to be, wait, this isn’t the same game. These are actually two games and when they come along and start getting excited because they recognize it’s what legacy of Atlantis is and they start waiting for the T-Rex and then there it is! And so that’s fun to watch.
Scot: And it was fun. I mean, we actually have our own studios, both Crystal Dynamics and even Flying Wild Hog, that you guys now know about, doing watch parties – they’re in Poland, so it was nine hours later for them. So you can imagine we have some pictures of this group literally having kind of a slumber party at the studio, being able to watch this together. So that was just so fun. They have their real-time reaction as well as the Crystal folks getting to experience it, most of them here in the West Coast of the United States. So it was just awesome to have so much of a ‘connected-camaraderie’ moment. Like this is a huge deal for us to finally be able to reveal these games and talk to you about them.
So, two Games – Tomb Raider: Catalyst, a brand new adventure – and Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Can you tell us a little more about Tomb Raider: Catalyst to start?
Scot: Yeah, for sure. So Tomb Raider: Catalyst is that all new next chapter for Lara Croft’s adventures. So for longtime fans, it’s one of those moments where this is the furthest point in her career. This is really where she is right now. Everything else is the history. So this is a great time for those longtime fans to say, what’s next for Lara Croft? This really is that. For new fans, we’ve designed Catalyst so that players can jump in right now and pick up with her adventures as is – there’s no homework required. You can jump right into Catalyst and feel this complete adventure top to bottom and understand the story and the characters without having to know any of that pre-history. And of course, there’s that level of being able to satisfy the needs for folks who’ve been long-time fans, as well as getting new players to jump in and experience it.
It’s the largest Tomb Raider that we’ve made to date, so we’re super excited about bringing this experience to everyone. It is set in Northern India, and it’s one of those landscapes that just is gorgeous with so much history and culture in India, as a fan favourite location. We have these really vast and varied landscapes as well that are just begging to be explored. All of this is built for the first time for us as a studio in Unreal Engine 5. And using that technology has given us a chance to make these really high peaks with beautiful, just strikingly gorgeous vistas all the way to the darkest tombs underground. There’s this amazing amount of depth and breadth that we get to explore and expand on that we haven’t been able to do before. So for us, it’s one of those experiences that, again, I think people are going to be completely delighted and surprised with what we could do for this next chapter of Lara Croft.
Okay – so now we’ve got Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis – can you tell us a little more about that?
Scot: Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis for us is a love letter by fans – all of us – for fans, which is everything that we do, and that’s who we do it for. And looking at the opportunity we had with this, we knew the 30th anniversary was coming up, and we wanted to do something special to both celebrate that moment, but still honour all of Core Design’s original DNA and intent from this amazing title that launched the franchise.
So being able to have this entire game built from scratch in Unreal 5 is why we call this a reimagining. We’ve taken all of those things that were critical from that original game and pushing it through a modern day gamer’s lens. This is how we can take areas that might have been a background image in the old game, that can now be completely realized in full 3D. How we can update camera and controls and take things like that signature moment – that all of us as gamers played – when you got to fight a T-Rex in that original game, and how that can be reimagined today as an epic action-adventure moment that can create a new core memory for players who’ve never gotten to experience it as that first time? Or if you’re a longtime fan, you now get to experience it for the first time again. So we’re super excited about all the surprises and all the newness that we get to add into this reimagining for Legacy of Atlantis.
What’s your vision for Lara Croft in Catalyst? Is she the same Lara as in Atlantis?
Will: Yes. There are two adventures here, but they are two adventures of the same character. So Lara, Legacy of Atlantis is a reimagining of that original game, as Scott said. Well, Tomb Raider Catalyst, it’s a brand new adventure with an ‘at-the-top-of-her-game’ experienced Lara Croft. So it is the same character, but at two distinct periods in her life.
You announced Alix Wilton Regan as Lara Croft in both games. Why did you guys decide to cast her in such an iconic role?
Scot: Alix is just tremendous. From the very first moment we met with her, from the very first casting calls we did, she loves this character. She was already a fan when we met her, and then being able to talk to her and get a sense that she has that wit and that charm, that charisma, that is a natural essence and core for Lara, but she also has that confidence and that depth of emotionality that we need for telling these great stories. We had the privilege of having Alix with us last night when we actually did the live reveal, which was just huge for you to see that and see the fan reaction. It was just so exciting. And she’s just been tremendous to work with.
Will: To add on that – 100% that from the very beginning, she got what we were trying to do and bring all the confidence of the character forward, but continue to push on the emotional depth that we need for modern storytelling and just has been enthusiastic and excited about it the whole time, which has been great.
The word ‘remake’ is not used specifically in the press release for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. You guys use the word ‘reimagining’. What makes this different from a remake?
Will: So our goal here is to honour the legacy of that original game, by modernizing it with a gameplay experience and a fidelity that’s now possible in Unreal 5. 30 years of technology has happened since 1996. So that’s not an easy thing to do, but ultimately our goal there is you want it to feel like it felt when you played it the first time, but play like a modern game. So there’s vital things that we have to keep the same. That confident, capable Lara Croft, the globetrotting adventure, the cool strategic puzzle solving within that space. but we know that we need to completely adjust how does this work when you’re interacting with the actual controller through combat and through traversal. The stunning visuals. What we can do now with modern technology to really push the experience of these places, and then take those moments for those of us who were lucky enough to get to play it when it first came out, you have certain memories, whether it was the bridge and falling into the Wolf Den or the T-Rex where you go like, that’s what I totally remember from that game. And how can we create that same memory again for new players? And so like just the realities of 1996 to 2026, different gaming realities. So to hit you with that same epic moment, we’re going to have to push that into a new space. And so when we reimagine it, it’s reimagine the feel, but for modern play.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is coming in 2026 and Tomb Raider: Catalyst the year after. Is Catalyst taking longer because of the focus on developing Atlantis?
Scot: That’s a fun question. I can understand people are thinking that way. We always knew the 30th anniversary was coming in 2026. And so for us, this has been planned as we really wanted to again celebrate and honour that moment in 2026. And we actually have two distinct development teams. We’re working together, but we have Flying Wild Hog running development for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, and we have the Crystal Dynamics team from the core working on Catalyst – but we’re connected. We actually share technology, we share resources, we share assets. We have one leadership team, a visionary team over top of that, that make sure everything is on track, everything is within canon, and that everything makes sense in the various games and the storytelling.
After months of working behind the scenes on Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, seeing the announcement at The Game Awards was truly breathtaking. Being a developer for such an iconic IP is a dream come true for us — and an incredible creative ride.
— Flying Wild Hog (@Flying_Wild_Hog) December 15, 2025
Thank you for the amazingly… pic.twitter.com/3m4F4KKTFj
So for us, having this co-dev partner in Flying Wild Hog has been a dream, because when we first met them, it felt like a natural extension of Crystal. It’s one of those things that we wouldn’t have had access to them before until we joined what’s now called ‘Fellowship Entertainment’. We got to meet these folks and say, hey, what do you guys think about the idea of working together on Tomb Raider? How do we become this kind of one team, one dream feeling, even though we’re in two different countries? And there’s so many similarities about how they’ve embraced this kind of studio culture. on their own, that very much aligns with how Crystal does things and how they’ve been making such great action games and putting out all kinds of amazing work, and we’ve just been thrilled. We even had the privilege of Michal (Szustak), who’s the studio head for Flying Wild Hog with us last night live at the Game Awards. And so he got to see this in person, how big a moment this was. And just like, his eyes are all sparkly, like, this is, we’re really doing this. Like, oh my gosh, it’s actually happening. So it’s been tremendous for us to be able to say both of these games in parallel development with two teams and be able to say, yep, one comes up to celebrate the 30th. And then the idea of here’s what’s next for Lara Croft and Catalyst.
Will the games tie into Amazon’s upcoming Tomb Raider TV series?
Scot: So, we’re here to talk about the two games that we just announced last night. So we will say that certainly our Amazon partners have been tremendous. From the beginning, they’ve gotten the idea of this vision we have for this cross media franchise across both the live action things for the series and the two games that we’re making right now. But we’re not here to talk about any details and anything else in the future about the TV series until later on. Certainly, it’s a great opportunity for us to have all of these things going together and having so many things in development for Tomb Raider. The fans benefit from all of it.
Why was Unreal Engine 5 the right choice for both the new game – Tomb Raider: Catalyst – and for the reimagining – Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis?
Scot: From a studio perspective, we’ve had proprietary tech for a number of years, but we looked at what we want to do for the future. What we want to be is those master storytellers, and that can be on any technology. You would be able to say we can focus on Unreal Engine 5, it gives us access to a broad swath of humans everywhere on this planet who update it, who increase it, who know it. And we don’t have to keep teaching people how to use a proprietary tech, but instead we can bring all kinds of folks into the realm across the globe that can help us build this thing. So it became a great, hey, let’s use that as our platform. We still have to customize it. We still have to make it up for us and feel like the crystal version of that tech and what makes Tomb Raider uniquely Tomb Raider inside of that platform. But it was a great ubiquitous tool that so many people will use and get and just gives us such opportunities for some very dynamic visuals and some stunning vistas and landscapes we can create.
Will: Yeah, with Unreal Engine 5, obviously they’ve shown stuff about like the cutting edge rendering and lighting that they have within that space. And it allows us to make some incredibly detailed environments. From some of the gorgeous ancient spaces that you saw to crazy detailed tombs to explore, it’s given us a lot of tools to play with, and we’re very excited to really dig into that engine again with our friends at Flying Wild Hog. It allows us to use lots of folks to really push the visuals of the next Tomb Raider.
Why did the team choose Northern India as the setting for Tomb Raider: Catalyst?
Will: This is a land that is rich in ancient history and myths to explore. It is a fan location that we have, it is actually in the intro of the original Tomb Raider when she’s sitting there in Calcutta in the hotel when Larson meets her. So it’s a place that Tomb Raider has touched on before. And it’s a region that offers vast and varied landscapes that are just begging to be explored. We’ll get into some more details in the future about how it connects narratively and story-wise, but it’s a really exciting place for us to go.
In the trailer, we see Lara Croft using a grappling hook. Are there other gadgets and tools planned?
Will: There are lots of clues in the teaser trailer. We’re going to talk about specifics about gameplay later, but if you poke at that trailer, there’s a lot of cool stuff that is in the game.
Lara said something about ‘just getting started’ in the trailer. Does that mean we can expect Tomb Raider: Catalyst to be the start of another trilogy or series?
Scot: What I will say is that this is the next chapter for Lara Croft. This is an all-new adventure for her in Catalyst, and that is all we’re saying today.
For Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, will we really have all the destinations from the original Tomb Raider? Peru and Egypt seem confirmed so far, but are you going to tease surprises? Will we see them all?
Will: We are reimagining the whole of the original Tomb Raider with the addition of some cool surprises that, you know, the team will talk about later.
The 1996 Tomb Raider was a game full of insta-death traps like boulders and spike pits, often based on trial and error. Modern games usually avoid this kind of punishing design. Will Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis keep this brutal difficulty for authenticity or adopt a more forgiving approach like the QTE moment seen in the 2007 remake?
Will: So part of reimagining the game is adjusting and evolving to modern player tastes, but it is core to the Tomb Raider experience that there are puzzles and combat and traversal and death-defying action. If you look at the trailer that we had for Legacy of Atlantis, you’ll see big rolling balls and you know the things that you expect in a Tomb Raider game are going to be there.
What was the process of recreating Lara Croft’s appearance? This classic heroine is iconic. She was acclaimed for years, the video game character who appeared on the most magazine covers, and who showed that women could be protagonists of good video games. What was that process like?
Scot: From a studio perspective, I can say Crystal has been involved with Tomb Raider for decades at this point. And certainly we’ve had the privilege and honor of looking at this character and actually being able to say, how do we reimagine and how do we help her evolve over time? Like who the character was, who the character becomes, and also evolving with gamer tastes and perceptions of what is the right character for the right time period of how people are experiencing games today. So certainly for us, it’s been a privilege to be able to say, hey, how do we bring Lara to that next generation, that next new generation of who this character needs to be, but still always retaining core DNA that’s made her iconic.
Will: On the development side, we’ve had the same art director and lead character artists who’ve been working on Lara for many games now. And so they always have core DNA elements that they look to maintain while updating both the realities of the modern standards of what engines can handle and what is required, and then making sure that she’s in the right era for each version of the character, depending on where that story is being told.
Do you feel any pressure in remaking such a legendary game like the original Tomb Raider?
Scot: Yes. We’ve experienced some of this pressure before, Crystal, certainly looking back on our history of what we’ve done with Tomb Raider at different times. And even today, I think we put the most pressure on ourselves because we know as fans what we want. Everything we do is for the fans. So we listen very intently to our fans, to the audience, to the players, and say, how do we take what we’ve learned, what we’re doing ourselves, and how do we push that to that next step? So there is a tremendous pressure to be both respectful, but also keeping that iconic core that has made this character endure for so long, has made this character appear across all these different covers that she’s had, all the Guinness Book of World Records. This means that we actually have something that we truly admire, and aspire to always be better and better each time and maintaining that legacy.
There seems to be a slight character model change in Tomb Raider: Catalyst versus Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Would you like to speak to that?
Will: Same character, but two different time periods in her life. So while the Legacy of Atlantis is absolutely sort of when Legacy of Atlantis occurs, when we go into Catalyst, we are talking about a fully experienced Laura in a different time period in her life.
Is anyone from the original team that worked on the first ever Tomb Raider involved in the Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis remake?
Scot: I will say there’s folks at Crystal that have been part of Tomb Raider for a very long time. We have folks who’ve been at Crystal for 30 years. And so we’ve had folks across the gamut of all the different Tomb Raider games that we’ve ever been part of. So yeah, we have kind of an interesting crossbreed of some old blood and some very new blood. For example, Flying Wild Hog had never worked on a Tomb Raider game, so there’s a lot of new blood there, whereas we have a lot of ‘Crystalites’ who’ve come from our past. So blending together, we have a lot of experience and history, but we also have a lot of new faces and new attitudes that are helping really and push into that next generation of what Tomb Raider is going to be.
What role did Amazon Game Studios play in the direction of these titles?
Scot: Amazon has been a tremendous partner from the beginning. They really got our vision from the very first day of saying, hey, we have this cross-media franchise that we want to do live action things with, we want to do game products with, even merchandise down the road and all of those things. And from the moment we met and talked about it, they were on board. And so being able to look at that partnership and then turn it into more of a collaboration, we actually meet with many other folks daily as well as weekly. And we even have these on-sites where a bunch of us will get into one of our crystal studios and review the latest milestone together, play together, get feedback. They have their own set of directors, creative, narrative, and executive production that actually will help sit there with us and go through all of our things. It’s kind of a mirror as well as a partnership of like, can we push this a little bit better? What do we do here? What do you guys think about that? And it’s always in service of what do we do to make the best Tomb Raider game possible. So they’ve been tremendous partners and collaborators with us.
Will: On the development side, we have partners across all the different disciplines that we work with directly. So as a member of the dev team, it’s been great to have collaborative partners focused on the quality of the game that trust the team to find the answers to those to those problems.
Will you add any online or multiplayer components to Legacy of Atlantis?
Will: This is a reimagining of the original game, and the original game is a fantastic single-player action adventure. Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is a fantastic single-player action adventure.
The original game featured mostly wildlife and cryptids in its enemy encounters. Is that still the case? And what is the combat system like in this new retelling?
Will: It’s a little early to get too detailed into the combat system other than obviously we are working with the controller and modernizing our combat. But if you look at that trailer, you see velociraptors, you see a wolf, you see a T-Rex. The characters and creatures that you expect are all returning.
Final thoughts?
Will: We’re very excited about finally getting to talk about both of these two games. You know, some of us have been thinking about these projects for a while in our heads and to get them out there, to get everybody to see that we have not just one title, but two titles, that it’s just super exciting to finally be able to get to share them all with everybody. So I hope, what we’ve seen with the reactions, people were really excited and, you know, I hope you guys are as thrilled as we are to share.
Scot: I will certainly say thank you to all of you who make time for us and listen and pay attention and actually ask all these questions and show interest to it. I think certainly thank you to the fans who’ve been with us both for a very long time or the ones who are just jumping in for the first time. We do this for you. We listen intently to everything you have to say and actually want to include that in anything that we do. So thank you for being on this journey with us.
And thank you to the dev teams, having new partners from Flying Wild Hog, having the Amazon folks on board, having both new and long-time ‘Crystalites’. There’s just so much of this great Tomb Raider community, built from the fans to the devs and that partnership – yes, we might be creating a story, but you’re playing the story. And so it’s a partnership between the two of us to get the best out of that adventure experience, that we work together to make that come true. So I want to thank all of you for everything and being on this journey for so long. We can’t wait to show you what’s next.
Many thanks to Scot, Will and the Amazon Team and PR representatives for organising this great Q&A.
