The next chapter in the Tomb Raider series, Rise of the Tomb Raider , will be hitting Xbox this holiday, but PC fans won’t have to wait too long for the game.
PlayStation 4 users, however, will have much longer to wait. The timed exclusive for Xbox will stay exclusive to console for at least a year, while PC users will look to get Rise of the Tomb Raider shortly after its Xbox launch.
Crystal Dynamics announced today that Rise of the Tomb Raider will be hitting Windows 10 and Steam in Early 2016, while PlayStation 4 fans will be waiting till Holiday 2016 for the game. Yes, a whole year of waiting for Rise of the Tomb Raider on PlayStation 4. Microsoft locked up the exclusivity of the game, as announced at last year’s Gamescom, and it seems they locked it up pretty well. For Sony fans who want to play the next part of Lara Croft’s journey, they’ll either have to wait a year or buy an Xbox One or PC.
The first true portion of gameplay was shown at this year’s E3 press briefing, giving fans a glimpse into how Rise of the Tomb Raider both looks and handles before its holiday launch. Crystal Dynamics, the studio behind the development of Tomb Raider, has stated that they are targeting a benchmark of 1080p, 30 frames-per-second on Xbox One, and Brian Horton, the game director for Rise of the Tomb Raider, recently tweeted that some of the preview footage has been rendered in 1080p. No word yet on how stable the Xbox One game is, or whether it’s using dynamic scaling or DirectX 12 to help it hit that benchmark. Also, no information has been given regarding the options that PC users will have in terms of tweaking graphics, though that will likely come out closer to launch. While the Xbox One version is going to be set at 30 FPS, it stands to reason based on the previous iteration of Tomb Raider that the PC version won’t be locked, much like Batman: Arkham Knight was last month.
This is a big blow to Sony fans, however, as Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the more hotly anticipated games this holiday season. To wait a year to play the game is pretty harsh, but these are the dealings that happen when big gaming companies spend the money to make sure their platform stands out. Exclusivity doesn’t help everyone, and it’s a shame that an entire section of the user base will have to wait this long for Rise of the Tomb Raider. However, with Sony locking up the timed exclusivity of Call of Duty this year, it does look like some of the tables are turning on what has been a pretty Xbox-dominated franchise.
Are you looking forward to Rise of the Tomb Raider ? Which platform are you planning to play the game on, and if you’re a PS4 owner, how does the idea of waiting a whole year for Tomb Raider sit with you? Sound off on the Rise of the Tomb Raider release window in the comments below.
[Image via Square Enix]