Even though Tomb Raider didn’t sell as well as Square Enix had hoped, it’s pushing forward with a sequel from Crystal Dynamics for next-generation consoles.

The news came courtesy of a lengthy note to fans from the CEO of Square Enix in America and Europe, Phil Rogers.

Crystal Dynamics quickly issued a statement on the matter, as well.

“Hi - you may have read today that a next-generation sequel to Tomb Raider is in the works,” said Crystal Dynamics head of product development and studios Darrell Gallagher. “We’re very excited to confirm that the team has started working on telling the next chapter in Lara’s tale. It’s still early days, so I’m afraid I can’t provide any further details for now save my assurance that we’re not resting on our laurels and acclaim from Tomb Raider’s recent successes, but working hard to raise the bar even higher and re-affirm the faith you’ve shown.”

The letter from Rogers comes soon after the departure of Eidos Montreal founder Stephane D'Astous, who left the company by way of scathing comments regarding its future. It appears those comments were enough to push Square Enix into action.

“First and foremost, we are a games company and today we devote most of our time and effort into developing new and rich gameplay experiences, worlds and characters,” said Rogers. “At the same time new business models have risen up, which we periodically will try to explore. I know this can be frustrating for some long-time fans of our games, particularly if it seems that we’re heading in unfamiliar directions without much in the way of explanation. Explaining our approach to these opportunities is something we’re working to improve on. That said, we need to experiment and adapt or it’s likely we won’t always be in a position to keep investing in the ways we need, to build-out our games and offer excellence to you, our gamers.”

The sequel had already been talked about, though, thanks to comments by comics writer Gail Simone in an interview with Kotaku.

Awesome news, Cannot wait to see what they have planned next. Hopefully a lot more Tombs for one.

Happy that the ridiculous sales targets set by Square Enix have not stopped a sequel from happening.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cool beans. Hopefully they'll opt to move the reboot series forward with a more tongue-in-cheek approach, or at the very least give it a more light-hearted tone akin to Uncharted. That is if it's still going to be driven by high-octane action anywhoo.

I enjoyed Tomb Raider, though I know that I would have enjoyed it so much more if it didn't take itself so damn seriously.

Hell yes. HELL YES.

That's great news, that recent game was pretty good.

Surprise, surprise! Honestly though I'm pumped! Loved the reboot from earlier this year!

That reminds me, I still need to complete the current game.

I'm about mid way through the current version (Steam sale). It's pretty great.

If it has more/bigger tombs, less combat and less reliance on QTEs, I'm interested.

Seeing as all the previous games were that I enjoyed the change in tone myself. And yeah, I know dark n' gritty games are dime a dozen this gen but I still thought it was pretty fantastic.

Glad! I really liked the new TR and I was worried Crystal D wasn't gonna get to make a sequel based on Square's crazy sales expectations.

Great news, TR and Sleeping Dogs were 2 of my big surprise games of this gen that I really enjoyed. Glad to see at least one of them is getting a sequel. Can never have too much Lara torture porn.

If only someone could make a game like this, add a few more puzzle elements and name it Indiana Jones. We'd buy it.

Will the first one be released for Next Gen as well? It seems awful silly not to.

Hm, I need to get around to the current TR...

This is great, Tomb Raider was an amazing game. It had problems (too few puzzles and stealth sections) but it's still the best game released this year. I thought they might not make a sequel since it didn't hit their impossible sales target.

A lot of my buddies who don't have a PS3 got a nice Uncharted-like fix from this game on their PCs.

That's great and all... but how about that Legacy of Kain game?

God I hope they can do a better job with the story this time.

Loved the game but all of the characters who weren't Lara were stinkers.

Headed to my Next-Gen PC, that is.

This. So much of this. You know, put more emphasis on raiding tombs than on "surviving".

I really enjoyed this game, would be interesting to see where they take the sequel to.

it needed to lighten up a bit (which would have been foolish, since Uncharted already does that tone and style of action so well), or make the character arcs more fleshed-out and the encounters with enemies less frequent and much, much more meaningful.

Native Tress FX support confirmed?

you dont say? this surprises me no bit, but good for them they got a sequel greenlit

Yes! Hopefully they'll bring back the dinosaurs!

Awesome! Loved the new Tomb Raider game!

I went to the mall yesterday and I heard some ultra-nerd dork shout, YO I NEED THAT NEW TOMB RAIDER HER BOOBS ARE ROUND AND NOT TRIANGLES ANYMORE.

I hate people who play video games.

Sam!!

SAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!

Ramirez?

NOW MY WIFE HAS TO GET A PS4! HA HA HA HA HA

Hopefully on PC as well. Loved that damn game.

Ready for more.

They would have been fine leaving out the tidbit about business practices, but I do appreciate their transparency, even though it'll probably piss off a bunch of fans. That said, they need to stop spending so much in promotions and marketing or they'll be dead in a year (ya know, until they remake FF7 and make a bajillion dollars off of raving fan boys). Every time I see a graphics card pop up, I see 3-4 Square published games with it, games I would have purchased anyways. Games they aren't making the full potential in sales back from. Every time I go to buy a new Square game, it seems to have a pre-order reward with 1 or 2 other games, usually newer titles. Now, this is only seen on the PC, but I seriously have to ask myself, how much money are they wasting on doing these promotions?

And then on top of that, when a Square game comes out, you see it EVERYWHERE on the internet and TV marketing-wise. So they expect those big numbers, they got CoD-level exposure, so they expect it to instantly sell that much... But in the long run to those fans / people, it's a game they've never heard of, or it's a 'GTA clone' (in the case of Sleeping Dogs) or it's not a competitive FPS, so they ignore it. Millions of dollars, wasted on marketing and unsettling sales numbers to match. Square publish some amazing titles, some of my favorite titles but they're still in a niche market and will probably never find that #1 hit for a while. Unless it's Final Fantasy...

Great news. Glad to hear that Square-Enix's bizarre sales forecasts weren't enough to kill another AAA entry. Though I guess they need something to prop them up while they spend the entire next generation developing a Final Fantasy 16.

Good to hear! I loved the new Tomb Raider and thought it was much better than Uncharted. Definitely one of best games I've played this year alongside BioShock and Monaco... perhaps one of my favorites from this gen.

Gail Simone is involved? Well, this is going to be terrible.

This time the sales goal will be 5 BILLION copies! Definitely a more realistic goal.

I liked the more serious approach. I don't think all games need to have a goofy one-liner snapping protagonist like Uncharted. The somber tone mixed well with their message of survival. People thought there was narrative dissonance because you had to kill a lot of enemies in a video game but to me that dissonance would be much more evident if this young girl stuck on an island full of savages that burn people alive would be continuously making quirky jokes and one liners.

That said, this is amazing news. Tomb Raider was definitely one of the highlights of the year and overall probably the best adventure puzzle game to come out of this generation. The attention to detail and overall game design was awesome. The sequel to this game, another Dragons Dogma, Metal Gear and a next gen Bayonetta are the some of the reasons that I'm really excited for the next generation.

@falconer said:

I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not, but I wasn't impressed at all with Rhianna Pratchett's writing, but 90% of Simone's work I've read has been great. Whether you like her work or not, she should bring big improvements over the last game.

Definitely one of the best games of 2013.

Awesome, I really liked the last game.

Good.

Even when the jump to next gen guaranties that I won't get it, its nice to see that a good game could force its way into a sequel, despite the unrealistic hopes of its publisher.

This is excellent news. There is a lot of good stuff in Tomb Raider and that team should continue to make games where the problem was expectations where unrealistic.

@oraknabo said:

Try to read the first arc of New 52 Batgirl without gouging your eyes out. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Hopefully Lara doesn't friend-zone murder anymore geeks in the next installment....

Super Psyched ! SUPER SUPER PSYCHED ! ! ! !

There weren't many QTEs aside from the beginning and end, really. And I thought the combat was pretty good. Definitely a lot better than the older TR games, and about on par with Uncharted. Really, overall I thought TR was a whole hell of a lot better than the mess that was U3.

@falconer: yeah, Gail Simone is terrible, I've never enjoyed anything I've read from her. People hype up her Secret Six a lot but it was pretty bad too. Both her N52 Batgirl and Catwoman runs were hilariously awful even for her, though.

The reason why I liked the original TR games exploring the gigantic "tomb" and solving it. I kind of want them to focus on that again. Adding characters and adding more to a story might help but for me it is about the environmental puzzles and designs.

I need to play this game, it looked awesome. My girlfriend got 100 percent completion on it *coolstorybro

Well, it's cool that crazy expectations for the last one didn't kill another one. I liked the most recent tomb raider, and that's as someone who has not been a fan of the series over the years, at all. In fact, i've actively disliked most Tomb raider games. My big problem with the most recent one though is that the whole back hour or so of the game is so completely unsatisfying and crazy stupid, and not in a good way. And your big final fight, is basically a QTE. So, if they can manage not too fall down that hole again, that would be nice. And honestly, had I not enjoyed the rest of the game as much as I did, that stuff probably wouldn't have bothered me.