Square Enix announces Guardian of Light

Today, Square Enix has officially announced that Guardian of Light is in development within the Crystal Dynamics studio. The team at CD has said that this title will be different from what gamers may be expecting and that you can expect this one to be a digital download opposed to a full disc-based release. Fortunately, a download-only title in this franchise may do it a little good. That way, they don’t have to worry about a full blown out production and can focus on making a very solid 6-8 hour representation of what the franchise used to deliver.

“This is a really exciting project for Crystal Dynamics, we have created something completely new and very different to what people might be expecting,” said Darrell Gallagher, Crystal Dynamics boss.

“Lara Croft is such an iconic character in videogames, with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light we have created what we believe is a truly original digital experience.”

That is correct – you did just read the name “Lara Croft” in that quote from Gallagher. So, the obvious next question is “Why isn’t ‘Tomb Raider’ in the title of the game?” We don’t know and apparently Square Enix isn’t willing to let people know either.

We’ll be keeping a definite close eye on this one as it may be the reboot the franchise needs to return to its former glory. Maybe this one is the death of Lara Croft and new heroine is expected to stand up and take her iconic place? Your guess is as good as ours on this one.

Readers Comments (20)

  1. Tomb Raider has sucked since PS1

  2. Negative.

    Underworld was pretty decent.

  3. VofEscaflowne March 4, 2010 @ 08:05

    Uh… what? a DLC based Tomb Raider game without Tomb Raider in the title featuring Lara Croft. Well that’s a strange one.

    I loved the PS games actually but Angel of Darkness… man, that was just plain awful. The story seemed somewhat interesting too but the gameplay glitches, not to mention very poor level design, stopped me from ever beating it. Tomb Raider Legends was pretty good but I’m sad to see Crystal Dynamics whoring out Lara Croft. Where’s my Legacy of Kain? If I remember correctly, Amy Hennig, responsible for the story (or most of it) left behind proper materials in their hands for a sequel. I’d love to see what direction that would go in but no, I guess we’ll have to deal with Lara Croft some more. Leave it to Square Enix to whore out franchises :p

  4. I never liked Tomb Raider. I tried to, I really did but it always felt “too hard”. However, the fact that it will be available for download makes it more attractive exactly for the things you mention Dean.

    It seems that change of name is to either “reboot” the franchise or a marketing thing (Or both). And you know squareenix, totally crazy since Sakaguchi San left xD

  5. I like Tomb Raider. I’ll be sure to check this out when it comes out.

  6. Tomb Raider was a revolutionary game. Hopefully Square can invest a larger budget than Eidos and remake the greatness Tomb Raider brought to consoles during the PS1 era.

  7. VofEscaflowne March 4, 2010 @ 08:36

    @Dreamer_Lion

    Now that you mention the franchise getting a reboot, I seem to remember something a while back that Tomb Raider would go the way of horror games. That seems a bit out of place with Lara Croft and her usual adventures but that would certainly make it different to what people are expecting. Just a quick search found this:

    http://www.tombnews.com/news/2009/07/1201/

    Open world Tomb Raider… that could be interesting if it works out correctly and if this offers any kind of insight into whatever direction the game is heading in. Of course this was posted months ago and I don’t think anything official ever came out of it.

  8. @VofEscaflowne
    Good luck with the legacy of cain games, as the game designer now works at Naughty Dog.

  9. ive never been a fan of the series…and SE’s monkey ass isnt changing my views on it

  10. Maybe the only way to make a fresh new experience is to rebrand tomb raider into something more modern and allow more freedom for the developers. Tomb raider has been alright but never really got back into it after the ps1 days

  11. That’s a weird marketing decission. Wether games are good or bad, Lara Croft is pure gold when it comes down to iconic characters, so it sounds weird that Lara Croft or Tomb Raider is not a part of the title. Maybe they weren’t able to attain the rights to either names or they want to make an RPG instead, and Tomb Rider would sound too aggressive.

  12. i really dont like rpg games

  13. Like others have said, dont know why it does not have Tomb Raider in the name and I would have never of guessed it had Lara Croft in it if the guy did not say so. So wonder what they are trying to do. Guess we will learn more as time goes on.

  14. I never liked female protagonist in a game, (FF13) thanks Drake for showing Lara Croft what’s action adventure is all about. And i m really not interested in whatever Square Enix does, only hanging in for FFv13, and if this title goes multi plat, then Square consider u have one less customer. so it is Lara vs Drake and Noctis vs Lightning

  15. Moocows111111 March 4, 2010 @ 15:34

    I have the Old Lara Croft game for the Ps1, I didn’t like it that much but it was supposedly one of the better games on that system, the latest iterations of Tomb Raider were kinda lame, they were outshined by Drake’s Fortune and Uncharted 2.

    “This is a really exciting project for Crystal Dynamics, we have created something completely new and very different to what people might be expecting,” said Darrell Gallagher, Crystal Dynamics boss.”

    Hopefully its something really innovative like how Quantic Dream made Heavy Rain, Personally I don’t think the Devs for this game will pull off anything “new”

  16. With the way that Uncharted has completely outclassed Lara in the “tomb-raiding” department, this is definitely a turning point for the series. Can’t wait to see what CD comes up with.

  17. if this game turns out to be like the last Tomb Raider game was then i am afraid, this will be the last time we will se Lara Croft ever, And i hope by innovation they mean to really innovate, not just change of clothes or controller layout.

  18. Moocows111111 March 5, 2010 @ 01:17

    “And i hope by innovation they mean to really innovate, not just change of clothes ”

    Yeah do you mean how Lara Croft is getting bigger boobs every iterations and less and less clothing? Lara Croft series is getting stale, they really need to do something before one of the best female protagonist disappear (there isn’t, Bayonetta, Samus, that’s all I can think of now.)

  19. I never played a Tomb Raider game before, looking forward to this one. hope its not disappointing.

  20. I love the concept of the Tomb Raider games but for some reason I never felt satisfied by any of the games. I hope this one pleases all you TR fans when it comes out.

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