Crystal Dynamics' next Tomb Raider game will be published by Amazon

Amazon announced it'll be publishing the next entry in the Tomb Raider franchise. Currently in development at Crystal Dynamics, the unnamed title will be built alongside the tech giant's games division "from development all the way through publishing."

Tomb Raider's return has been an open secret, and Crystal Dynamics said in September it regained control of the franchise after it and the series were sold off to Embracer earlier this year. However, this is the first real piece of hard news about the upcoming title: it'll be a multiplatform single-player affair, built on Unreal Engine 5. 

For Amazon, this marks its second high-profile partnership with a big game developer. Last week during the Game Awards, it was revealed that it and Bandai Namco were partnering on the online anime game Blue Protocol.

"Amazon Games is committed to bringing players games of the highest quality, from the best developers, across all variety of platforms and genres, and we’re honored by the opportunity to work with this storied developer and franchise," wrote Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann. 

"Our team is incredibly excited about collaborating with the talented and visionary Crystal Dynamics team to bring the next chapter of Lara Croft’s saga to players around the world.”

The last mainline entry in the action/adventure series was Shadow of the Tomb Raider back in 2018, which brought an end to the reboot era of Lara Croft's adventures. Crystal Dynamics has been cagey on what's next for Lara, other than this new title will bring together the timelines of her recent reboot escapades and her earlier adventures.

In addition to Crystal Dynamics' incoming title, Netflix is also working on an animated adaptation of the reboot trilogy, and the film rights to Tomb Raider became up for grabs earlier this year.