Square Enix announced today that the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot will feature a competitive multiplayer mode. While the main story-based campaign mode is still being developed in the UK by series veterans Crystal Dynamics, the multiplayer is being handled by Eidos Montreal, the same development studio who created 2011’s critically acclaimed Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Details about the multiplayer mode itself are still scarce, though the Official Xbox Magazine is promising to reveal everything about the new mode in their next issue. This will be Tomb Raider’s first foray into multiplayer, so it’ll be interesting to see if Eidos Montreal manages to deliver an experience that blends online competition with Tomb Raider’s traditional platforming and the new reboot’s focus on survival, or maybe they’ll just take the easy way out and give us a half-assed deathmatch or capture the flag mode. Given the team’s pedigree, I’m cautiously optimistic that they’ll come up with something unique and different.
I know multiplayer modes get shoehorned into every game these days, regardless of whether they actually needed them or not, but the addition of a multiplayer mode isn’t always bad news: Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect both feature surprisingly fun and well thought out multiplayer modes, and both AC and Mass Effect are games that people thought would never work in a multiplayer setting.
