Tomb Raider Devs Defend Re-release Price Point

It’s a dangerous thing to consider: that game that you paid $60 for last year, re-released on a next-gen machine, where the developers expect you to pay another $60 for some minor new features. On a Q&A at the official Eidos forums, Scot Amos defended the decision to charge full price on the next-gen version of Tomb Raider.

It’s a great question and while I don’t control sales or prices, what I do know is that Tomb Raider is an awesome game. It has received many nominations and has an amazing fan base that keeps us striving to always deliver the best and always pushing ourselves to even do better. If it was “only a facelift” AND we were only reselling it on the same platforms we’d already shipped it on, I would see your point. But as we’re selling it on a new platform, with a lot of development work put in to custom craft it for the new platforms; with the new additions for the aesthetic, the physics, the particles, the lighting – taking advantage of next-gen features – so I absolutely stand by our decision to offer up Definitive Edition the way we are.

We’d love for every Tomb Raider fan to get to experience it on next-gen. We are definitely looking to draw in those folks who may not have experience it yet on the last generation so they can experience this version on next-generation. But even for existing hardcore fans, we are confident in the offering we have as an excellent enhanced experience above and beyond what we’d previously provided. We wouldn’t bring it to you all if we felt otherwise. You are the reasons we do what we do.

This is another one of those times where the developer appears to misjudge audience reaction. That’s completely understandable. Scot has worked on Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition for months, along with his colleagues. He’s had to work hard, he will have stressed over certain things, he’ll have lost sleep and missed family. To a consumer though, especially one not especially interested in the industry side of things, this is the same game, with light bar support and some voice commands. The graphics are better, sure, but they were great to start with.

And so while Scot isn’t wrong, it’s two groups of people looking at the same thing from opposing view points. It’s hard to get excited about a game we’ve all already played (especially if we played it on PC, where it already blew 90% of titles out of the water), so the chances of us shelling out $60 on it are slim.

I’d love to be proven wrong, though.

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition will be released at the end of January worldwide.