Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition developer Crystal Dynamics has revealed that new single-player content was planned for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One action-adventure title, though the idea was ultimately shot down by the bigwigs at Square Enix.
Speaking during a livestream on GamesRadar, the game’s Executive Producer, Scot Amos, said the studio wanted to offer something fresh for the next-generation port of Tomb Raider, including new gameplay elements.
Amos revealed "there [were] things that we talked about [doing], even from the beginning. When somebody says you’ve got another year, let’s go do something, we’re like, let’s add. Let’s add this feature, let’s add that storytelling, let’s add that moment."
"It was actually surprisingly early on when we started putting the constraints around this," he added, "because our boss, Darrell [Gallagher], who’s the worldwide head of studios, he looked at us and we’re like, we can add all this stuff. And he’s like, ‘no, you don’t want to change what’s good. We know this is good. Let’s leave that alone’.
"But instead, because this was driven from the team saying we want to do this, we want to step up and make it look better and we want to make it play better and we want to add more content and we want to extend the story, we really had to put a clamp on ourselves and say, you know, we’re focused on the future of Tomb Raider, we have another big story to tell, we’re worried about that for what our next game will be. So for this game it was, okay, let’s put ourselves back in Pandora’s Box a little bit, we have all this kids in a candy store feeling of all this tech."
He added: “Fortunately we have a very sensible and very senior team, so looking at ourselves we know what we can and can’t sign up for.”
Elsewhere, Amons implied that in-development sequel to Tomb Raider is likely to incorporate large-scale environments.
"I think that Skyrim’s a good analogy," he offered. "If you see it, you can get to it and go out there, and that to us was what the promise of this is. Now that we’ve seen what we can do [with] Definitive Edition, it starts opening up our eyes of how much further can we push ourselves. What [are] our next steps towards let’s get out to that mountain now, how do we get out there, how much bigger can those spaces be, and that’s for the future."
Amos previously confirmed that the PS4 version of the critically-acclaimed title would run at 60fps, despite reports to the contrary.
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition hits PS4 and Xbox One in the U.S. on January 29 and in Europe on January 31.