Tomb Raider: Catalyst delayed to 2028

Bad news for anyone looking forward to playing the new Tomb Raider game Catalyst next year: It's not going to be out until the year after that. trojkonferencja2024.pl

Word of the delay came from Amazon Gaming chief Jeffrey Gattis during an interview with The Game Business. Talking about Amazon's game investment strategy, Gattis said the company is into pretty much everything, "from what we call game night games, which are those phone-as-a-controller games, which I think of as single-A games that are in the single millions of dollars to develop, all the way up to triple-A."

Then, to provide an example of how Amazon remains committed to big-time, he dropped the news: "We've announced the two Tomb Raider titles—Atlantis comes February 12^th of next year and then we'll follow on in 2028 with the next one."

Tomb Raider: Catalyst hadn't locked in a hard release date, but when it was announced at The Game Awards in 2025 it was set for launch in 2027.

It's possible that Gattis merely got his years or games mixed up: I still occasionally do the 'what year is it?' Jumanji meme in real life when my wandering mind is suddenly snapped back to reality by someone asking if I've finished filling out the form.

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But this strikes me as unlikely, for two reasons. One, saying "2028" specifically is very different from rolling with "next year" when you're not completely sure what year it is right now.

Two, and more to the point, Tomb Raider: Catalyst developer Crystal Dynamics appears to be in a bit of disarray. In March, the studio conducted its fourth round of layoffs in 12 months, and studio leadership—not just at CD, but anywhere that's taken a big hit—may say that cutting to the bone isn't going to impact ongoing projects, but at some point that's probably just not so, as presumably those laid off people served a function that they're not around to handle anymore. Even if you're only talking about the psychological toll that constant layoffs take on those who remain, that's going to have an impact.

To be sure, I've reached out to Amazon to ask if the 2028 target as expressed by Gattis is correct, and will update if I receive a reply. Until then, though, I'd suggest making other plans to occupy your gaming time in '27.

While its spirit lives on in the Xenoblade games, Monolith Soft's Xenosaga series has been dormant since the final game hit PS2 way back in 2006. Fans have been desperate for some sort of revival for years, and those hopes are rising again thanks to a new Xenosaga cameo in the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

Momo from Xenosaga will be a new equipable Blade in Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. "Swap between two forms to change her appearance and elemental affinity," Nintendo says in a new trailer as her light and dark forms are demonstrated.

This is not the first Xenosaga character to appear as a Blade in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, as KOS-MOS and T-elos already had similar appearances in the game. But Momo is awakening a new round of hopes that Xenosaga might live again after a decades-long stay in IP hell.

Developer Monolith Soft built the Xenosaga games under Namco, which maintained control of the IP as it morphed into Bandai Namco. Monolith Soft would be acquired by Nintendo in 2007, and created the Xenoblade series as a sort of spiritual successor to Xenosaga. No entry in the Xenosaga series has gotten a modern remake, remaster, or rerelease since that split occurred.

But fans were quick to note some oddities in the wake of Momo's reveal for Xenoblade Chronicles 2. For one thing, Xenosaga no longer appears as one of Bandai Namco's owned IPs on the company's official website – a removal that occurred just last year. For another, there's no copyright or trademark notes attributed to Bandai Namco in the trailer that showed off Momo, unlike with trailers featuring other Nintendo crossovers with third-party publishers in games like Super Smash Bros.

For some, that's reason enough to believe that Nintendo has acquired the Xenosaga IP, reuniting the rights to the series with its original development studio. That's a mighty big conclusion to jump to, but clearly it's a compelling enough theory for some fans – though that may just be the desperation to see Xenosaga on a modern platform talking.

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