Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris was one of the most unexpected announcements of this week's E3 , but already we've gotten to see a lot of gameplay. Scot Amos, executive producer for the new game, brought a four-player gameplay video with him to the Twitch E3 livestream on Wednesday and talked for a bit about the follow-up to the well-regarded Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light .
The game is played from an overhead, isometric view, and in the flame-lit tunnels it looks like an updated, Lara Croft-themed remake of the classic Gauntlet arcade games. Lara and her partners explore the ruins of the Temple of Osiris, dual-wielding pistols and generally wrecking the place. Their anthropological caution, if nothing else, leaves something to be desired.
One of the first things that jumped out in the new footage was the dynamic lighting effects, perfect for gloomy ruins. “Lighting and atmospherics and effects, the things we can throw in screen for particle effects—those are things that we really want to take advantage of for next-gen consoles and high-end gaming PCs,” Amos said.
The dynamic lighting was on fine display as the four players worked to roll a ball-cage lit from within by magic fire. As the cage rolled across the level, the light and shadows spilled across the dirt floors. It looked pretty nice. More importantly, the cage was a solution to a sprawling navigation puzzle, a classic element of the Tomb Raider series since the beginning.
“There are asymmetric characters, and you have a variety,” Amos said. “Some people like puzzles, some people like combat. You can cooperate and compete according to what you like. That kind of activity happens between characters naturally.” The game will feature drop-in, drop-out multiplayer, and with four players working together, combat gets chaotic pretty fast.
“This is the action-adventure side of the Lara Croft franchise. We're looking at Guardians of Light as a blueprint for where we want to go in the future,” Amos concluded. Where Guardians featured a series of linear tombs, Osiris will include a unifying overworld that unites the ruins, letting players choose how to approach each mission and the story as a whole.
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris was just announced, so we haven't heard a release date yet. Keep up with all of our E3 coverage here .
