When it was shown at the Xbox press event at E3, the company said that the next chapter in the life of young Lara Croft could only be played on the Xbox One. However, Square Enix mentioned that wasn't the actual truth. Rise of the Tomb Raider will eventually make its way to the PC in the early months of 2016, with the PlayStation 4 version arriving around the holiday season, one year after the game's initial release on the Xbox One and Xbox 360.
Even though the game will be available for current and last-gen Xbox consoles, there's no indication that Crystal Dynamics, the development team behind Rise of the Tomb Raider, will make it available for the PlayStation 3.
News of the "exclusive" partnership with Microsoft came as early as December 2014, when Aaron Greenberg, the head of marketing for first- and third-party Xbox titles for Microsoft, said on Twitter that the company would be in charge of publishing the game. For the PS4 and PC versions, it's assumed that Square Enix will regain the reins in publishing.
The idea of a limited exclusive is a bold strategy from Microsoft. The company hopes that it will attract more customers to buy the Xbox One for the upcoming holiday season. However, there is a glaring flaw with the plan: The Xbox One version comes out on November 10, the same day as Bethesda Game Studios' highly-anticipated game, Fallout 4. With all the attention focused on the nuclear wasteland RPG, it will be hard for Rise of the Tomb Raider to compete with sales, even if it was released simultaneously on multiple systems.
Then again, spreading out the release across one whole year could prove fruitful, if people manage to finish playing through the entirety of Fallout 4 in that span of time.
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