Tomb Raider reboot gets strange update ahead of Game Awards reveal

Geoff Keighley, the host and founder of The Game Awards, has revealed on X that Tomb Raider is officially returning to The Game Awards on December 11. Crystal Dynamics will provide a “look at the future” of the franchise, and, immediately following this announcement, the Tomb Raider 2013 reboot received a strange update on Steam.  

As spotted by X user, KAMI, the Tomb Raider 2013 reboot received a Steam update on December 8. Recorded by SteamDB, the update changed the name of the game from simply Tomb Raider to Tomb Raider Game of the Year edition. Other recorded updates at the same time include changing the game’s featured image and other store assets to incorporate the change in title.

The Tomb Raider reboot was released all the way back in 2013. It kickstarted Crystal Dynamics’ Survivor trilogy, which continued with Rise of the Tomb Raider in 2015 and finished with Shadow of the Tomb Raider in 2018. It’s strange that the game’s name was changed 12 years after its release, and it’s stranger that it happened right after Geoff Keighley confirmed a new Tomb Raider will be unveiled at The Game Awards.

We will have to wait and see if The Game Awards provides an official explanation. It’s possible that the new game set to be revealed is simply called Tomb Raider, so Crystal Dynamics might have renamed the Survivor trilogy’s first installment to avoid confusion. There’s also the chance we might be getting a re-release of the Survivor trilogy with enhancements, but all of this is just speculation.

The Game Awards will reveal the “future” of Tomb Raider

Thanks to Geoff Keighley’s announcement, we know that The Game Awards will reveal the “future” of Lara Croft. Before anything is officially unveiled, there are rumors online.

The most recent rumor is a remake or reimagining of Lara Croft’s first ever adventure, Tomb Raider 1996, for the PS1. This would be Crystal Dynamics’ second remake of the classic, with the first being Tomb Raider Anniversary in 2007, which also recently joined PS Plus Premium in November 2025, as well as the PSN store for $20.

Another rumor is Tomb Raider 12, which is allegedly an open-world experience set in India, starring Lara Croft in her “prime”. Its story reportedly involves Lara racing against a Society of Raiders to collect powerful artifacts, and the only titbit about gameplay is that it features a motorcycle Lara can use to freely explore the open-world.

As for what’s official, Netflix’s The Legend of Lara Croft season 2 anime premieres on December 11, the same day as The Game Awards. Tasha Huo, the series’ showrunner, says it is the “first steps toward unifying the Tomb Raider timelines,” and season 2 is the show’s conclusion.

By unifying the timelines, Crystal Dynamics aims to connect the original PS1 classics with the recent Survivor trilogy. The PS1 games were developed by Core Design, a British studio that was sadly shut down in 2006 after losing the Tomb Raider IP to Crystal Dynamics, courtesy of parent company Eidos Interactive, thanks to the poor reception of Lara’s first PS2 adventure, Angel of Darkness, in 2003.  

Fans also have a live-action Amazon Prime series starring Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner as Lara Croft to anticipate. Story Kitchen, a producer of the show, has confirmed that future Tomb Raider games will share the same “universe” as the Amazon series.

Tomb Raider

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  Platform(s):
  Android, iOS, PC, PlayStation, PlayStation 3, SEGA Saturn, Xbox 360
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  Genre(s):
  Action

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