Tomb Raider RPG Cancelled For Creative Differences

Evil Hat Publishing has just announced that the official Tomb Raider TTRPG has been cancelled.

Sad news: We are canceling the Tomb Raider RPG project. Due to creative differences we couldn’t get our vision to gel with the licensor’s, so we've chosen to part ways.

The stellar team designing this game put their hearts into making this an exciting, dynamic RPG of adventure and exploration.

We're proud of the work they've done and we plan to retool the project as a standalone game with a fresh, original setting.

You haven’t seen the last of it.

An official Tomb Raider RPG was originally announced by Square Enix in 2021 for the 25th anniversary of the property. 2023's Lara Croft's Mark of the Phoenix released as free PDF on the Crystal Dynamics website.

The Evil Hat version was announced in February 2024 as a full-color hardback book. The plan was to allow you to play Truth Seekers, allies and contemporaries of Lara Croft who Indiana Jones out hidden artifacts for the benefit of good.

Explore hidden tombs and uncover powerful secrets! Defy danger as you race to discover forgotten artifacts and prevent nefarious forces from exploiting them! Race to unearth secret artifacts and forgotten truths in order to save them from the nefarious forces that would exploit them!

Mystery awaits, and sometimes, the answers we seek can only be found in shadow…

In this officially licensed tabletop RPG you play members of the Truth Seekers: contemporaries of Lara Croft who strive to reveal long-hidden knowledge and thwart those who would steal and exploit artifacts for their own gains. It is a game of action, exploration, and self-discovery. Face perilous challenges and tough choices as you learn what it takes to be a hero.

Tomb Raider: Shadows of Truth requires 3-6 players, pencils, paper, the rulebook, and at least six 6-sided dice in order to play.

Your group will collectively create their Team using one of the Team Playbooks and then build individual Team members choosing from the Crafter, Scholar, Hunter, Companion, Legacy, Changed, and Reclaimer. One player, the Keeper of Truths, describes the dynamic and compelling world around the Team as they all make the connections which bring the adventure to life.

Collect Truths and draw upon your Maps, Aid, and Lore to boost your rolls as you race to enter the Final Tomb!

The Truth is hidden. The Truth is dangerous. And in the end, the power of Truth is what we make it.

 

[Aldarc]

I would use SWADE, but Outgunned is the new hotness and has fans here. I did not see anything in the quickstart that would make me switch from Savage Worlds though.

I think that Outgunned is better designed for the "out of the frying pan into the fire" sort of situations of Indiana Jones, The Mummy, and other pulp adventure stories. It's baked into the rules and understanding what success and failure are supposed to look like in the game.

 

[Junkyard Tornado]

A standalone game with original setting, with explorer and adventure seeker vibes, actually sounds more interesting to me... even though a Tomb Raider game itself does sound like it could be fun.

 

[Reynard]

I think that Outgunned is better designed for the "out of the frying pan into the fire" sort of situations of Indiana Jones, The Mummy, and other pulp adventure stories. It's baked into the rules and understanding what success and failure are supposed to look like in the game.

Can you explain how that works. I admit that I did not give it a deep read so maybe I missed something intriguing.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Outgunned Adventure

Pretty. Available anywhere besides crowdfunding?

 

[crecca]

That's great news they were making a terrible product

 

[crecca]

That's great news they were making a bad product

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not sure if it's in the QuickStart, but it's the crux of what I'm talking about is in the section about failure in the core rulebook:

No Fail
When you’re playing adventure failure doesn’t exist.

Failure is simply a pot hole on a long road, a winding, unpaved road that you must travel in order to reach your victorious goal.

The job of a good Director is to exploit failures to create moving, exciting, or exhilarating scenes, without stopping the flow of the plot or grinding the game to a halt.

When you fail, it simply means that things didn’t go as planned. You’ll have to work a bit harder in order to reach your objective, that’s all.

You translate the manuscript quickly and easily, but fail to realize that you got a word wrong, changing the meaning completely. You leap out of the temple before it collapses, but fall straight into the rapids. You search for a gun and find it, unfortunately it’s unloaded and you didn’t think to check before it was too late.

See? Failing can still be very fun! The only defeat is when the game stops.

So this is like Indiana Jones getting the gold statue, but then setting off all the traps. Or subsequently, he avoids the traps and gets out alive but his archnemesis is waiting there and has him surrounded by natives.

The conceit of Outgunned Adventure is that the characters are competent at what they do, but things can still go south for them even when they succeed.

Pretty. Available anywhere besides crowdfunding?

Recently made available by Free League on their online store.

 

[JConstantine]

I think that Outgunned is better designed for the "out of the frying pan into the fire" sort of situations of Indiana Jones, The Mummy, and other pulp adventure stories. It's baked into the rules and understanding what success and failure are supposed to look like in the game.

I'd too would use Outgunned Adventure over Savage Worlds, but I think Broken Compass is still better for Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider, regardless of TLM's claim about viewing Outgunned as an improvement over it.

 

[Reynard]

I'm not sure if it's in the QuickStart, but it's the crux of what I'm talking about is in the section about failure in the core rulebook:

So this is like Indiana Jones getting the gold statue, but then setting off all the traps. Or subsequently, he avoids the traps and gets out alive but his archnemesis is waiting there and has him surrounded by natives.

The conceit of Outgunned Adventure is that the characters are competent at what they do, but things can still go south for them even when they succeed.

So there is no mechanical implementation there, just GM advice?

That seems to be a pretty standard interpretation of "failure" these days.

 

[Reynard]

Recently made available by Free League on their online store.

Out of curiosity, what are the mechanics/rules differences between Outgunned and Outgunned: Adventure. Is this a Edge of Empire/Age of Rebellion style situation, where they are trying to sell you the core rules multiple times, or is there a good reason to separate them?