With Tomb Raider: Underworld set to be among the quartet of titles to be shown by Eidos during next month's E3, the publisher has launched the game's official website, simultaneously slapping a November release date on Lara Croft's latest trip underground for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PS2 and PC.

In addition to offering a narrowed release window, Eidos also shed a few details on the busty heroine's "exploration-based" escapade, revealing in a statement that the game will see Ms. Croft seeking "the secrets of the Norse underworld and a forgotten power." This immediatly makes us think that she'll be hunting down Thor's hammer, because really, who needs guns when you're packing Mjolnir?

While talk of a takeover of British publisher SCi continues to be tossed around, this doesn't mean that Lara Croft's troubled parent is open to shacking up with just anyone.

This week the company confirmed that it has received an offer from an unspecified suitor at a "significant premium" to SCi's current share price. However, the company stayed strong, turning away what we imagine to be bags of money emblazoned with dollar signs, claiming the offer was "not be in the best interests of the company or its shareholders." Still, with 14 projects in the vertical file and key management on the run, it might be time for SCi to lower its standards.

There are not many developers who can boast having given rise to both a vampiric anti-hero and an anthropomorphic lizard, but over the last three years San Francisco-based developer Crystal Dynamics has become more well known as the studio that single-handedly breathed new life into the dying franchise that was Tomb Raider and its top-heavy icon Lara Croft.

2006's Tomb Raider: Legend took the series that Core Design had unceremoniously driven into the ground and reminded us all why we fell in love with the franchise a decade prior. And for those still left unconvinced, Crystal Dynamics revisited the 1996 original a year later with Tomb Raider: Anniversary, demonstrating that anything Core could do, they could do better.

Now the studio is at it again, this time taking Lara Croft on a new adventure in Tomb Raider: Underworld. Currently in development for multiple platforms, the game marks the eighth outing for the series, and while the game was recently pushed out from its previously expected third quarter 2008 release until the following quarter, creative director Eric Lindstrom told us that when it comes to this project -- "quality" is the team's ultimate deadline. We recently spoke with Lindstrom on the game, and he opened up to us about the project, how he feels it measures up to Naughty Dog's Uncharted, and why he finds next-gen development troubling.

Hit the jump for the complete interview.

Lady Croft may be the first true comeback kid in gaming with a return to form in recent years in Tomb Raider Legend and Tomb Raider Anniversary. IGN got its hands on a demo of Lara's latest adventure in Tomb Raider Underworld and it appears the series will continue its upward trend.

A pre-alpha build of Underworld showed enemy AI actually going for cover and using squad tactics instead of just suicidally staying in the open to get picked off (which doesn't sound like much, but it's revolutionary for the series). Lara has also been given new melee abilities, including the use of a pole to whack jaguars and send them scampering. Not riddling creatures with bullets should make the animal rights people happy.

Check it out and prepare yourself for the inevitable question, "Who is the cooler tomb raider? Ms. Lara Croft or Mr. Nathan Drake?"

Eidos owner SCi has been on the hunt for a potential suitor for some time, reportedly having batted its eyelashes at everyone from Midway and Vivendi to Time Warner and even some mysterious outfit in China, with none showing enough interest to sign their name across the dotted line. However, after having been given the cold shoulder by Ubisoft last October, the British firm has finally gotten the hint and moved on, stating that it had not received any formal offers within the requested timeframe.

What this means to you and I is that it may be some time before we see another major release branded with the Eidos logo, as SCi confirmed that it has pushed out the recently revealed Tomb Raider: Underworld until the fourth quarter of 2008, along with three other unspecified titles. The company also announced plans to bring Lara Croft's latest escapade to the DS, Wii and PS2, in addition to the previously known versions for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Way to be strong, SCi, but you might not want to look at your stock this morning. Following the firm's decision to go it alone, SCi's stock hit "rock bottom," and according to a new Bloomberg report, suffered its biggest plummet in more than 18 years, falling some 61 percent after SCi admitted that the aforementioned delays will likely result in an operating loss for 2008 and that the company may need to look to outside parties for the money to stay afloat. Of course, with SCi's share price now swimming with the fishes, we wouldn't be too surprised if another company now swooped in and bought up SCi and its properties at bargain basement prices. You hear that EA? Someone is singing your song.

In another CES 2008 announcement, Microsoft has highlighted nine new additions to its Games for Windows endeavor, promising to "continue the momentum for Windows-based gaming in 2008" and "revive" the PC gaming space. The titles due to be dressed in Microsoft's colors include:

• Alone in the Dark (Atari)
  
• Bionic Commando (Capcom)
• Conflict: Denied Ops (Eidos Interactive)
• Empire: Total War (SEGA)
• LEGO Indiana Jones (LucasArts)
• Microsoft Train Simulator 2 (Microsoft Game Studios)
• Sins of a Solar Empire (Stardock)
• Space Siege (SEGA)
• Tomb Raider: Underworld (Eidos Interactive)

The list not only cements the "Underworld" subtitle to Eidos' next Tomb Raider, but provides reassurance as to the longevity of Microsoft's initiative. Games for Windows is sure to be around for quite some time if Alone in the Dark manages to arrive under its banner. Microsoft's polite press release is also keen to remind us that other expected 2008 titles -- Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Borderlands, The Club, Fallout 3 and Frontlines: Fuel of War -- will stand beneath the flapping emblem.

As reported by Tomb Raider Chronicles, the latest issue of Play contains the first information regarding the next iteration of the Tomb Raider series. The issue was apparently available online earlier this morning, but has since been removed from Play's online store. Thankfully, Tomb Raider Chronicles have the details anyway. First and foremost, the game takes place after Tomb Raider: Legend. The game will be subtitled Underworld and will feature "a lush, vast interactive world." Whether or not this means the game will utilize the ever trendy sandbox / open world gameplay style remains unclear. The rest of the details center around nifty graphical effects like realistic footprint physics (no, seriously) and the fully motion captured acrobatics of Lara's latest incarnation. The game just might make it for a 2008 release and, yes, a 360 version looks to be in the cards.

[Via Joystiq]

Adding itself to the rather small list of next-gen titles not using Epic's Unreal Engine, Eidos Montreal studio head Stephane D'Astous has confirmed to Develop that Deus Ex 3 will use fellow Eidos developer Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider engine to render its presumably post-apocalyptic environments. Said D'Astous, "We chose the Crystal engine because we plan to help develop this engine more and then share it back with the rest of the company, the other Eidos studios."

The other in-house engine D'Astous considered was IO Interactive, who are responsible for the Hitman franchise and Kane & Lynch, the title currently vying for "Most Controversial Game of the Year" award. The original Deus Ex was designed by Warren Spector and Harvey Smith; although Spector is busy at Disney, perhaps the now out-of-work Smith can find a way to contribute to the new game (or, as Ludwig would put it, repent for Invisible War).

With Kane & Lynch a little tied up at the moment with the Gerstmann caper, we turn our attention to former Eidos darling Lara Croft, who's been making some strides back to prominence with her past two excellent games. It seems that when she returns, it may be under the banner of "Tomb Raider Underworld," a phrase Eidos has just registered for use in "video game software" and strategy guides.

You're probably thinking that the phrase will be the title for the next Tomb Raider game, and we doubt that you're that far off. After Tomb Raider Legacy Legend and Tomb Raider Anniversary, we'll just be happy to have a sub-title that doesn't sound like it wants to sell us insurance.

[Via Trademork]

Hungry for more tomb raiding? Have you squeezed out every possible ounce of entertainment from Tomb Raider: Legend? Have you suddenly developed an aversion to disc-based media? Well then, do we have a deal for you. Seemingly out of nowhere, the previously promised downloadable version of Tomb Raider: Anniversary is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace. The game has been split into two significantly more than bite-sized chunks, each of which will run you 1200 MS Points or, in the common vernacular, $15. Put them both together and the game costs as much as its PS2 counterpart and actually $10 less than the retail Xbox 360 version. Just make sure you still have a Tomb Raider: Legend disc lying around, as the downloadable Anniversary requires it.

Lara Croft's superb re-quel, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, has finally clambered onto the Xbox Live Marketplace after being unearthed in June and delayed from an initial September release. If you missed it on the PlayStation 2, the PSP, the PC or even the Xbox 360 (in ancient disc format), now's your chance to relive the iconic grave robber's best adventure in the form of two downloadable chunks. The catch, of course, is that it functions as Tomb Raider: Legend DLC and will require you to have that disc handy.

Each half of the game will set you back roughly 1.5GB in bandwidth and 1,200 MS Points ($15) -- in combination, that puts it on par with the PS2 version and $10 beneath the disc-based Xbox 360 version. If this still isn't the opportune moment to explore Lara's treasure-laden crevices, you still have the hands-on Wii version to try out (it's out in the UK too this December).

Concluding with Jim Lee's take on Lara Croft, "A Complicated Woman," the first season of Gametap's animated "Re\Visioned" series is now available in its entirety on the download service. Aside from the rather annoying use of a backslash in the title, the show's first ten-episode stint was marked by several interpretations of the Tomb Raider heroine from artists such as Peter Chung, Michael Stackpole and Warren Ellis.

Gametap has also announced a partnership with The Hero Initiative -- a non-profit organization helping out comic book creators -- that will see a second six-episode season of Re\Visioned released in December. The focus is to be placed on the "golden age" of Activision, with stylized takes on Kaboom, Pressure Cooker and Pitfall promised from writers like Mark Waid (Flash, Kingdom Come, Legion of Superheroes), John Ostrander (X-Men, Punisher, Star Wars Republic) and Paul Jenkins (Spectacular Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk, Civil War: Front Line).

Next-Gen is running a piece from Edge Magazine about how Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness went so terribly wrong. Angel of Darkness was the last Lara Croft game created by developer Core before publisher Eidos said to hell with them and gave Croft duties to Crystal Dynamics (who have yet to disappoint).

The piece starts with just how awful Angel of Darkness was, but things really get moving with an anecdote of Core Design's co-founder, Jeremy Heath-Smith, cursing through the game's opening level at a buyers' conference. The story ends with most of Core's staff leaving due to management issues and Eidos taking Lara away. Angel of Darkness is a case study on how a franchise can be run into the ground and yet still find redemption in the hands of another.

If numerous online retailers are to be believed, the Xbox 360 version of Tomb Raider: Anniversary is set to arrive in the US next week on October 23rd. "But wait," you rudely interject, "wasn't there another version for that console?" Indeed, you quite clearly recall that Eidos announced its intention to digitally distribute Lara Croft assets -- that would be the game split into five separate episodes -- on the Xbox Live marketplace. The online chunks, functioning as add-ons to Tomb Raider: Legend, would amount to 2400 MS Points ($30) in total, a good $10 cheaper than the price retailers are currently appending to the standalone disc.

As the online episodes were initially scheduled for release in September, it inescapably follows that they've been delayed. The question is, "Until when?" While Eidos assures us that they're still in the pipeline, it's "still confirming dates for both versions and will release information on this asap." We'll keep you informed if and when we receive this mysterious asap containing the information.

Some things are obvious about Lara Croft. But Crystal Dynamics's Morgan Gray wants you to focus on Lara's more subtle assets, like her intelligence. The late-coming Wii version of Tomb Raider Anniversary focuses on Lara's actual career: babe, er, 'archaeologist'.

There's "over three hours" of Wii-specific content promised, and the majority of it comes in the form of motion-sensitive mini-games. There's Lara with a pick axe unearthing clues; Lara digging for buried treasures; and Lara taking charcoal rubbings for her journal. All use the Wiimote's pointer, mimicking what you'd normally find in a DS game (think: psuedo-archeology game Spectrobes). It's gimmicky, yes -- but there are times where the physicality adds an appreciable amount of depth to the experience. In one segment of the game, we had to uncover symbols, hidden away under some dust. With those symbols in mind, we had to draw them in sand to unlock a door. Drawing with the Wiimote added a whole new layer to what was originally a very simple puzzle. Thankfully, the system is forgiving enough to recognize even the shakiest of gestures.

Not only has Lara's "intelligence" been expanded upon for Wii, combat has received a major overhaul as well. For the first time in the franchise, players will aim and shoot freely while moving. Players will have to use the pointer to manually aim at the various enemies on the screen while performing Lara's signature dodges. It can be awkward at first, but Crystal Dynamics is so confident in their battle system that they won't give players the option to switch to more traditional controls. "All or nothing," as we were told by Gray. To ease away potential frustrations, there is an overly generous hit detection system that requires only a marginal amount of accuracy. Harder difficulties, we're told, will require a much steadier shot.