Just weeks after the remakes were announced, Canadian developer Realtech VR confirmed that it was no longer committed to third-party licenses and would be moving on to augment and virtual reality projects.
The project, which would have seen the original PlayStation Tomb Raider games re-released in HD on Steam, was killed by license holder Square Enix.
"While we always welcome passion and excitement for the Tomb Raider franchise, the remasters in question were initiated and advertised without seeking approval. As such, they were never officially sanctioned," said the publisher.
Square Enix kills unsanctioned Tomb Raider Remakes
Tomb Raider Trilogy PC remasters weren't official, have been cancelled
The Tomb Raider remasters announced last week have been canned
https://twitter.com/realtech_VR/status/976480586251546625
Damn. I was really excited for these, because digging out my PS3 is a pain in the ass and the current PC versions are emulated.
Why hasn't Square Enix done their own version by now ?
What went through their mind to attempt to make this without the consent of the IP holder? Especially for something they apparently planned to sell.
Especially with a company like SE, you couldn't have shoot yourself in the foot faster.
Maybe they didn't see any demand for it? I'm personally hoping this causes them to go "oh, this is a thing people want" but after the garbage Chrono Trigger port I can't imagine they'd be anywhere near as good as these were looking.
Were they thinking they could just announce it and the positive community reaction would make it so Square wouldn't say no out of fear for bad PR? Because big companies like Square don't give a fuck. The second this was announced it was always gonna be canned, nothing surprising here.
This actually makes me a little upset, I was really looking forward to them.
They could just outsource it to some dudes who love the franchise.
I mean shit, these guys were practically already done. Just ring em up and work out a deal and it's free money.
Wasn't there a remake of the first Tomb Raider?
Square are absolutely not the bad guys here. Maybe they suck for not already doing this, but launching a product using IP you do not own without seeking the approval of the party that does own it is ludicrous.
from what i can gather reading all those articles, they did have a contract with SE to develop the official iOS port. After that project was launched, they should work as per agreement on the PC port of the same codebase to use in TR1-3. The thing is, apparently the communications between studio and partner failed, as they thought they were already greenlit after the iOS port launch success and lack of communications by SE, so after they released the trailers and properly announced, SE send the hammer down wich let them in the mood for that tweet
Not directly, but their current ports being garbage emulation certainly doesn't make them the "good guys" either. I've been playing through the Splinter Cell and BioShock series recently and let me tell you I'm fucking tired of dicking around with old, broken ports just so they're playable comfortably. A remaster would be imo unnecessary if everything just functioned in the first place.
But they still went ahead and made mobile ports of 1 and 2 just fine, so I don't think they actually care all that much about the difference. They've given away two (at least) Tomb Raider/Lara Croft games that have an uber-different tone on XBL, so it's not like they're trying to rebrand completely.
Kinda. Tomb Raider: Anniversary was a bit of a soft reboot. It was a remaster of the first game for the PS2. In a lot of ways it was the first game with spiffed up graphics, but they retconned a few things because they were using it to jump into a new soft reboot series (Legend/Underworld).
A complete remake, yeah, but not basic rework of the original and the next two.
There's a fan remake of 2 called Dagger of Xian which was allowed by Square as long as it makes zero money (including supportive donations) as well.
Better yet, why didn't they just allow them to do it on their own budget, and make a deal on profit if it was a success.
Normally what one does when creating an unsanctioned/unlicensed game is keep it under wraps until it is good enough to show to the IP-holder company. This will sometimes convince the company to let you continue under their publishing banner, or they'll tell you to cease work. Often times, being told to stop working on a project isn't the end and the project would be re-purposed.
Though somewhat common in the 80s and 90s, I have not heard much of this practice lately. A famous example is Commander Keen, which started out as an unsanctioned Super Mario Bros 3 port. id Software showed the game to Nintendo, but they weren't interested.
The problem in the case of Realtech VR is that they started advertising the games before they were approved. This is bad conduct as it can be seen as pressuring the IP-holder, forcing them to either greenlit the project or face bad PR. Who would want to work with a company like that? While it wasn't their intention to do so (due to miscommunication), if they did not advertise the games - they might have been OK (although we might have never known!).
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