Tomb Raider Anniversary goes episodic on Xbox 360 @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on June 18, 2007

News: Prepare your hard drive now for Lara's first adventure in September.

A while back, the ESRB revealed that Tomb Raider: Anniversary was coming to the Xbox 360 in a set of four "episodes" speculating many to believe it would available only for download on Xbox Live. Today, Eidos has confirmed that speculation with the announcement the game will find its way to the Xbox Live service this September.

According to Eidos, the game will be available in four episodes, each individually priced, with the first two coming in September. Episodes 3 & 4 will be available a little after that. All four episodes will set players back 2400 Microsoft Points ($30 or the same price as the PS2 version). The "Croft Manor" training level will be available for free. Your Xbox 360 will treat the four episodes as an "expansion" of Tomb Raider: Legend, so owning Lara Croft's Xbox 360 debut will be required to play the remake of her first adventure.

Eidos has also said that a stand-alone retail version of Tomb Raider: Anniversary will be available before the end of the year.

УWe have created this version of Anniversary specifically for digital distribution as episodic content. This is part of our strategy to grow our presence in online and digital distribution as we believe there are huge growth opportunities arising from this delivery format and we intend to capitalize on the increasing demand for digitally downloaded content,Ф said Jane Cavanagh, Chief Executive, Eidos. "Lara has always been at the forefront of technology and this world first initiative with Microsoft really highlights that fact. Ultimately we also intend to make the title available at retail so that it reaches the maximum possible audience.Ф

We'll have more on Tomb Raider: Anniversary (including the upcoming Wii version as well) very soon.