Tomb Raider: Catalyst, the next brand-new entry in the long-running action-adventure series, has been pushed from 2027 to 2028. The delay wasn't announced in a splashy trailer or a formal statement, but slipped out during a conversation about Amazon's broader games strategy.
Jeffrey Gattis, Amazon's general manager of gaming, mentioned it while talking to The Game Business' Chris Dring about the company's Luna streaming platform and its portfolio ambitions. "We've announced the two Tomb Raider titles," Gattis said. "Atlantis comes February 12th of next year and then we'll follow on in 2028 with the next one."
That lines up with what Amazon and Crystal Dynamics detailed last December, when they revealed two projects at once. The first, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, is an Unreal Engine 5 ground-up remake of the original 1996 game. It was originally due this year before slipping to February 2027. Catalyst is the fully new adventure, sending Lara Croft to India, and it was announced at The Game Awards in 2025 with a 2027 window. That window is now gone.
Why 2028 is a problem
The timing matters more than a typical delay because of a decision Sony made earlier this month. As Kotaku notes, Sony announced that "physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028." The company said the change won't affect games that already released or that ship before that date in disc format.
Because Catalyst has now moved into 2028, it would become the first Tomb Raider game to arrive on PlayStation without a disc version. Sony's statement leaves no explicit exception for titles that were meant to launch earlier but got delayed past the deadline, though Kotaku points out there's nothing physically stopping Sony from printing PS5 discs, and games tend to keep coming to a console for years.
A rough stretch for Lara
Amazon's Tomb Raider revival has hit repeated snags. Crystal Dynamics confirmed a fresh round of layoffs in June affecting 20 staff, its fourth round in under a year, according to Eurogamer. Legacy of Atlantis also drew criticism after it emerged in June that the game was being built using AI, with a studio director claiming it helped the team "get to [the] right answers faster" before Amazon PR shut down follow-up questions. On the TV side, the Amazon Prime live-action series had filming halt earlier this year when lead actor Sophie Turner suffered a back injury, though shooting has since resumed.
PC Gamer floated the possibility that Gattis simply mixed up his years, but argued that's unlikely since he named "2028" specifically rather than hedging, and given the reported development troubles at Crystal Dynamics. The outlet said it reached out to Amazon to confirm the target and would update if it hears back.
What it means for your calendar
If you were penciling in Tomb Raider: Catalyst for 2027, clear that slot. The only Lara Croft outing on the near horizon is now Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, due February 12, 2027, while Catalyst won't surface until 2028. Anyone who prefers physical media should also brace for the likelihood that Catalyst arrives digital-only on PlayStation, thanks to Sony's disc cutoff landing right in front of it.
