A new teaser countdown from Square Enix promises big Tomb Raider news tomorrow, but a quick HTML check will give it to you right now: Shadow of the Tomb Raider is coming out this September.
Head to the official Tomb Raider website and you’ll see a message promising an announcement on March 15, 2018 at 6am PT. Inspect the HTML, however, and you’ll see the announcement early:
“tagline”:”Shadow of The Tomb Raider is the climatic finale of Lara’s origin story. Available September 14th 2018"
If this is an accident, it’s not the first time. In October 2016, a Redditor spotted the name of Lara Croft’s next adventure because it was on the laptop of someone next to him on the subway.
At the time, we confirmed with our own sources that Shadow of the Tomb Raider was indeed the next game in the series. This one, as we reported then, is developed by Eidos Montreal, the studio behind Thief (2014), Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The previous two games were made at the San Francisco, California-based Crystal Dynamics, which is now working on an Avengers game. Eidos Montreal is also entering the Marvel universe with a Guardians of the Galaxy game that has not yet been announced.
We’ve heard that Square invited some reporters to see the game in Montreal recently, so expect a wave of new previews when the official announcement hits tomorrow.
Update - 3/15, 9am ET: As expected, this morning Square Enix announced that Shadow of the Tomb Raider will be out September 14 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. No console exclusivity this time. There’s a short teaser trailer (which leaked yesterday—we’ve replaced that with the official version here) and the promise of a “full reveal” on April 27.