"Tell the truth, Lara"

There's a real danger that Rise of the Tomb Raider could end up being defined by behind-the-scenes business decisions, and Game Informer's latest cover story is evidence of that. While the publication's coverage includes plenty of details about Lara Croft's forthcoming foray, most people want to know one small thing: when's it coming to the PlayStation 4?

For those out of the loop, the sequel was announced as an Xbox exclusive at Gamescom last year, but Microsoft was quickly backed into a corner, and forced to admit that the deal has a duration. This led many to believe that the release will also deploy on the PS4, and while nothing's been confirmed just yet, that remains the case in this latest round of interviews.

Speaking about the specifics of the deal, Crystal Dynamics boss Darrell Gallagher said that it was a "natural evolution" from previous partnerships for the game to lead on the Xbox, but that doesn't prevent a PlayStation version from deploying in the future. "We're focusing on the Xbox One and Xbox 360 here at Crystal Dynamics," he said. "And anything beyond, we'll come back to at a later date."

Some had argued that Microsoft was wholly funding the release, but that doesn't appear to be the case according to the executive. "If you look at Tomb Raider, it's been around for 20 years, so I do think that Tomb Raider would still be around [without Microsoft]," he explained, when asked whether the Redmond firm had enabled the project to exist in the first place.

This is a story that's going to run all through the year, but we doubt that any ports will be announced until well after the title's Xbox release. Either way, we can't help but feel that Square Enix is shooting itself in the foot a little bit here; late arrivals rarely ever perform well, and if it thought that the title couldn't compete with Uncharted 4: A Thief's End at launch, what chance does it have way down the line?

[source gameinformer.com, via gamespot.com]