Train commuters in Montreal may be a wealth of secret video game knowledge.
On the 31st of October an assumed Square Enix employee was on their way to work where they unwittingly revealed to the world the title of the next Tomb Raider game in the series.
A Reddit user who goes by Tripleh280 claimed on the forum that they had sat next to someone who was
working on a presentation for the game. They managed to take a (blurry) picture of the screen; in the top right corner, there appears to be a barely readable logo reading Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Accompanied with the picture, a caption saying “Saw someone working on a presentation for ‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider’ on the subway (Possible new game?)’
“I was looking at my phone and next to me was this guy working on a PowerPoint,” the Reddit user told gaming website Polygon. “Out of curiosity I took a look to see what he was working [on]. That’s when I saw the logo for Shadow of the Tomb Raider.” As Tripleh280 works in downtown Montreal, where many game studios are based, he assumed it was real and was the name of the next Tomb Raider game. “From where I was standing, I couldn’t see much other than the page he was one talked about visual design.”
Montreal is a hotspot for video game studios because of the considerable tax breaks offered by the Canadian government. There are currently one hundred and forty-four studios in Montreal alone, including Compulsion Games and Ubisoft Montreal. While Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider were developed by Crystal Dynamics in San Francisco., it appears the third installment will not be. Kotaku reported publisher Square Enix is rumoured to have given the game to Eidos Montreal studio, which has previously made Thief and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, to develop.