New Tomb Raider title set to skip E3

Eidos will not be showing the new, and as yet untitled, Tomb Raider game in Los Angeles at E3 this May, sources close to the company confirmed today.

The latest in the huge string of action games is currently in development at Crystal Dynamics, the firm behind the Legacy of Kain series, and while staffers have claimed to have the bare bones of the new game up and running internally there will be nothing to see on this year's show floor.

Eidos will instead centralise its Californian efforts this May 12 on explosive Platoon-alike Shellshock: Nam '67, and sneak-around-and-kill-athon, Thief: Deadly Shadows.

The seventh Tomb Raider game is currently listed for release in the middle of 2005. The franchise was unceremoniously torn from Core Design last year after a less than salubrious launch of the massively bug-ridden, and very late, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, much to the chagrin of high flying brotherly duo Adrian and Jeremy Smith, who founded the developer, and have since departed to set up Circle Studio.