Tomb Raider isn't coming to Wii U because it needs a tailored experience

NewsPublish Date 28/01/2013 - 3:35pm GMT

Other versions deliver the same experience.

Tomb Raider, the franchise reboot coming to Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on March 5, isn't coming to the Wii U because of the console's unique touch-screen controller, Crystal Dynamics creative director Noah Hughes told Arabic website True Gaming.

Spotted by Polygon, Hughes said: "I'm always a fan of the Nintendo systems, in particular they really push interface design, and from a game design perspective it's fun to play with new interfaces," Hughes said. "Having said that it's something that I think we would want to tailor the experience to if we were going to do it."

He added: "All three [other console versions] are really trying to deliver roughly the same experience but delivered best on each platform, and I think something like the Wii U often asks you to do something unique based on a unique interface.

"That's something as a gamer I love but it's something you don't want to do half-heartedly as a developer."

VideoGamer.com Analysis

That's a pretty disappointing reason from Hughes given that I'm sure Wii U gamers would rather have the game released with no special Wii U functionality, than not see it released at all.

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User Comments

rbevanx@ pblive

With the PS3 it was hard to make games for and still is, as it's RAM is so rubbish and the Blu-Ray drive would easily burn out.
That's why there were so many huge installs and downloads etc.

360 was very similar to a PC and there was little effort compared to a PS3 which like the Wii-U now had a small install base.

Posted 18:59 on 28 January 2013

pblive

Just money and development time, really. Playstation 3 had the same issue when it launched and developers refused to make games for it that were coming to 360, leading to all those 'PS3 has no gamez' jokes.

Posted 18:54 on 28 January 2013

rbevanx

Sorry can't help myself.

Click for Image

Posted 17:51 on 28 January 2013

MJTH

I hate this excuse by devs. All they're pretty much saying is that "We like the platform and all, but since we can't think of anything interesting with the gamepad we're not going to bother at all". I hate it, because they're obviously lying!

Part of the reason you can play games on the gamepad, is so devs don't have to bother with thinking of interesting uses for it. Nintendo have said that by default the gamepad mirrors the TV screen!

At this point I'd rather they'd just said, "we don't like Nintendo platforms" or "we aren't used to optimising for the Wii U hardware and we don't have the time to learn for this game" or "We can't afford to support the system until it has a bigger user base". At least these reason make sense, and are the truth... For the moment.

Posted 16:26 on 28 January 2013