The original Tomb Raider game was Lara Croft’s best-selling outing ever. It’s all been down hill since then. But in new figures released by Square Enix, which bought Tomb Raider owners Eidos this week, the worst-selling Tomb Raider ever (so far) is a bit of a surprise…
The original Tomb Raider game sold over 7 million copies. Tomb Raider II, III and The Last Revelation each sold less in turn, but not by much. But according to new owner Square Enix’s graphs, the problems really started with Tomb Raider: Chronicles. But which was the worst-selling Lara Croft game ever?
Surprisingly, it wasn’t the critically-panned Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness. This sold over 2 million units. It was… Tomb Raider: Anniversary. The “reboot” of the franchise’s original game sold just over 1 million copies. At least Tomb Raider: Underworld looks set to have put things back in the right direction, selling well over 2 million copies. Despite that, Eidos had been looking into revamping the series, to appeal to a wider audience.
In the same cluster of Powerpoint charts, Square Enix also revealed that Hitman 2 was the big game of that series so far, selling nearly 4 million copies. That Kane & Lynch: Dead Men sold a respectable near 2 million. And that despite critical acclaim, the spectacular Deus Ex, flawed but brilliant Deus Ex: Invisible War and great banana republic freeroamer Just Cause barely beat 1 million units each.
While Eidos has sold over 30 million Tomb Raider games, and over 8 million Hitman games, Square Enix has sold over 85 million Final Fantasy games, over 47 million Dragon Quest games and even over 12 million of those kiddy Disney Kingdom Hearts games.
Out now | from £30 | Tomb Raider: Underworld (available at Game.co.uk for PC, Sony PS3, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360)
