It’s not a rumor or a troll: Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s unpatched launch version has a post-credits sequence that Eidos Montreal mistakenly included. It was removed by a day-one patch.
Without its day-one patch, Shadow of the Tomb Raider has a different post-credits cutscene, one that the game’s studio says was mistakenly included in the game.
The discovery comes from the Tomb Raider Forums this week (and also seen by Kotaku on Friday). If you’ve patched the game, you’d never know of this. The person who originally mentioned it in the forums didn’t know what they were looking at, either, and the others didn’t believe them at first.
After this point, we get into SPOILERS for Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
The alternate sequence is shot completely differently from the one everyone else has scene — and gives a long look at a letter to Lara Croft, sent by Jacqueline Natla. Tomb Raider fans know her as the series’ original antagonist. She hasn’t figured into the series since its 2013 reboot, making any mention of her a signal event. As a post-credits sequence, it’s almost a cliffhanger pointing to where the franchise is headed after this trilogy.
Here’s the alternate sequence, from forums user Tombstone. Note also the brace of pistols, another reference to Lara Croft’s original incarnation.
This is the original post-credits scene.
Kotaku reached out to Eidos Montreal and got a statement that the studio had considered “multiple post-credits scenes.” The one that was patched out was never intended to be in the game, the studio said.
Kotaku has more about the unraveling of the mystery, and the wave of disbelief the discoverer encountered, until they were able to play through the game again and post a video of the scene — which, thankfully, hasn’t been taken down. Just one more what-if for fans to mull over as they await Lara’s return.
