Amazon Games boss Jeffrey Gattis confirmed on The Game Business podcast that Tomb Raider: Catalyst will arrive in 2028 — a full year later than the 2027 window Crystal Dynamics and Amazon announced when they unveiled the game at The Game Awards in December 2025. The disclosure came not through a press release but as a brief aside during a conversation about Amazon’s cloud gaming service, Luna.
That scheduling shift now puts Catalyst on a collision course with history. Sony Interactive Entertainment announced on July 1 that physical game disc production for all new PlayStation titles will end in January 2028. Unless Catalyst arrives during the first days of January — an extremely narrow window Amazon has not targeted — it will launch as a digital-only release on PlayStation 5, making it the first new mainline Tomb Raider game in the franchise’s 30-year history that PS5 owners cannot own as a disc.
Catalyst and Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis — a full reimagining of the original 1996 game co-developed by Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog — were announced simultaneously at the December 2025 Game Awards, with Amazon promising the remake in 2026 and the new mainline entry in 2027. That two-games-in-one-year plan began to unravel when Legacy of Atlantis slipped from its 2026 window to a February 12, 2027 release date, confirmed during a Sony State of Play in June.
Once the remake absorbed the earlier slot, stacking Catalyst in the same calendar year became untenable — not only for Crystal Dynamics’ development teams but for the audience itself. As gaming outlet The Outerhaven observed, having two full Tomb Raider titles land in a single year, even when one is a remake, was “always going to be an awkward proposition” for a fanbase being asked to buy into two separate Lara Croft adventures within months of each other.
The 2028 window gives Legacy of Atlantis a full year to establish its commercial footprint before Catalyst arrives. Push Square, which covers PlayStation-specific gaming, called Catalyst “the first victim of Sony’s decision to kill off physical media in January 2028” — a framing that captures both the scheduling logic and its unintended consequence.
Read more: ‘Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis’ Release Delayed to February 2027; Pre-Orders Now Open
The disclosure came from Amazon Games General Manager Jeffrey Gattis during a July 23 interview with Christopher Dring on The Game Business YouTube channel and podcast. The conversation centered primarily on Luna’s arrival inside the Prime Video app for US and UK Amazon Prime members with Fire TV devices — a move that now lets subscribers stream titles such as Hogwarts Legacy, EA Sports FC 26, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle without a separate gaming device.
During a broader discussion of Amazon’s publishing slate, Gattis noted the two Tomb Raider titles almost in the same breath as naming titles “in various stages of discussion.” His exact words, as recorded by The Game Business: “We have obviously announced the two Tomb Raider titles. Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis comes 12 February, next year, and then we’ll follow on in 2028 with the next one. We’re excited about those.”
Amazon has not issued a formal statement accompanying the disclosure. As of the time this article was written, the official Tomb Raider website still listed Catalyst with its original 2027 window.
Sony’s physical disc decision, announced via the PlayStation Blog on July 1, applies to all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles starting January 2028. In a post authored by Sid Shuman, Senior Director at Sony Interactive Entertainment Content Communications, the company stated that the “general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs” and that games released before January 2028 would not be affected.
