Tomb Raider Dev Crystal Dynamics Hires Hitman, The Last of Us Designers

The fanboy fueled Uncharted vs Tomb Raider war is about to get a whole lot more interesting, thanks to some staffing changes that just took place at Tomb Rider developer Crystal Dynamics; as it turns out, they just hired Tore Blystad, who is best known for being a long time producer on the Hitman games.

But that’s not what will get tongues rolling- no, the staffing change that is likely to get people all fired up is the hiring of Nate Wells, who will be joining the company as its environment art director. Wells previously worked at The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog, who are also behind the Uncharted games, and are currently working on Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, slated to go head to head with Rise of the Tomb Raider later this year.

“We are thrilled to add Nate and Tore and their years of experience shipping top quality and award winning games to Crystal Dynamics,” Square Enix head of western studios Darrell Gallagher said. “Crystal has pulled together some of the best talent in the industry to deliver our upcoming games.”

So, looks like Square Enix and Microsoft are pretty serious about having Tomb Raider be as big as Uncharted- they’re even going as far as to hire Naughty Dog staff.