The reboot of the franchise is popular with both players and critics

Mar 7, 2014 10:51 GMT  ·  By

Square Enix has announced that the reinvented Tomb Raider is closing in on reaching 6 million units sold this month.

The announcement came via Darrell Gallagher, Square Enix's head of product development, who posted the good news with the occasion of Tomb Raider's first anniversary. The reimagined action-adventure game was released on March 5, 2013, and at first it registered much weaker sales than initially projected, only to now become the best-selling title in the entire franchise.

He states that the development team's goal was to "put Tomb Raider back at the top of the Action / Adventure genre." In order to have Lara become relevant again and create something that could draw the attention of both long standing fans and new gamers, they had to "shake the foundations of the franchise."

As such, the game was released to both critical acclaim and player enthusiasm, and in early 2014 Tomb Raider was brought to the new generations of consoles, with the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, offering a greatly enhanced experience.

He continues stating that commercial and marketing teams continued efforts after development was completed and that the past 12 months have been the crowning of their collective efforts, with Tomb Raider exceeding profit expectations and continuing to make significant contributions to the company's financial performance.

Things seem to be looking better for the Japanese publisher, which only last year announced extraordinary losses and went through major reform and restructuring within the company. The restructuring process was the main culprit for the losses, but the company's business models were the real cause.