'Tomb Raider' Partnering With Geocaching for Global Treasure Hunt

Game Rant

By Anthony Taormina

Published Jan 13, 2012

'Tomb Raider' publisher Square Enix is teaming up with Geocaching to deliver a global treasure hunt that will hopefully feature some bainrteasing puzzles.

Popular treasure hunting service Geocaching and Crystal Dynamics’ forthcoming Tomb Raider reboot are teaming up to bring fans some special items that will be hidden across the globe. Square Enix and Geocaching’s owner Groundspeak were proud to announce this campaign in preparation for the release of Tomb Raider, which is currently targeting a 3^rd quarter release for all major platforms.

Very few cross-promotional events seem as perfect as this team up between Tomb Raider and Geocaching. Usually we are treated to food-based promotions like the Call of Duty Mountain Dew cans or the Subway Uncharted 3 codes, which are still extremely useful, but don’t fit within the context of the brand. Geocaching, on the other hand, is essentially a smaller scale version of what Lara Croft does in every iteration of her games.

For those who might not be familiar with Geocaching, it’s essentially a global treasure hunt facilitated by a mobile app that is filled with GPS information and helpful clues. The goal of any geocaching “adventure” is to find sometimes a hidden item, more often a logbook, in which you’ll be able to see who else has found said geocache. It’s not nearly as extensive of treasure hunting as young Lara Croft does, but there are oftentimes little traces of puzzle solving thrown in for added effect.

Here’s Groundspeak CEO Jeremy Irish explaining why the two properties are a perfect fit:

“TOMB RAIDER is all about exploration and discovery. It inspires the adventurer in all of us, much like geocaching does, and we are excited about the opportunities that this project presents for both geocachers and TOMB RAIDER fans worldwide.”

The goal of this Geocaching/Tomb Raider collaboration is for fans to find items hidden by Crystal Dynamics using the mobile app, or even Geocaching’s newest addition, Challenges, which are photo based. Beyond the announcement of this collaboration, though, we don’t have much in the way of information. Obviously keep checking Geocaching.com regularly to see what treasures Crystal Dynamics will be hiding, but expect the game to kick off a little closer to Tomb Raider’s launch.

How do you feel about this cross promotion between Tomb Raider and Geocaching? Would you like to see more games incorporate finding real world items into a Meta game?

Tomb Raider is slated for a Q3 2012 release on the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.