Tomb Raider: Underworld creative director speaks out on his layoff, DLC rumors

Now-former creative director of the Tomb Raider franchise at Crystal Dynamics, Eric Lindstrom, has broken his silence about recent layoffs at the developer -- including his own -- and rumors that the upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive DLC for the game was "held back" from the final release for profit's sake.

Posting on the site Tomb Raider Forums, Lindstrom says that he was let go as the result of there being "too many captains for the number of ships" at the studio, suggesting that the new, leaner Crystal Dynamics won't be working on multiple concurrent projects. Linden likened the layoffs to "musical chairs," saying that, "when the music stopped all the seats were taken."

Lindstrom also used his new "free agent" status to dispel rumors about the 360's two additional, downloadable missions, which are coming soon to XBLM. "We had a production issue that was going to make us miss our ship date," he wrote, revealing that, "It was my idea to cut what was cut, and I did hope that it would one day be made available as a download mission ... but on the day we made the cut, it was made purely for Underworld production reasons."