Tomb Raider has been immortalized in film, comic books and even amusement park rides. Now, the long-running video game franchise — featuring the British archaeologist heroine Lara Croft — will be part of an unique location-based geocaching adventure.
Crystal Dynamics, publisher of the Tomb Raider titles, has partnered with Seattle-based Groundspeak, the leader in geocaching, to create a new set of real-world challenges and caches in advance of the upcoming release of the new Tomb Raider title.
That means everyone can turn themselves into a modern-day Lara Croft relic-hunter, seeking treasures that are hidden in caches throughout the world.
It’s a pretty cool idea, combining elements of a video game with a real-world experience such as geocaching. Groundspeak co-founder Bryan Roth tells GeekWire that the partnership is a “great fit” since both “involve exploration and adventure on a global scale.”
And, maybe, just maybe this could get some of those video game nerds off their couches and exploring in the real world.
The companies aren’t saying too much about the promotional campaign at this point, promising more details in the future. A blog post indicated that the Tomb Raider treasure hunt will include traditional geocache treasure hunts, as well as photo-based challenges.
Groundspeak, which last year moved into a massive new headquarters in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, is a hidden success story. Founded as a hobby 11 years ago by Roth, Elias Alvord and Jeremy Irish, the company has grown to a worldwide community of five million GPS-wielding treasure hunters. There are currently more than 1.5 million geocaches — small containers hidden everywhere from forest land to the ocean floor to the Great Wall of China– spread all over the planet. (There’s even one on the international space station).
Groundspeak’s Jeremy Irish was our guest on the GeekWire podcast last September, explaining in great detail the phenomenon that is geocaching.
Here’s a closer look at how Geocaching works.
