Crystal Dynamics, the company behind the all new Rise of the Tomb Raider have announced a very interesting collaboration with the streaming site Twitch to help bring all new interactive features into the hit franchise.
If you tune into watch one of your friends play Rise of the Tomb Raider via the Twitch app on your Xbox One you will get exclusive gifts for your own play through of the game, like expedition card packs, weapons and outfits. Likewise the more people you get to watch your stream of the game the more in-game credits you can acquire.
What’s more, players watching can also impact gameplay within the new ‘Expedition Mode’ by voting what they would like to see happen at specific points in the game. By voting between two different cards, whichever one receives the most votes will activate, potentially completely changing the gameplay experience for the player.
“Our fans are a committed die-hard community and we are always pushing innovative ways to help them share their experiences and be part of each other’s adventures,” said Scot Amos, Executive Producer on Rise of the Tomb Raider. “By partnering with Twitch we’ve created a unique interaction loop that rewards viewers who influence a streamer’s game real-time, and have simultaneously given streamers a new game play experience thanks to viewer-driven decisions!”
This is certainly a first for a console game and a very interesting way forward between streamer and community involvement. Do you think this is a good direction for the game industry to go, or will it lead to players getting punished just because they can’t get their friends to watch them play games all the time. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Here is a video explaining some of the features this Twitch functionality will add.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is out now for Xbox One.
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