[13] The studio's first projects were Crash 'N Burn and Total Eclipse, which entered production simultaneously and were announced as launch titles for the upcoming 3DO in April 1993.

[18] In January 1994, Zelnick drafted plans for Star Interactive, which was to publish third-party games by outsourcing the management and distribution to Crystal Dynamics and the manufacturing to a third company.

[19][20] Crystal Dynamics was to receive annual payments of $1.5 million and 10% of Star Interactive's profit for the management role, plus 22.5% of its gross receipts for the distribution.

[21] In February, Zelnick announced his intent for Crystal Dynamics to, like a movie studio, produce games internally while also releasing titles from independent developers.

[3] It hired Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III of Toys for Bob, initially as contractors and later as employees, to release The Horde, which they had pitched to Canepa and Lange during their time at Sega.

[23] In March 1994, Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), which Zelnick had been consulting, agreed to handle marketing and distribution for Crystal Dynamics and Star Interactive outside North America.

[24] However, as Star Interactive failed to raise the targeted $30 million, the plan for this company was scrapped in early 1994 and Lange soon departed Crystal Dynamics.

[11][27] Zelnick had wanted to move away from the struggling 3DO for some time, and Cerny traveled to the headquarters of the PlayStation maker Sony in Tokyo on the company's behalf.

[11][13] Although PlayStation contracts were limited to companies in Japan at the time, Cerny spoke Japanese fluently and signed the agreement in that language, which was approved by Shuhei Yoshida.

[11] Around this time, Crystal Dynamics published Slam 'N Jam '95 and Blazing Dragons, while also was working with Canada-based Silicon Knights on Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain.

[11] By this point, many developers—including most of the Gex team and Enter the Gecko's lead designer, Daniel Arey—had left the company, with some of them joining Naughty Dog.

[11][39] Bruce Straley, a designer on Enter the Gecko, was offered the director role for the third game, but he chose to join his friends at Naughty Dog instead.

In a private settlement, the two companies agreed that Crystal Dynamics could use Blood Omen's characters as long as Silicon Knights was credited as their creator.

Eidos Interactive consequently assigned the series to Crystal Dynamics, with several staffers excited about the possibility of working on a large franchise they had played before.

[11] For Tomb Raider: Legend, the developers at Crystal Dynamics played through all previous games and read guides to gain a better understanding of their design.

Around this time, a team within the studio pitched a new intellectual property called Downfall, a post-apocalyptic, open-world game set in San Francisco.

[50][51] The Japanese video game company Square Enix subsequently offered to acquire Eidos plc, citing particular interest in the Tomb Raider franchise and the prospect of expanding its Western operations.

[55][56] Gallagher was later promoted to oversee all Square Enix studios in Europe and North America while retaining his role at Crystal Dynamics.

Over several years, the team discarded many concepts that would have drastically changed the core gameplay, before deciding on a modern, story-driven game with survival elements.

[60] The studio had pitched a single-player game akin to Tomb Raider that would see the player take control of the Avengers group of superheroes, switching between characters as the story progressed.

However, the studio found that playing one character at a time failed to capture the team dynamic of the Avengers, leading them to refocus the project on multiplayer gameplay.

[62] Later that year, Crystal Dynamics joined Gallagher's newer studio, The Initiative, in developing a reboot of the Perfect Dark series.

[11][63] Crystal Dynamics was initially to replace the departed Certain Affinity as a support studio but soon took over several unfilled lead roles as the game's development was restarted.

[65] In May 2022, Embracer Group announced it would acquire several games and studios, including Crystal Dynamics with its Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain series, from Square Enix for $300 million.

[67] Square Enix told investors it feared the studios would subsist off the revenue of the group's Japanese-made games, so their sale "could improve capital efficiency".

[68] Embracer Group expressed interest in continuing the studio's established franchises, including Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain, through sequels, remakes, and remasters.

[71] In September 2023, at a time when Embracer Group was implementing cost reduction measures, Crystal Dynamics laid off nine marketing personnel and one IT worker.

[73] Crystal Dynamics collaborated with Aspyr, another Embracer Group company, on two collections with remasters of Core Design's six Tomb Raider games.