Blaze Entertainment’s new Chairman reunites with Lara Croft ahead of Evercade summer release – MCV/DEVELOP

Blaze Entertainment has announced that games industry veteran Dominic Wheatley has been appointed as its new Chairman. The announcement comes as the retro-focused Evercade platform reaches a milestone of selling over 1 million cartridges and prepares to launch a new Tomb Raider bundle pack over the summer.

Dominic Wheatley brings a wealth of experience to the role, with a long history in the games industry dating back to 1984 when he co-founded what would later become Eidos Interactive. He left the company in 1997 having successfully launched the iconic Tomb Raider, which quickly went on to sell more than 7 million copies on the fledgling Sony PlayStation.

Blaze Entertainment CEO Andrew Byatt commented: “With a Tomb Raider pack coming out on the Evercade platform it seemed serendipitous that we should have the opportunity to get Dominic involved. His insight and contacts are just what we could use to take the business to the next level and his enthusiasm for our platform will hopefully spread by osmosis.”

“When I was introduced to the Blaze team and found what they had created I was so impressed” added Wheatley. “The design and power of the hardware and the slate of games they had managed to licence was awesome. I got down on my knees and began to pray. When they asked me to join them I was like ‘Hell yeah!’”

On being reunited with Lara Croft, Wheatley joked “I can’t shake that girl off!”

Dominic Wheatley stepped down from his role as Catalis CEO last year and remains a non-executive director at the group.