Eidos has announced that the Xbox 360 version of Tomb Raider Underworld will feature two packs of exclusive downloadable content in the months after launch. After the game's release there will be an extension of the single player campaign called Beneath the Ashes, picking up at the end of the game and continuing the story. This is set for release in December, just one month after the game.

The second pack will allow players to play as a mysterious character named Lara’s Shadow. This could mean several different things, but I have a feeling "shadow" is being used as someone who follows another person and not in the "Shadow Link" sort of way. Then again, fighting a ghostly Lara Croft wouldn't be the craziest thing the series has done. The opening of the game does have you fighting a kraken, after all.

Originally I liked the idea of DLC, but this year developers seem to be going crazy about it. I don't know if developers working on content to be released a month after launch is such a cool idea, especially when that could and should have been on the disk. So far it hasn't been abused too much, but in the coming months we will definitely see developers true colors when it comes to downloadable content.

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