Lara Croft Go was developed by Square Enix Montreal, a studio that was founded to develop a triple-A Hitman game but was repurposed to create mobile games for the West. All of the staff left besides technical director Antoine Routon and game director Daniel Lutz, and after a month of ideation, Lutz convinced Routon to work on a turn-based Hitman game, which became Hitman Go, and released to what the developers considered a positive response. The quick, turn-based puzzle concept itself came from a focus on short sessions while keeping the bespoke series visual aesthetic, like an "elegant board game", through many rounds of iteration.