Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light hasn’t even been released yet, and already DLC is announced. Today, Crystal Dynamics let the cat out of the bag, and some pretty exciting details were included too. With an August 18th release date as part of Xbox Live’s Summer of Arcade, Guardian of  Light is the first downloadable Croft game ever. It also features the first time the franchise has offered two player offline co-op.

PlayStation 3 and Steam gamers will have to wait until September 28th for Guardian of Light to be available for their respective platforms. Full online support will be immediately available for both, and on that same day, 360 gamers will receive a free update giving them two player online co-op, full leaderboard support, and chat functionality.

Kicking off a massive campaign that doesn’t stop until the end of 2010, Crystal Dynamics said today that DLC stands for ‘Downloadable Lara Croft.’ Now, you’re probably thinking that with August and September releases that not a lot of extra content will be released for Guardian of Light. You’re wrong. From October until December, 5 packs will be released, with the first three being expansions. Those will feature all new puzzles, new areas to explore, and new baddies to combat. The final two packs will contain new playable characters so that gamers can experience the adventure without Lara or the other main character, Totec. Who will those other characters be? Well, that’s going to be a surprise. All that is said in the official press release is this: “and instead with some other well-known videogame characters…” It really is anybody’s guess.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is priced at 1200 Microsoft points, and $14.99 for PS3 and Steam players.