German developer Crytek closes two foreign studios. It repels the studio in Nottingham in England and the vast majority of the studio in Austin in America is fired. Crytek also sells the rights to Homefront to Deep Silver.
With the move, the company says it wants to become an online publisher, Crytek director Cevat Yerli said in a statement on the company’s website. The move follows a period in which rumors of an impending bankruptcy of Crytek were circulating. A month ago, the German studio contradicted it. Now the company is still intervening.
Crytek partially keeps the Austin studio afloat. The developers working at the studio are being evicted, but a small proportion of the employees charged with licensing the CryEngine will continue to work in Austin. The development of Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age, the coop action game the team worked on in Austin, is headed to Crytek’s headquarters in Frankfurt. Crytek established the US studio in early 2013. The team consisted of former employees of Vigil Games, the studio behind both Darksiders games. Vigil was killed as a result of THQ’s bankruptcy.
Crytek UK, the studio in Nottingham, is closing. The studio worked on Homefront: The Revolution, which is also marketed by Deep Silver in Germany. Crytek is now selling the rights to the Homefront series to Koch Media, Deep Silver’s parent company. Koch starts the new Deep Silver Dambuster Studios in Nottingham, which will take over the development of Homefront: The Revolution. Deep Silver also wants to hire the staff of the English studio once the acquisition of the rights has been completed. After the intervention, Crytek will still have a number of foreign branches. The German company has studios in Budapest, Istanbul, Kiev and Sofia. The studios in Shanghai and Seoul may be merged.
Video preview Homefront: The Revolution.