Crytek Absorbs Talent from Vigil Games to Make Crytek USA

Following the collapse of THQ, talent from all corners of the gaming industry have swooped in to scavenge the remains. With Ubisoft aquiring THQ Montreal and several other high profile projects and Koch snatching up the Metro and Saints Row franchises, it was a big surprise to see that no one seemed interesting in purchasing Vigil Games; a studio that honestly seems like one of the more promising studios under the THQ banner.

Directly following the auction, Vigil games was disbanded with much of the talent left to scour for new jobs. I found this to be especially depressing considering the success of the Darksiders IP; a game that was made famous for drawing inspiration from established franchises but in a wonderfully nuanced way. While Darksiders remains up for grabs, it is Crytek, a German development studio (responsible for the CryEngine tech and Crysis franchise) that has swooped in and saved the day for many members of the dead studio. Crytek will be opening a new studio (Crytek USA) in our very own stomping grounds of Austin Texas with key talent from Vigil Games (also based out of Austin) at the heart of the studio (David Adams, Co-Owner of Vigil Games will be leading the studio).

Crytek has been looking to expand their business and establish a presence in the United States since their engine started to take root on mainstream hardware. Not only has their Crysis franchise become a popular first person shooter on consoles and PCs alike, they have already begun to experiment with new Hardware like Microsoft's Kinect. Aside from recruiting talent from THQ, Crytek also took the opportunity to purchase the Homefront IP since they were in the middle of developing Homefront 2 for THQ when the financial crisis began.

As a fan of both Crytek and Vigil Games, I consider this to be fantastic news. Not only have many members of a talented team found new jobs but they have managed to remain part of an established team. It is a shame that Darksiders remains in limbo but the talent behind that series is now free to develop new and exciting projects. I'm not sure what to expect out of this new studio though. Cevat suggests that the team will be focused on Online, Triple A productions but that still seems pretty vague. I'm not super excited about Ryse, the first-person melee focused title for Kinect, but I would love to see this studio take a stab at something equally as fresh. An RPG perhaps? Or maybe a survival horror game that runs on CryEngine3!

What are your hopes for this new Crytek Studio and what do you want to see happen with the Darksiders IP?

[SOURCE: Gamasutra - Interview w/ Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli]