Sam from Gadgets And Khajiits investigates what's behind Crytek UK's financial troubles.
Timesplitters has always been considered a wonderful oddity in the industry. Nothing compares to the series' wacky antics and insane multiplayer action. Unfortunately despite critical success and a rabid fan base the franchise is struggling against modern forces threatening its very existence.
Triad Gamer takes a look at the Timesplitters series and investigates why after 9 years the franchise is still waiting on a 4th iteration.
Crytek retains the rights to the TimeSplitters intellectual property following the publisher's sale of the Homefront franchise to Deep Silver, a representative for Deep Silver confirmed to Polygon this week.
"The TimeSplitters IP did not come with the deal — it was only for the Homefront IP," the Deep Silver spokesperson said.
They've already said many times that they have no interest in reviving the TimeSplitters franchise, so why even keep it?
I'd be interested in seeing where they've said they have "no interest" in reviving it. I did a quick Google search, but nothing comprehensive.
I recall hearing about the team's excitement and passion for the franchise and a desire to create another game multiple times, and even remember them putting out some kind of social media campaign to gauge consumer interest-- sounds a lot more like a lack of funding and demographic than "no interest."
They said the TimeSplitters series wasn't popular enough for them to revive the series. Yeah, the developers were fans of the series, but they were never going to actually make a game.
VB:
"Crytek just sold the rights to Homefront to Saints Row publisher Deep Silver, and the company is also enacting some major restructuring.
The Crysis and Ryse: Son of Rome developer is closing its U.K. studio and cutting jobs from its U.S. team in Austin, Texas. Much of the talent from Crytek U.K. will join Deep Silver’s new studio in England to continue working on Homefront: The Revolution. The Austin wing of the company will remain open to operate as a support team for North American developers that license the studio’s CryEngine development toolkit, but development of co-op thriller Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age will move from Austin to Crytek’s Frankfurt team. This news comes after months of rumors that the developers was missing payroll payments to its employees."
A shame, really.
But let's face it: Crytek is dead. There's not a chance in hell that they can recover from this.
Why not? They have what six or seven offices/studios left?
I'm no Crytek fan but I would say they are far from over and have the chance to restructure multiple times before they sell out completely (Assuming no one makes them an offer that's worth taking before they are truly out of money).
Crytek in Bulgaria is making Arena of Fate so I don't know how there is only "One true dev department left"
i feel bad for the people working on homefront. Its been jumping around like crazy lol to cryteck, and now deepsilver. Starting from THQ
I understand why they wanted to keep it, but if the price was right it would have been sold Day 1 without a second thought if I were in charge.
But at the same time when you're an artist it's kind of hard to let your work go.
But back to the real world of business, who else wants Ryse as an IP besides MS? Nobody, so why not go ahead and work with them on a real exclusive. Do like Epic did with Gears of War. 3 game deal, and then sale off the IP.
A lo of people wouldn't have lost jobs if they would have sold it to MSFT. They could have save some of their former employees a ton of heart ache and financial woes if they sold the IP instead if making them suffer. I don't respect them for that reason alone.
I hope to see a Ryse sequel on day, I still enjoy playing it and though it was a cool regardless of popular opinion. Other than that, I agree with you...I would have sold it day one.
Whatever the problem is, another Homefront game won't be the solution. Investing a significant amount of money on a Homefront game is something a poorly run company does. RIP.