Crysis “on hold” as Crytek Lays Off 15% of its Staff and Focuses on Hunt: Showdown 1886 – WGB

Developer Crytek has immediately introduced that the long-awaited Crysis 4 has been put “on maintain” because it lays off roughly 60 employees members. Crysis 4 was introduced again in January of 2022, virtually a decade after Crysis 3 was launched.

The announcement was made through the corporate’s X web page the place it claimed that Crytek was not resistant to “complicated, unfavourable market dynamics.”

“It pains us vastly to share immediately that we should lay off an estimated 15% of our round 400 workers,” says the publish. “The layoffs have an effect on growth groups and shared providers. This has not been a straightforward resolution to make, as we deeply recognize the laborious work of our proficient groups.”

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— Crytek (@Crytek) February 12, 2025

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I used to be really fairly shocked to study that Crytek was using so many individuals.

In accordance with Crytek, they’ve been engaged on “attempting to shift builders over to Hunt: Showdown 1896.”

“Whereas Hunt: Showdown 1896 continues to be rising, Crytek can not proceed as earlier than and stay financially sustainable,” continues the assertion. “Even after ongoing efforts to cut back prices and lower working bills, we’ve got decided that lays are inevitable to maneuver ahead.”

Crytek are promising to assist affected workers with severance packages and profession help providers.

Crytek appears to be focusing closely on Hunt: Showdown 1896 because it seems to be the one factor at present supporting your entire studio and its now 340 workers. The corporate states that it nonetheless “firmly believes in the way forward for Crytek” and that “With Hunt: Showdown 1896, we’ve got a really robust gaming service.” They are saying they intend on increasing the sport additional with extra content material.

To place the sport into extra context, Hunt: Showdown 1896 has benefited from a small resurgence since December of 2024 when Put up Malone’s Homicide Circus was added. Since then the sport has consistently been bringing in 20,000 concurrent players on Steam every day.

Whereas these numbers are good, I do discover it laborious to imagine it’s sufficient to proceed supporting Crytek’s worker rely. Arrowhead Recreation Studios, who constructed and run Helldivers 2, for instance, has around 100+ employees and far greater participant counts. Having mentioned that, Helldivers 2 is one thing of an uncommon case.

To Crytek’s credit score, Hunt: Showdown 1896 has continued on a sluggish, regular upward trajectory since releasing in 2019 the place it sometimes solely noticed participant counts within the low hundreds. Wanting on the charts, it seems to have hit its stride in 2021, and even managed to hit 60,000+ concurrent gamers in August of 2024. Since 2021 although, the general development has remained roughly static. If that’s the case, will the sport ever develop sufficient to let Crytek do the rest, or will they now be caught engaged on Hunt: Showdown for the foreseeable future, unable to develop sufficient to provide them area to work on different tasks?

If there’s any excellent news it’s that Crysis 4 has not be cancelled. The wording “on maintain’ supplies not less than some small hope that the sport may nonetheless be revived and are available to market.