Crytek layoffs put Crysis 4 development on hold

[Daniel Sims]

What just happened? Crytek is the latest company impacted by an ongoing wave of tech industry layoffs reminiscent of the financial crisis it endured a decade ago. Although the disruption won't affect content updates for the successful Hunt: Showdown 1896, the fate of Crysis 4 has been cast into doubt.

Crytek, best known for Crysis and Hunt: Showdown 1896, recently announced that it has laid off around 60 employees, or about 15 percent of its workforce. Furthermore, the company paused development on Crysis 4 sometime during the third quarter of last year.

The affected employees came from Crytek's development staff and shared services department. The decision followed other unspecified cost-cutting measures. The company has promised severance packages and job assistance services.

pic.twitter.com/zJzGroAIex

– Crytek (@Crytek) February 12, 2025

Crytek has shifted resources toward Hunt: Showdown 1896, which continues receiving rapid content updates. The multiplayer first-person shooter recently received a significant overhaul.

However, it has been the only fresh game in Crytek's wheelhouse since its initial launch in 2019. After releasing remasters of the three main Crysis games in 2020 and 2021, the company announced Crysis 4 in early 2022. Only a logo was revealed, indicating the sequel was still in early development, and no new information on the title has emerged in the three years since.

Although the original Far Cry in 2004 put Crytek on the map, the first Crysis game in 2007 made the company infamous for pushing the technological envelope. With graphics that crushed even the most expensive PCs and stood head and shoulders above the rest of that year's star-studded lineup, the jungle-themed FPS still maintains a memetic status.

Our 2020 analysis of the game shed new light on the arguably unreasonable tasks it demanded from CPUs and GPUs. Crytek recently told PC Gamer that it deliberately optimized the highest graphics settings for PCs predicted to exist three years after launch. They probably shouldn't have been surprised when players immediately tried playing it on ultra settings.

While still technologically forward-looking, Crysis 2 and Crysis 3 made compromises to accommodate the then-aging PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and didn't have quite the same impact as the original. Following the release of Crysis 3 and Ryse: Son of Rome in 2013, Crytek struggled to secure funding, leading to payment gaps and a significant loss of staff. Hunt: Showdown 1896 appears to be keeping Crytek afloat for now, but other projects like a new Crysis could bring some needed diversity to Germany's largest game studio.

Larger companies affected by layoffs over the past year include Sony, EA, Tesla, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, and Google.

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Crytek layoffs put Crysis 4 development on hold

 

[yRaz]

So I actually really like crysis 1 pre-aliens. What would be awesome is a modern remaster with updated textures, polygons, RT. But more importantly, give us more levels to play in. The first half of the game, before the mine, was great.

 

[RaXelliX]

So I actually really like crysis 1 pre-aliens. What would be awesome is a modern remaster with updated textures, polygons, RT. But more importantly, give us more levels to play in. The first half of the game, before the mine, was great.

They did a remaster but it was bad. Based on console code and over saturated colors.
Your experience with Crysis 1 closely resembles many people's experience with Far Cry 1 that was made in 2004 before Crysis by Crytek. There the first half of the game fighting humans was great but ironically there was also a cave you entered where you encountered...well not aliens, but not humans either. Many people said that's where the game got worse and levels got more linear. Personally I did not mind because those creatures in FC1 were still varied enough compared to Crysis where the aliens all looked and behaved roughly the same with blue lights and tentacles.

 

[yRaz]

They did a remaster but it was bad. Based on console code and over saturated colors.
Your experience with Crysis 1 closely resembles many people's experience with Far Cry 1 that was made in 2004 before Crysis by Crytek. There the first half of the game fighting humans was great but ironically there was also a cave you entered where you encountered...well not aliens, but not humans either. Many people said that's where the game got worse and levels got more linear. Personally I did not mind because those creatures in FC1 were still varied enough compared to Crysis where the aliens all looked and behaved roughly the same with blue lights and tentacles.

The C1 remaster was more like a re-release. And the reason that peopled liked the game pre aliens was that it was pretty. Once they covered the tropical paradise in ice it was no longer pretty.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

So I actually really like crysis 1 pre-aliens. What would be awesome is a modern remaster with updated textures, polygons, RT. But more importantly, give us more levels to play in. The first half of the game, before the mine, was great.

- Actually liked Crysis and Warhead post aliens more than pre-aliens. Beautiful games, but the enemy AI could see through the foliage, had hit scan weapons, and telepathy (so one guy sees you and everyone in the area immediately knows where you are). Didn't help that your super soldier was incredibly squishy

It made those early levels a real test of my patience.

The Alien levels were a better curated experience: they were more funneled, Alien beam weapons were dodgeable, you typically fought a reasonable number of enemies at a given time instead of some random enemy solider blob, etc. It felt more like a modern action forward experience rather than the tedious whack a mole experience of the human levels.

 

[AlexIL]

I didn’t play any remasters so far. Prefer them to give us new interesting games to play. Without last decade spineless writing and shoveling of what shouldn’t be in games.

 

[m3diapers]

Getting rid of DEI hires should boost development... unless, of course, everyone is a DEI hire.

 

[guillejp]

Unfortunately, this company is a walking corpse, has been for about a decade

 

[magoid]

The C1 remaster was more like a re-release. And the reason that peopled liked the game pre aliens was that it was pretty. Once they covered the tropical paradise in ice it was no longer pretty.

I disagree. The entire game is very good looking. But the aliens where annoying to fight and it did became more linear, that is why people tend to dislike the second half.

 

[yRaz]

I disagree. The entire game is very good looking. But the aliens where annoying to fight and it did became more linear, that is why people tend to dislike the second half.

The fighting sucked, but just because the graphics were good doesn't mean the art style was good. They didn't have an art style for when everything became frozen, they just covered palm trees in ice.

 

[magoid]

I think that there is more more to explore in the original setting of Crysis. We get to play with Psycho, but never got to play with Prophet in the Crysis 1 environment. Also, it would be interesting if a DLC appeared to play in the North Koreans hole with their version of the nanosuit. Another plot is the events between Crysis 1 and 2, where Nomad dies.

So I think there is plenty of stuff they can explore in the franchise. But the will is not there, unfortunately.

 

[Branch]

Speaking of enemies seeing through foliage, in FarCry 1 sneaking my way up to the first temple stairs in prone to test out the geometry occlusion. Got within 10 feet of a sentry merc before he spotted me.

"I see you mofo!"
lol

 

[user478318]

Guys, you all reveal Crysis 1 has aliens, it's kind of a spoiler for people that haven't played it. Also the series got killed when sequels where released with worse graphics than the original game and no destructible enviroments.