Crytek Forms Crytek USA

Earlier today Crysis and Far Cry 1 developer Crytek announced the creation of their first North American studio Crytek USA, which is to be based in Austin, Texas. Alongside the announcement of the studio, Crytek also named Vigil Games co-founder David Adams as the Crytek USA head.

The second the announcement broke speculation ran rampant that Crytek USA would be that second chance the Darksiders developer had been hoping for after they were not purchased as part of the recent auction of THQ studios and IPs. When asked if Crytek USA was essentially Vigil 2.0, Jens Schafer responded by saying it was "more like a new start."

However, when asked about the 35 developers that were said to make up Crytek USA IGN received confirmation that those 35 members were all former Vigil Games employees. So, in essence, this is a rebirth for Vigil Games.

What is unclear from the news is how many Vigil Games employees were left when THQ went bankrupt — basically whether or not all former Vigil employees found a home at Crytek. Reports suggest the 35 were just the core team at Vigil, and if any additional information comes to light we'll be sure to update this post.

As well we're curious to know if Crytek USA now owns the rights to publish 'Crawler,' the project that Vigil had begun early development on after finishing Darksiders 2. Jason Rubin, who took over THQ as CEO last year, said that 'Crawler' was a jaw-dropper, which made talk of Vigil closing down that much more disappointing.

Last we had heard THQ was still slated to auction of the rights to that IP, as well as many of their legacy IPs like Homeworld and Test Drive, so hopefully those questions will be cleared up soon.

Either way it's comforting to hear that many of the Vigil Games employees that were seemingly left out in the cold have been tossed a nice lifeline. Moreover we're excited to see what Crytek USA can cook up using CryEngine 3.

Are you happy to hear many Vigil Games members have found a new home? What would you like to see from Crytek USA?

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Source: IGN

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