Studio CEO Cevat Yerli reveals company has plans for possible free-to-play/retail hybrid; next Crysis won't be called Crysis 4.
Crysis 3 is not yet out the door, but that is not keeping Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli from opening up on the franchise's future. Speaking to Eurogamer, Yerli revealed that the company has "radical" plans for the series, which includes development of a free-to-play Crysis and a Crysis 3 sequel that will not be called Crysis 4.
"It's the end of the story of Crysis, but that doesn't mean it's the end of the franchise," Yerli said. "It's the end of Prophet's story. Prophet started the journey in Crysis 1 with Psycho and Jester and others, and we're bringing those buddies together in Crysis 3 to finish up the story and effectively make sense out of the trilogy. But obviously the DNA of Crysis and the franchise, we are very excited about it and we think there can be literally tons of titles out there within the franchise. Unlike Far Cry, this time around we feel very flexible about Crysis."
Asked outright if Crytek will make Crysis 4, Yerli said he would not call it that because doing so would insinuate that Prophet's story would move on, and this is not planned to be the case. Whatever the case, a Crysis 3 follow-up is not coming for some time.
"Because we want to make this something much more radical and new we are looking at it as a bit more of a long-term thing," Yerli said. "It's too early to talk about it for these reasons."
Crytek has been outspoken regarding its admiration for free-to-play games. The company is currently developing the free-to-play shooter Warface and has previously stated all of its upcoming games (after Crysis 3 and Homefront 2) will be free-to-play. This includes a new Crysis game that could be a retail/free-to-play hybrid.
"We do have a plan for a [free-to-play] version of Crysis, but how this looks and when this will be done, whether this is the next one or the other next one, is to be decided," he said. "But we have a very clear picture of how this will look and how a transitional period where retail and free-to-play can coexist for one title."
Crysis 3 is due out for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC during February 2013. For more, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
Wow, Crytek is towing the EA company line like a good fascist would.... Sorry crytek, ever since I had to call EA to get permission to install the original Crysis a 6th time (i own it on steam, should NOT have had to do that) you will NOT be getting another penny from me.... especially for a crummy pay to win game.
Just make a kick-ass game worth my $$$ and ill get it!
Simples!
Please dump the stupid Pay to Win mindset!
The only Free-to-Play type of game I would consider playing would have to use the same system as League of Legends, you're never forced to buy anything to enjoy the game and no advantages are given to paying players, only cosmetics.
1 Like So I guess no one is paying attention to what is happening to Zynga? Free to play is not the future nor is it a solution for anything.
Crysis series has always been very good games, I personally do not see why everyone is or either going or thinking about going to "Free-to-play and than charge you for progression. I personally will not be paying extra for any game(s) DLCs or charge you later suckers add-ons. Put the material into the game, make it longer, better and your fat pockets will follow.
When Crysis came out, people where saying it was made just to show off new graphics. A few years later, people are now saying it was an amazing game. What happened to this generation?!?!
hmmm need for speed already did it (bust) cant beat the paying cars, call of duty is doing it (bust), elder scrolls is doing it (!@?&%), now there doing it great (bust)
So they are planning to make a Crysis: Give Us All Your Money Edition? Not gonna happen Crytek. If 4 ain't coming, I ain't buying no more.
Crytek planning best way to get as much money from customers as possible for their once great game.
2 Like It sounds like free-to-play is another buzzphrase floated by industry hawks that are out of ideas for making good games. I remember when Onlive was first announced a few years ago and some people thought it would transform gaming as we know it. I always thought it was a flash in the pan that would eventually fizzle, which it did. It will be the same with free-to-play as well.
Gamers just want good games with engaging storylines, lengthy singleplayer campaigns and complimentary multiplayer. Is that so hard for developers to get?
@ddg4005 I remember a time where games involved more than making a person fork out as much money as they possibly could. As for onlive, well Sony just bought Gakai, so It's in the works and certainly not dying!!
This comment is on point. Giving games away for free is not growth solution. Making games people want to play, and that we can afford, is a growth strategy. Amen, "free-to-play" is just another buzzword that will go the way of all "revolutionary" buzzwords before it.
Maybe I'm just old school but I don't see how giving away a game and then charging additional fees to unlock content already in the game is a good thing. What it does give these greedy developers is control over how you access content. They want to make their nut coming and going.
I'm old school, too, and it is about controlling access to content so they can nickel-and-dime you for every little interaction with their games. New pricing and distribution models will not make a crappy game profitable. First and foremost, the game has to be good. It has to be something someone wants to play. They are doing the same thing over in comics. Moving towards giving it away for free digitally and claiming this is the "Future" instead of just admitting there are a lot of creators (newbies and old guard) putting expensive, inaccessible crap comics.
There's a ton of potential when it comes to cloud gaming, online gaming, etc. But not of it is being done in the service of enhancing the gameplay experience. All of the energy is being focused on how can we stroke people for money or get something to market that doesn't deserve to be there because no one will pay for it.
We've taken a BIG step backwards when we've convinced ourselves that you can pay money to create content, give it away for free, and then hope that people will pay you for it after the fact. Oh, wait-a-minit, I just described Facebook.
@ddg4005 OnLive was just ahead of its time. The future is cloud computing when the internet infrastructure gets built up more.
1 Like I have to disagree. Gaming on remote servers might sound as though it's the future of gaming but nothing beats having content locally installed on your computer (or console).
Good point but I wouldn't hold my breath for this becoming reality even in the distant future. Greed is a mutha and game sales are already declining because of recycled garbage and bad ideas that don't pan out.
3 Like @ddg4005 @mlcarter815 ...until we have an online system that is practically bulletproof and lightning fast for everyone everywhere around the world.
you're both right... until the infrastructure is setup, and this is practically a sci-fi expectation at the moment, it ain't gonna be the more convenient option. Look how long it took for Steam to go from the latest and most hated form of DRM to most embraced source of PC gaming purchases?
If cloud is the future, and I could see it being possible, it's very distant.
1 Like It will be canned the instant warface (can't remember what they renamed it) fails hard, free 2 play only works for casual games, or games with insane established fanbases like Team Fortress 2, or dying MMO's. This is a bad idea
@singhellotaku Free to Play isn't the issue, it is just the way most places do it. Charging way too much for small things. TF2 also charges way too much but you can also get enough items for free so that helps balance it out.
indeed there will be crypoints as the emperor has foreseen.
since this is EA, expect:
nanosuit use limited to just armor. rest of abilities can only be rented for a limited time, including night vision and infra-red vision
weapons are only for rent and the mods cost extra money in addition to the weapons cost
more effective bullet types to paying users
generally expect a lot of pay to win a crytek's F2P
no thats not just me, its just EA.
Uh-Oh free to play......that usually means $hitty visuals and that micro transactions crap....*sigh*
I could barely play Crysis 2 because the story, pace and acting was so bad. It was F***ing Crap.
"Unlike Far Cry, this time around we feel very flexible about Crysis."
Wow . For this sentence that he said , Keven will put a bad review on this game .
I smell it like this .Cause he always put his eyes on a game that we put all our hop on it .
Damn, I knew that Crytek was intimately involved with EA, but not that they whored out this bad.
Sounds like none of you guys have played any recent or modern F2P games. Blacklight Retribution is far from Pay To Win
@NoodleFighter does Blacklight still rent out a large majority of guns and have an xp system that is excruciatingly slow requiring a temporary XP booster bonus to be purchased?
I tried it in beta and again just after release, and my impression of Blacklight was it leaned heavily towards Pay2Win or have-no-life-and-grind.
Has that changed?
10 Like FTP is a joke. Its all pay to win with that kind of marketing scheme. You still pay because nothing is free. I do not want to play a level and then have some shitty prompt box appear asking me to deposit $4 or something to play the next level. Call me old fashioned if you like but I still like my retail, physical game over any of this free/digital crud.
1 Like @Takeno456 Yup in a DVD box so we can *feel* the new game...... thats how we old schoolers like it....
@Takeno456 Any FTP game developed by Valve is Epic and Not a Pay-To-Win at all.......EA however :D......It wont be a pay to win.....it will be Pay-To-Make-Even-The-Slightest-Significance !!
if free to play plans start creeping into single-player games then i'm going to quit gaming and take up competitive whittling
I'm still on the fence on weather I should pre-order Crysis 3 or GTAV. After playing Crysis 2 on PS3 I was very impressed it's a very solid game with a great campaign. With EA announcing I get Crysis 1 free with a pre-order for Crysis 3 that makes me want it even more but on the other hand there's the big elephant in the room GRAND THEFT AUTO!!!! I love GTA and the open world sandbox genre in general but GTAIV was a major let down and if GTAV turns out to be anything like IV I'll be totally blown. AH I can't make up my mind.
10 Like A benchmark originally PC exclusive FPS now turned free to play like some cheesy korean MMO? That's the nail in the coffin for this franchise... Grim hopes for the gaming industry these days.
@Harrydapro No, I think it's good that the game is innovating, otherwise it will become another Call of Duty just reusing the same formula over and over.
1 Like @towny_ @Harrydapro it's already reusing the same formula over and over. there's nothing remotely original about the crysis series. the stealth gameplay is a joke so you basically just go about in a linear fashion killing bunches of people. the only difference is it's MUCH prettier and you get some powers.
9 Like The reason they love F2P is because they've learned that they can make so much more $ if they never stop charging people for their games content.
.
Between Real money paid for ingame boosters and ingame currency and ingame weapons + upgrades and map packs your average free 2 play game costs the people who pay into them so much more then the average one time payment for the full game would why wouldn't they want a piece of that pie?
.
It's almost a joke to call them F2P they are only free if you believe your time is worth nothing and are willing to put obscene amount of time into them as if you don't pay they throw up massive time gates in front of all their content.
.
Its a sad trend of gaming to see arise this love of nickle and diming the content of games instead of releasing full content quality games for a one time price
.
Not all of them do it but a fair bit do so I am always leery of game devs that say they are going the F2P model.
.
I mean honestly do you think EA would be all over the F2P model for the future if they thought they were going to make LESS money off it?
still dont get the fuss of F2P it costs about $60-80 to unlock everything any way which is more or less the price of a game it self, in aussie land
@MfKiNg360 A good free to play game like tribes ascend will allow you to unlock the content through play albeit quite slowly but still offer you the chance to buy stuff.
@MfKiNg360 @i-like-me with the exception that Tribes provides a fairly level playing ground even if you've just logged in for your first play. Few games even with retail price tags allow for pre-unlocked semi-equality based on skill in multiplay these days.
It's possible to be useful and kill, with regularity, fully unlocked elite class players with the starting class/weapon if you're any good at FPSing.
Of course the reason for Tribes being good is their real business model. They didn't make it primarily F2P... they put their effort into making it a genuinely competitive title for use with clans and esports.
They succeeded.
@MfKiNg360 You're somewhat wrong there; it doesn't cost $60-80 to unlock everythig in your average F2P game, it costs considerably more (think 100s).
Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli reveals all upcoming projects from studio will consist of AAA free-to-play games, says DLC and premium services "milking customers to death."
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