Crytek was founded by the Turkish-German brothers Cevat, Avni and Faruk Yerli in September 1999 in Coburg, Germany.[4] One of their first projects was a tech demo of a game called X-Isle: Dinosaur Island, which showcased their game engine technology that offered larger viewing distances than other game engines could at that time. They met with Nvidia during the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) where their tech demo caught the attention of Nvidia and various media groups. Crytek later signed on with Nvidia to distribute X-Isle as benchmarking software for Nvidia cards.[4]
Crytek's first major game project was Engalus, a first-person shooter with a cyberpunk theme and role-playing elements, which was first privately shown at E3 2000. The project first attracted publicity for the company at the 2000 ECTS with their tech demo at the Nvidia booth, but was subsequently cancelled.[5] Crytek was approached by Ubisoft to develop X-Isle into a full AAA game. This evolved into Far Cry, which was released in March 2004. Concurrently, Crytek announced their licensable game engine, CryEngine, that was used for X-Isle and Far Cry.[4]
In February 2004, German police carried out a morning raid on Crytek offices, acting on an ex-intern's claim that Crytek was using software illegally. The police investigated for software copies greater than licences purchased, but no charges were pressed.[6] That same month, Crytek and Electronic Arts (EA) announced a strategic partnership to develop a new gaming franchise based on the CryEngine, which would eventually be the Crysis series. Crytek chose this path to highlight that the CryEngine was not limited to just what Far Cry had shown.[4] Due to this partnership, Ubisoft acquired the full rights to the Far Cry franchise by 2006 as well as a perpetual licence to the first CryEngine, which they have since adapted into their own Dunia Engine.[7] In December 2004, Crytek and ATI created a special cinematic machinima[8] to demonstrate the future of PC gaming.
2004–2014: Company expansion, CryEngine 2 and 3, and later games
In January 2006, Crytek announced the development of Crysis, promising that it would be an original first-person shooter with a new kind of gameplay challenge requiring "adaptive tactics".[9] The game later won several Best PC Game awards from E3 and Games Convention. In April 2006, Crytek moved to new offices in Frankfurt. The first public demonstration of Crytek's CryEngine 2 was in January 2007, one year after Crysis was announced. It has been licensed by many companies such as Avatar Reality, WeMade Entertainment, Entropia Universe, XLGames, Reloaded Studios.
On 11 May 2006, Crytek announced that their satellite studio in Kyiv, Ukraine, had been upgraded to a full development studio, giving the company its second development studio. About a week after the upgrade of the Kyiv studio, Crytek announced a new studio in Budapest, Hungary.
Crysis was released in November 2007. In September 2008, an expansion to Crysis entitled Crysis Warhead was released as a PC-exclusive game. In October 2011, Crysis was released on some consoles, allowing play of the original game via Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network.
On 14 July 2008, Crytek bought Black Sea Studios and renamed it to Crytek Black Sea.[10] On 17 November 2008, Crytek opened an office in South Korea named Crytek, Ltd.[11] On 3 February 2009, Crytek purchased Free Radical Design, a British video game company known for the TimeSplitters series, and renamed the company to Crytek UK.[12]
In March 2009, Crytek announced on the company's website that it would introduce CryEngine 3 at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. This new engine was developed for use on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PCs.[13] In October 2009, CryEngine 3 became available in trade flow for game developers.[14] In March 2010, CryEngine 3 was made compatible with stereoscopic 3D technology.[15] Crytek released Crysis 2, a direct sequel to the original game, in March 2011.
At E3 2011, Crytek exhibited several new projects, including the action game Ryse: Son of Rome. In September 2011, THQ and Crytek announced a partnership to develop Homefront 2.[16] After THQ filed for bankruptcy, Crytek acquired the Homefront franchise from THQ entirely in January 2013.[17] In February 2012, Crytek announced a new cloud based social gaming network called Gface.[18] The service is designed to help users meet people and play multiplayer video games with friends.[19] Crytek began researching a cloud gaming system in 2005 for Crysis, but paused development in 2007.[20][21]
In April 2012, Crytek released the CryEngine 3.4 SDK which brought full DirectX 11 support to the CryEngine SDK.[22] Crytek released Crysis 3 in February 2013[23] and Ryse: Son of Rome in November 2013 as an Xbox One launch title.[24] The PC version of Ryse was released in October 2014.[25]
On 17 January 2013, Crytek officially opened an office in Istanbul, Turkey.[26] On 28 January 2013, Crytek opened a new studio, Crytek USA, in Austin, Texas, consisting primarily of former Vigil Games employees.[27]
Since 2014: Restructuring, new leadership, CryEngine V, and latest games
In June 2014, reports surfaced that Crytek had missed wage payments and withheld bonuses for Crytek UK and Crytek USA employees, and the company responded that it was in a "transitional phase" as it secured capital for future projects, with a particular emphasis on online gaming. In July 2014, Crytek announced a strategic deal where the rights to Homefront including Homefront: The Revolution and the Crytek UK staff were transferred to Koch Media. The team continued its work on the game as the new Deep Silver Dambuster Studios. Crytek USA was restructured to remain an engine support team while development of Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age was transferred to Crytek.
On 20 December 2016, Crytek announced that their studios in Hungary, Bulgaria, South Korea and China would be shut down.[28] On 7 March 2017, Crytek sold Crytek Black Sea to Sega and The Creative Assembly.[29] On 28 February 2018, Crytek announced that Cevat Yerli was stepping down as chief executive officer (CEO) of Crytek, with his brothers, Avni and Faruk Yerli, taking over the company's leadership as joint CEOs. Cevat continues to support the company as an advisor and major shareholder.[30] Crytek announced the next iteration of the engine branded CRYENGINE V on March 22, 2016.[31]
In July 2021, German tabloid BILD reported that the Chinese Internet company Tencent was attempting to buy Crytek for over €300 million via a European subsidiary.[32]
In 2021, the Creative Services team responsible for creating trailers, won a Gold MUSE Award for The Dark Sight Trailer that promoted Hunt: Showdown.[33]
On January 26, 2022, Crytek announced the 4th instalment of the Crysis franchise.[34]
