Far Cry developer focusing on PC exclusivity
Having recently signed an exclusive development deal with multi-platform publisher Electronic Arts, German developer Crytek has made some rather surprising comments regarding the focus for its latest game.
Having recently signed an exclusive development deal with multi-platform publisher Electronic Arts, German developer Crytek has made some rather surprising comments regarding the focus for its latest game.
In a recent interview with Computerandvideogames.com, Crytek president and CEO Cevat Yerli dismissed the idea of developing its latest FPS title on next-generation consoles - stating that the company wishes to keep its attention focused on the PC market.
"It crossed our minds, but we're sticking with PC," Yerli stated. "One thing about our company is that we want to focus, we don't want to do multiple things, we want to do one thing and do it well. PC is our focus right now, we were born there and we want to showcase what we can do there, before we made any move onto consoles."
The company's obvious talents were initially highlighted with the 2004 release of Far Cry, which was published by Ubisoft and swiftly converted to Xbox. The award-winning title was praised for its technical and visual excellence, and will soon be appearing on the next-generation Xbox 360 console.
Industry powerhouse Electronic Arts quickly swooped in and tied the developer into an exclusive agreement, the first fruits of that partnership being Crysis, which promises "a new kind of gameplay challenge requiring adaptive tactics and customization of weapons and armour in dynamic, hostile environments."
The game will use the latest version of Crytek's proprietary CryENGINE 2, which would appear to be a perfect fit for Microsoft and Sony's next-generation consoles, and would certainly extend the potential audience for the game by a considerable margin.
Whilst Crytek's intention to focus their attention on developing for a single format is in some respects quite admirable, EA's penchant for maximising market reach and revenue by releasing games on every available format makes it unlikely that the ambitious title will remain a PC exclusive for very long.
Crysis is currently scheduled for a Q1 2007 release.