I had called Darksiders to be one of the hottest commodities available during the great THQ auction which occurred last month, and I predicted it to fly off the shelf at a high price. However, I must have been the only one, considering how Vigil Games was shelved and the IP was scrapped for financing.
It appears Crytek, the creator of many high end shooters such as the Crysis series, was also not interested in the series. Despite hiring many of Vigil's ex-employees to run their newly branded Crytek USA, including its former chief David Adams to run the show, an action adventure game in the fashion of hat Vigil is originally famous for simply doesn't fit their strategy.
In an interview with GamesBeat, CEO Cevat Yerli explained his stance on the series and how he intends to use his new studio.
"We didn't want to continue with Darksiders 3, since that doesn't fit with our strategy. It's not like we set the team on a specific game concept. They're actually going to work on what David and the team identifies as what they want to do.
"Right now, they just know what the strategy of Crytek is and the framework we need to satisfy, but none of that drives what the game is about."
I wouldn't call this surprising, however. Yerli has made it loud and clear that Cryek's future lies in free-to-play shooters, and they plan on focusing on them 100 percent once they wrap up all their current contracts.
Darksiders, a bastion of excellent single player gameplay in an ever growing multiplayer world, would not be a game that opens itself up to a free-to-play model.
Crytek Kiev's high anticipated first foray into free-to-play shooters, Warface, has been a success in Russia for quite some time, and it just entered its closed beta testing at the end of January. Should it be a success, then it is a model Crytek will attempt to combine their expertise in AAA limit pushing graphics.
