1999–2004: CryEngine and Far Cry Crytek was founded by the
Turkish-German brothers
Cevat, Avni and Faruk Yerli in September 1999 in
Coburg, Germany. One of its first projects was a tech demo of a game called
X-Isle: Dinosaur Island, which showcased its 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 its
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. 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 its licensable game engine,
CryEngine, that was used for
X-Isle and
Far Cry. 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. In December 2004, Crytek and
ATI created a special cinematic
machinima 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". 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 its 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 PS3 and Xbox 360, 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. On 17 November 2008, Crytek opened an office in South Korea named Crytek, Ltd. 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. 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. In October 2009, CryEngine 3 became available in trade flow for game developers. In March 2010, CryEngine 3 was made compatible with
stereoscopic 3D technology. 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. After THQ filed for bankruptcy, Crytek acquired the
Homefront franchise from THQ entirely in January 2013. In February 2012, Crytek announced a new cloud based social gaming network called Gface. The service is designed to help users meet people and play multiplayer video games with friends. Crytek began researching a cloud gaming system in 2005 for
Crysis, but paused development in 2007. In April 2012, Crytek released the CryEngine 3.4 SDK which brought full DirectX 11 support to the CryEngine SDK. Crytek released
Crysis 3 in February 2013 and
Ryse: Son of Rome in November 2013 as an
Xbox One launch title. The PC version of
Ryse was released in October 2014. On 17 January 2013, Crytek officially opened an office in Istanbul, Turkey. On 28 January 2013, Crytek opened a new studio,
Crytek USA, in Austin, Texas, consisting primarily of former
Vigil Games employees.
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. Crytek announced the next iteration of the engine branded CRYENGINE V on 22 March 2016. On 20 December 2016, Crytek announced that its studios in Hungary, Bulgaria, South Korea, Turkey and China would be shut down. However, Crytek sold Crytek Black Sea to
Sega and
The Creative Assembly in March 2017 and stated to retained offices in Istanbul to operate
Warface in Turkey in 2018. In December 2017, Crytek announced a partnership with new
cryptocurrency CryCash for use in rewarding gamers and
esports betting; an
initial coin offering was planned that month. 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. Crytek released
Hunt: Showdown (utilising the fifth generation of the
CryEngine) in 2019–20. The company has also worked on three
virtual reality projects, namely
The Climb for the
Oculus Rift,
The Climb 2 for the
Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest 2, and
Robinson: The Journey for the
PlayStation VR,
Oculus Rift and
SteamVR.
Arena of Fate was cancelled after Crytek's restructuring which saw the game's developer Crytek Black Sea sold. 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. In 2021, the Creative Services team responsible for creating trailers won a Gold MUSE Award for The Dark Sight Trailer that promoted
Hunt: Showdown. On 26 January 2022 Crytek announced the fourth entry of the Crysis franchise, but the game was put on hold in 2025 followed by another
round of layoffs. == Subsidiaries ==