Talking to Videogamer about their free-to-play shooter Warface, Crytek boss Cevat Yerli says they're planning to leave retail behind entirely.
"Right now," he says, "we are in the transitional phase of our company, transitioning from packaged goods games into an entirely free-to-play experience.
"What this entails is that our future, all the new games that we're working on, as well new projects, new platforms and technologies, are designed around free-to-play and online, with the highest quality development."
By 'new', it's a safe bet he's referring to unannounced projects: Crysis 3 is still a full price retail game. But this does mean that if there are any future Crysis games, they'd be online and free-to-play. The multiplayer has never really been the appeal, so if the series continues at all, it'll be a big change.
At E3, games general manager Nick Button-Brown told Gamasutra that "the key to us is that it's not pay-to-win". To Videogamer, Cevat stressed their production values, with a phrase that made all of PC Gamer wince:
"As is evident in Warface, our approach is to ensure the best quality, console game quality..."
We put up my Crysis 3 preview at the weekend. I think it's going to be gorgeous to explore, but it doesn't seem like it's going to capture the open-endedness of the first game.
