Crytek’s free-to-play Warface shooter goes live in North America next week

Crytek is finally launching its free-to-play online shooter Warface in North America.

The developer will open the game to everyone on Oct. 21. It’s a modern-military first-person shooter that runs on the company’s renown CryEngine. Crytek is positioning it as triple-A despite its free status.

“We decided five or six years ago that we want to marry the quality of triple-A games with the business model of free-to-play,” Crytek chief executive Cevat Yerli told GamesBeat in February. “Our primary goal is to make triple-A free-to-play games for the world market and transition entirely to that.”

http://youtu.be/EZtza95aQyc

Warface is already live in South Korea, Taiwan, Russia, and other international markets. Earlier this year, Crytek worked with Defiance publisher Trion Worlds on a beta for the North American territories. Crytek intended to work with Trion and have the company operate Warface in the West, but that deal fell through.

Crytek is now publishing Warface itself.

While it is making bold strides into free-to-play, Crytek is probably still best known for its Crysis series of first-person shooters. The first Crysis pushed the boundaries of PC hardware when it debuted in 2006. The company most recently released Crysis 3 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It is currently working on Ryse: Son of Rome, which will debut alongside the Xbox One on Nov. 22.