Crytek believes free-to-play games are the future, and its modern-military shooter Warface is its first major attempt to make that model work on a large scale. Warface is already popular in places such as Russia, China, South Korea, but it’s future in Western territories is less certain.
Publisher Trion Worlds was going to operate the game in North America and Europe, but Warface is no longer listed on Trion’s website. This comes after the two companies finished a closed beta for Warface on April 9.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":765350,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"D"}']“Crytek is not commenting on the status of its relationship with Trion at this time,” a Crytek spokesperson told GamesBeat. “We continue in our plans to bring Warface to players in Europe and North America. We remain hard at work on the game, and are setting up the infrastructure required to make Warface the best it can be ahead of its full release. We look forward to bringing the game to players again as soon as possible.
Trion Worlds did not respond to our requests for a comment.
On May 16, Crytek revealed a partnership with Nexon to publish Warface in Japan. Nexon was already overseeing it in South Korea.
On May 17, Trion cut staff as it transitioned from development to maintenance for its online shooter Defiance. At that time, it claimed that it didn’t make any changes to its in-development titles due to the layoffs, but it did not mention Warface or its publishing efforts.
In fact, both Crytek and Trion are giving North American and European gamers the silent treatment when it comes to Warface — and fans are losing their patience. Crytek hasn’t updated the Warface news page on its Gface gaming network since announcing the end of the last closed beta in April. That post has over 2,000 comments from players asking for more information about the title’s release.
“We don‘t even know what the status of Warface and the Crytek-Trion contract is,” Gface user Gen.Voronin wrote on the Warface news page. “Warface is no longer listed on Trion‘s website, but we haven‘t been told anything so we‘re left to sit around and keep playing the guessing game.”
Other fans are posting links to competing free-to-play shooters like Blacklight: Retribution, Planetside 2, and Battlefield Play4Free.
Now that Crytek is acknowledging that it is still working on the European and North American release, fans might breathe a little easier, but most Warface players probably won’t relax until they get a firm date for the official release or the open beta. Neither company is opening up about that.