Crytek, the renowned game development studio behind the iconic Crysis series and Hunt: Showdown, has announced a significant restructuring that includes laying off 60 of its approximately 400 employees. This decision comes in response to challenging market conditions and the need to maintain financial sustainability.

In a recent tweet, Crytek acknowledged the growth of Hunt: Showdown but stated that the company could not "continue as before and remain financially sustainable." Despite efforts to shift resources and reduce operating costs, the layoffs became "inevitable," impacting 15% of its workforce. The layoffs span across Crytek's development teams and shared services, with the company committing to providing severance packages to affected employees.

Crytek founder Avni Yerli shared the following statement:

Like so many of our peers, we aren’t immune to the complex, unfavorable market dynamics that have hit our industry these past several years. It pains me greatly to share today that we must lay off an estimated 15% of our around 400 employees. The layoffs affect development teams and shared services.

This has not been an easy decision to make, as we deeply appreciate the hard work of our talented teams. After putting the development of the next Crysis game on hold in Q3 2024, we have been trying to shift developers over to Hunt: Showdown 1896.

While Hunt: Showdown 1896 is still growing, Crytek cannot continue as before and remain financially sustainable. Even after ongoing efforts to reduce costs and cut operating expenses, we have determined that layoffs are inevitable to move forward. Crytek will offer affected employees severance packages and career assistance services.

We firmly believe in the future of Crytek. With Hunt: Showdown 1896, we have a very strong gaming service and remain fully committed to its operation. We will continue to expand and evolve Hunt: Showdown 1896 with great content and drive our strategy for our engine CRYENGINE.

Last year, it was revealed that Crytek had been working on a battle royale-inspired project codenamed Crysis Next. Early gameplay footage surfaced on YouTube, showcasing third-person shooting in a basic warm-up arena with the series' signature abilities and sound effects. However, Crysis Next was never officially announced and was ultimately canceled in favor of Crysis 4, which was announced in January 2022.

The Crysis series is celebrated for its first-person sci-fi shooter gameplay, stunning visuals, and innovative nanosuit powers. The original Crysis, released in 2007, became a benchmark for PC performance due to its high system requirements, leading to the popular phrase, "But can it run Crysis?" which became a standard for evaluating PC specs.

The most recent mainline entry, Crysis 3, was released in February 2013. While Crytek has released remasters of the original games in recent years, fans have been eagerly awaiting updates on Crysis 4 since its announcement and teaser three years ago.