Crytek to Open Local Gaming Studio

After an unpleasant week for the local gaming industry (e.g., Vigil's closure), this week is looking up with the announcement that Crytek opened its first American office today here in Austin. They've tapped former Vigil co-owner David Adams to be the CEO of Crytek USA Corp., which kinda sounds like a supervillain organization, but we're cool with that.

Other prominent members of the Vigil team will also be making the transition to Crytek Austin's 35-member team according to the company's press release.

Recent events involving Crytek and Vigil make for scattered dots that don't quite connect. The international Crytek corporation was already working on Homefront 2 when THQ imploded and was forced to auction off the publishing rights to its intellectual property. Crytek acquired the game in that auction and will now (barring any other studio catastrophe) release the game without the THQ name on the box. That purchase along with Crytek's Vigil-heavy new Austin office seems like a strange coincidence. The timing is also eyebrow raising: Vigil's closure was announced only this past Wednesday when the studio wasn't purchased in the THQ auction. How Crytek managed to snap up Vigil's higher-ups and start a studio in five days doesn't seem plausible without some preplanning.

UPDATE: As reported on Polygon's site, THQ president Josh Rubin tweeted that Vigil's Darksiders series (along with the rights to a third installment) has yet to be sold at auction. So that's still looming. It would seem like a good fit for Crytek's Austin office since they already have much of Vigil's top brass. The plot thickens.

Confused? Yeah, it doesn't add up just yet, but future announcements will hopefully clarify how Crytek USA Corp. came to be.

The company is known for its game engine CryEngine and big releases like Crysis, Far Cry, and other things that don't include the word "cry."

P.S. In other positive local gaming news, Semi Secret Software's iPhone and iPad game, Hundreds, just reached the 100,000-copies-sold milestone. Check out our review if you need convincing to be the 100,001st player.

UPDATE: P.P.S. Just to temper your excitement at the these awesome local gaming prospects, rumors are emerging that Junction Point, the local developer behind Disney's Epic Mickey series may be closing. More on that as facts come to light.