Cryptic Studios is in a period of transition under Deca Games after recent changes at parent company Embracer Group moved Cryptic under that division. While all of Cryptic’s MMOs will continue to get new content and updates, there will be Deca devs starting to “take over the creation of some of the content”.
The company held an “All Fans All Hands!” stream last night to announce the changes and take community questions. On the stream, hosted by Senior CM Mike Fatum, were CEO Phil Frazier, Executive Producer for Neverwinter and Champions Online, Brett Norton, and Star Trek Online Executive Producer Jarrod Fisher.
When asked whether the Deca devs would be “filling in gaps”, Frazier said it goes beyond that. “We're at a point in the life cycle where we need to make sure that we're continuing to run a good business behind [these long-running games] And we’ve got to look at things like cost, which isn't really a fun thing to talk about,” he said. In the short term, the teams on all of these games should grow, but he mentions that the longer term position is that Cryptic is going to be more of a support team. Deca, in essence, is poised to take over most of the new content development. Cryptic had some projects in development scrapped by Embracer, so budget is an important concern.
“Right now we’re trying to get them [Deca] fully capable of being developers on these games in our technology”, stating that it might take a typical new hire a year to have full competence using the Cryptic tech, and they’re about four months into the transition process.
No games are closing, as the plan is to continue supporting all three games “for many years to come” so this is a transition and not a move to sunset the games. They have licenses in place for years, for one, and Star Trek Online continues to be one of the best performers in Embracer’s back catalog.
They are still planning to release content similarly to how it’s done now, with new Star Trek Online episodes, Neverwinter modules, and Champions Online updates coming several times a year. In the presentation, we get a few roadmap updates for all three games, with a new STO season in June, featuring “a new feature we have not done before” and more Star Trek actor guest roles. Neverwinter will get module 28 (“Adventures in Wildspace”) in April and module 29 this year. Champions Online is set for some new missions, events, and more.
