Crytek to Focus on Hunt: Showdown 1896, Crysis 4 Pushed Back Amid Layoffs

Crytek is laying off about 15% of their 400 employees after pushing back development on the next Crysis game. The studio decided to focus on its multiplayer shooter Hunt: Showdown 1896 for now, even moving devs off of Crysis 4 to continue to work on and grow Hunt. 

The company announced the layoffs and development priority shifts this morning in a message on X. They had put the development of Crysis 4 on hold in late 2024. Since, they've been moving developers over to Hunt: Showdown 1896. That game is growing (and hit Game Pass at the end of 2024) and the team is putting their resources behind it after working to cut budget and reduce their costs and operating expenses weren’t enough to avoid laying off employees.

Employees affected by the round of layoffs affect development teams as well as shared services. Still, in their message announcing the changes, they do express some optimism about the future and the growth of Hunt that they’re throwing resources behind to support. As far as the layoffs  and the changes they cite as inevitable to make,  they blame the difficult video game market right, now since things have not eased up and turned the corner just yet.

“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.”