Former Crytek USA Devs Exploring A Return to Darksiders

A core team of developers from Crytek USA, who previously worked on Darksiders at Vigil Games, have formed a new studio, Gunfire Games, and are exploring a return to the Darksiders series.

Crytek USA's former CEO David Adams decided to leave the company and form the independent studio at the same time we heard a number of reports claiming that Crytek had canceled games and was losing staff after not paying them.

"Forming another independent studio was something that I thought about because of what was going on," Adams told Polygon in an interview. "It got to the point where people were starting to leave."

Now Gunfire Games is looking for some work to get the studio up and running, but is also thinking about its next big project. Adams said one possibility would be another Darksiders game, and that they've already spoken to Nordic Games, which bought the rights to the series during THQ's bankruptcy auction back in April 2013.

Gunfire currently consists of seven people, all of whom were leads at Crytek USA, and is working on another round of hires.

Crytek hired 35 former Vigil Games developers to form Crytek USA after THQ closed its doors in January 2013.

Last month, Crytek announced that as part of its "internal restructuring," staff at its Austin, Texas location (Crytek USA) were laid off, although "several" employees remained behind to assist with CryEngine support for North American developers who have licensed the game-development engine. The game that the studio had been developing, Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age, is now handled by Crytek's Frankfurt studio, developer of the Crysis series and Ryse: Son of Rome.