Game with a silly name, Warface, gets 25 million registered users

Crysis developer Crytek's free-to-play shooter Warface has reached 25 million registered users across the world, the studio announced today. The game hit the milestone two years after its initial PC release in Russia in April 2012.

Warface launched for PC in North America, Europe, and Turkey in October 2013, and the game would be released in Korea and Brazil later that year. Crytek also plans to bring the game to Asian nations like China, Japan, and Taiwan.

"Warface is part of our games-as-service model, which means the game thrives off and revolves around our community. We look forward to delivering more of the great gameplay experiences that they have come to expect, and can promise the growing ranks of Warface fans that the franchise still has lots of surprises in store," Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli said.

Importantly, it's unclear how many of those 25 million users are actively playing the game. Crytek has also not disclosed any details regarding how much money the game's microtransactions are pulling in.

The Xbox 360 version of Warface is currently in open beta, with a full release slated for later this year. Warface is Crytek's first free-to-play game, though you'll need an Xbox Live Gold subscription ($60/year) to play on Xbox 360.

The game, built on CryEngine 3, features four soldier classes and competitive and cooperative modes. In a bid to keep players engaged, Crytek also releases new missions on a daily basis.

The name "Warface" might sound silly, but Yerli maintains that the title is appropriate because the game is "very personal."

"Yes, it's a very strange word combination, but I wanted to express that it’s a truly social FPS game," Yerli said in 2012. "It's about war on a different scale--between corporate entities--but also, it's a shooter between you and your friends. That implies so many new kinds of possibilities with the social technology that we've invested over the last five years to build. So that's why we as a company keep going back to 'face.' It's very personal."