Crytek's Free Radical purchase confirmed, 40+ jobs saved

Well, depending on how you saw it, the UGO/Ziff Davis thing involved saving a bunch of jobs as well. In this case, 140 people already lost their jobs from Free Radical, and the remaining 40 were spared. It's really similar to 1UP in that respect.

Don't forget that it brings even more console experience to Crytek

I mean it made sense doing this anyway, UK company, German company, both within Euro meaning its a pretty easy connection, boosts the quality of Euro games overall :)

I'm still sticking with *Crymesplitters*

It sounds more awesome :D

and yeah, this is great news, I'm so glad Free Radical didn't go down. Maybe sometime in the future Timesplitters will be using the Crytek game engine even.

Hey, beggers can't be choosers :)

I'm just glad they were saved from the brink, 'tis all

Samfish,

They aren't a huge company, but they've been growing quite steadily; they opened satellites in Budapest, Kiev, and South Korea last year and they've also absorbed another PC-centric developer called Black Seas. While the Cryengine2 has very few licensees for gaming, it seems to be quite popular at universities specializing in games development as well as for architectural uses.

As far as their purchase of FR, I get three things from it: 1) they want a console developer with a sizable amount of experience and an almost flawless pedigree so breaking into the console market becomes easier, 2) they are now able to secure the rights to a franchise that tends to sell quite well (Timesplitters), and 3) it's a bit of positive PR for the company. The gaming community largely lost its mind when they not only received the terrible news Free Radical was dying but also when they learned it was going to be taking its beloved franchises with it. Another talented developer comes along and, when things are at their darkest, Free Radical is revived in its near entirety. BOOM! Instant positive PR.

As far as the high end development goes, Free Radical no longer has to spend a relatively sizable amount of resources on building their own in-house engine; they can now use Crytek's assets and, should any technical issues arise, they've got access to the people responsible for building it.

From Metacritic:
Crysis: 91%
Far Cry: 89%
Crysis Warhead: 84%

If those scores are "mediocre", then you must not play (and enjoy) a great amount of games.

Oh, and as a further bitch-slap, I still maintain that TimeSplitters was one of the greatest, if not the greatest console FPS in it's time. Judging by the comments in the related posts, many agree, so you can't mean that FR are "mediocre", neither

...[Hastily purges Haze from everyone's memory]

crytech does release mediocre crap, what better way to improve your library than to buy already great licenses

at least people aren't pulling the haze card anymore. who knows, with crytek, maybe they could retry and succeed? anyways, great news to hear.

Let's hope so. Except it'll be Timecryis 4 and BattleCry 3.

yeah but apparently BF3 has been handed off to either Pandemic LA or Rebellion in the UK who made the PSP battlefront, and the technology used in that didnt make it. So even if some of the technology went over, they're probably completely redoing it

Agreed, I hope that Crytek will still give the PC plenty of loving. : )

That would be nice, although the people who started FreeRadical from Rare left after GoldenEye, so didn't work on Perfect Dark (which is probably why the TimeSplitters UI/Hud is almost identical to that of GoldenEye). I just can't help but imagine TS in CryEngine2...

...Oh, sorry about that, my mind switched off for a moment there with all the awesome!

You never know we may even get that holy grail of gaming...the perfect game that would be TimeSplitters with a jump button!

Yo, thanks for the earlier tip about SCUMMVM. I downloaded it last night, and now I bask in retro adventure game goodness!

Always glad to help. Ironically, I was responding to AwesomeTown but the freakin' comment system mis-replied again.

SCUMMVM was even better news to me after I found out that the Fate of Atlantis was a Wii exclusive, the Wii being one system that I will never, ever own.

Haha, thats until Crytek gives it Crysis likes graphics

I don't. Timesplitters was a wacky fast paced shooter with its own visual style and jokes. I can't see how it could translate, let alone really improve on current gen systems.

I'm not saying I don't want it though.

I swear I replied to TinyTim121 on this... oh well.