Sources: Crytek Still Facing Issues As Homefront Director Resigns

As Crytek continues to face financial difficulties, we’re hearing of more departures at the troubled company. This week, Homefront: The Revolution game director Hasit Zala resigned from his position at Crytek UK, according to three people familiar with goings-on at the studio.

Zala was also franchise director for the free-to-play shooter Warface.

Crytek UK development manager Ben Harris also left the studio this month, and a number of other people have either left or are openly looking for new employment as of this week, sources say. The exact number is hard to pin down, as Crytek UK is in flux as staff await news on the studio’s future, but the departures includes senior leadership — just two weeks ago, studio head Karl Hilton confirmed to me that he was leaving his role, though he said he plans to stay within the company.

“It creates a weird scenario as there are now no upper management,” said a person connected to Crytek UK. “Everything is just continuing on a downwards spiral.”

“People haven’t been paid for a long time,” said a second person connected to the studio.

This comes in the wake of constant rumblings about missed paychecks and other troubles at Crytek, a multi-national video game developer that maintains offices across the world. Crytek’s UK studio, which is based in Nottingham, is currently developing Homefront: The Revolution, an open-world shooter that debuted just before E3 earlier this year. Crytek is also known for the Crysis series and the recent Xbox One exclusive Ryse.

In June, Crytek representatives publicly denied that they were facing money troubles, but over the past few weeks, numerous reports have painted a different picture. Just this week, two people who recently left their jobs at Crytek’s main studio in Germany told me they still haven’t received their final paychecks.

Though we’ve sent out close to a dozen requests for comment over the past few weeks, Crytek has remained silent on the issue since mid-June. Homefront publisher Deep Silver did not respond to requests for comment on this story.