Crytek, the developer behind the famed CryEngine and games like Crysis, Ryse: Son of Rome and the upcoming Hunt: Showdown, is suing Cloud Imperium Games, the developer of crowd-sourced mega-title, Star Citizen. It claims that the Chris Roberts helmed company breached contract when it changed game engines from CryEngine to Amazon's Lumberyard and claimed it illegally shared information about its engine with Amazon's developers.
The original deal between the two companies saw CIG license the latest version of CryEngine and make a deal to collaborate on publishing and marketing Star Citizen. Following the gradual break down of Crytek as it faced more financial issues, CIG announced its move to Amazon Lumberyard for its flagship title instead, an engine built atop the CryEngine framework.
That, Crytek claims, was in breach of its original contract with CIG, claiming that promises to promote Cryengine have been disrupted by the engine switch. It also alleges that by sharing Star Citizen code with Amazon's Lumberyard team that CIG did not take adequate steps to protect its intellectual property.
"We are aware of the Crytek complaint having been filed in the US District Court. CIG hasn’t used the CryEngine for quite some time since we switched to Amazon’s Lumberyard," CIG said in a statement to Kotaku. "This is a meritless lawsuit that we will defend vigorously against, including recovering from Crytek any costs incurred in this matter."
The irony of this whole thing is that it was Amazon's licensing of CryEngine to create lumberyard that may have saved Crytek from bankruptcy. At least perhaps long enough for it to push out Hunt: Showdown sometime next year.
