Crytek dismisses its own lawsuit against Star Citizen developer until Squadron 42 releases

I’m guessing they’re ready to wait a loooooooooooooooooong time before they go to court.

Alongside being known as the team that developed Crysis, the game that burned a thousand GPU’s, Crytek is probably more known for their engine, named after the company itself. CryEngine has been used to create plenty of great games such as Prey (2017), Hunt: Showdown and the Sniper: Ghost Warrior series. It’s a robust engine that allows for things that would be impossible in other, less ambitious games is what the developers of Star Citizen, CIG, would no doubt have told Crytek when they started developing their notorious sci-fi life-sim…thing. Crytek was obviously very impressed with CIG’s pitch and allowed them to use their engine to make a game, and then CIG went and made two games. Uh oh, that’s a lawsuit.

With CIG going ahead to classify Squadron 42, the single-player portion of Star Citizen, as a standalone game, Crytek filed a lawsuit against them stating that the deal they had made was for the development of a single game. CIG fired back by stating that during the development of Squadron 42 they had changed to Amazon’s Lumberyard engine, meaning there was a big legal tussle brewing.

Yet, it seems like everything is about to go quiet again as Crytek has moved to dismiss their own lawsuit until Squadron 42 is released.

Or rather, if Squadron 42 is released.

Within the court documents, Crytek states in its motion to dismiss, “This case has been marked by a pattern of CIG saying one thing in its public statements and another in this litigation. For example, at the outset of this case, CIG had publicly claimed it had switched to using the Lumberyard Engine for both Star Citizen and Squadron 42, but was forced to confirm during this litigation that no such switch had taken place.”

There is some breathing room here for CIG, as Crytek goes on to elaborate that if Squadron 42 is released as a standalone game, the lawsuit will be reinstated, however if it is simply a mode within Star Citizen the lawsuit will be terminated.

“Should CIG release Squadron 42 as a standalone game, the case would be in exactly the same position it is currently. In short, granting Crytek’s voluntary dismissal now would do nothing more than allow Crytek’s Squadron 42 claim to ripen so that the parties can fully resolve the disputes between them in a single proceeding. Such a result is undoubtedly to the benefit of both the Court and the parties.” CIG has until January 24th to respond to the motion of dismissal.

Last Updated: January 6, 2020