Developer of Star Citizen, Cloud Imperium Games, isn’t taking Crytek’s lawsuit lying down

In fact, they’re being downright spicy about the whole thing as the legal tussle between the two companies become more heated.

Just last week we reported that Crytek was dismissing its own lawsuit against Cloud Imperium Games in what seemed like a fairly restrained legal move but also served as a little slap in the force for Star Citizen and Squadron 42, the standalone single-player experience within Star Citizen. The lawsuit in question saw Crytek suing CIG for the use of CryEngine in developing two games instead of the agreed-upon one as Squadron 42 was being marketed as a standalone game.

Crytek dismissed their claim however, instead stating that they will wait until Squadron 42 launches as CIG had allegedly been very messy with their wording regarding the release of the game muddied and inconsistent. Crytek stated that it would be pointless to go ahead with a trial as it hinged on how Squadron 42 would be released, I imagine they didn’t want to burn more resources then they had to waiting for it. Let’s be honest, they would have been waiting a long time.

CIG was apparently rather annoyed by all of this and within an official court document filed last weekend has stated that Crytek’s dismissal of the case isn’t due to them waiting it out but rather because “Crytek can no longer delay the inevitable reckoning that its claim is and has always been meritless”. This all started back in 2016 when Crytek made a deal with Amazon which saw the Crytek engine developed into a separate engine known as Lumberyard. While CIG had initially begun development of Star Citizen in Crytek, they eventually switched over to Lumberyard for the main game and Squadron 42 which was being sold separately in the Star Citizen client. Therein lay the problem as, “the GLA [Game Licence Agreement] did not authorise content released outside of the Star Citizen game client.”

CIG shot back in February 2016 by stating, “[t]he package split does not change the fact that Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are part of the same game universe, or the fact that the games are functionally connected. You will access Squadron 42 through the same game client”. The whole thing has now just ballooned into an absolute mess. CIG now claims that Crytek’s lawsuit was “meritless in light of CIG’s separate license with Amazon” to use Lumberyard which, according to them anyway, granted them permission to use older versions of Crytek. Amazon confirmed that they had indeed licensed Lumberyard to CIG in 2016, alongside Crytek.

So what does this all mean? Honestly, I have no idea. There’s a lot of finger-pointing and chest-puffing involved in this because of the complications around licensing laws. CIG is now moving that the case be dismissed with prejudice, meaning that Crytek will be forced to pay $500,000 to cover CIG’s legal fees. “Crytek should not be allowed to walk away without prejudice after forcing CIG to expend so much time and effort only to pack up right before the close of discovery,” states the filed court document. Crytek will have to respond by the 7th of February and I can only see this case growing far more messy the longer it goes on.

Last Updated: January 20, 2020