Crytek announced on Friday that it has teamed up with Trion Worlds to co-publish and co-operate the online first-person shooter (FPS) Warface in North America, Europe, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand. The game will be offered through the GFACE social network and powered by the Trion platform.
"Trion is the company spearheading a revolution in gaming through delivering premium online games across big genres powered by a proven, cutting edge platform," said Cevat Yerli, CEO and founder of Crytek. "The combination of this platform, GFACE and Warface shows Crytek’s commitment to finding innovative new ways to bring superior gaming experiences and AAA titles to gamers. That’s why we are creating strong strategic alliances with the best online publishers across the world."
Warface is a free-to-play FPS currently up and running in Russia with more than 2 million registered players. It recently won Best Game and Best Graphics at the Russian KRI Awards after breaking player concurrency records within four weeks of its launch, Crytek said.
For the uninitiated, GFACE is a social networking website owned and operated by Crytek. It's based around friends lists and features live video that's embedded within the framework. It also features a drag-and-drop invite system similar to Battlefield's Battlelog, and a plug-in that allows users to stream PC games directly to their browser -- no external client or game installs required.
GFACE users can also access friends lists and functionality while watching media, borrowing from Xbox LIVE. There are also tons of features similar to what's offered on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter including Interest Groups and People Groups.
Trion Worlds launched its digital distribution platform, aka Red Door, back in Fall 2011. It's a full-scale publishing and development solution for premium online games, enabling flexibility and control for game monetization teams -- ideal for the free-to-play model. "The platform offers a sophisticated server architecture and proprietary toolsets positioned to radically speed up the time-to-market for developers who want to create the next generation of AAA games for connected devices," Trion said on Friday.
Warface is a vast online universe, set in the near future. The game offers a cinematic experience with next gen visuals, AI and physics based on Crytek’s proprietary CryENGINE 3 gaming engine. Warface provides gamers with a constantly updated extensive PVE (player versus environment) universe full of multiplayer co-op missions, and a full set of class-based PVP (player versus player) opportunities.
Trion Worlds and Crytek did not reveal when Warface will actually arrive here in the States, so stay tuned.