Crytek USA and Vigil expats unite to form Gunfire Games

Former Crytek Austin CEO David Adams and a group of other former Vigil Games and Crytek Austin developers have founded Gunfire Games, a new indie studio in Texas. It's an interesting move in light of the fact that Adams abruptly resigned from Crytek Austin last month, shortly before the studio stopped making games when Crytek laid off the lion's share of its staff and moved development of the studio's upcoming co-op game Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age to Crytek Frankfurt. You may remember that Crytek founded the Austin studio back in 2013 as a foot in the door of U.S. development, and filled its ranks with former Vigil Games (Darksiders) developers cast adrift in the wake of parent company THQ's collapse. Some of those developers are now at Gunfire Games, and the studio seems to be staffing up. "We have seven people, all of the leads at Crytek USA," Gunfire studio director Matt Guzenda told Polygon. "We're still working on the next round of guys coming around." He went on to say that the studio is still trying to hash out the scope and details of its first project. When contacted via email, Gunfire Games cofounder and game director David Adams told Gamasutra that the studio is looking for short-term work to pay the bills while it moves to hire more ex-Crytek Austin developers and figure out its next big project. "Step 1, get some work to establish studio," wrote Adams. "Step 2, work on the 'Next big thing.'"