In a surprise announcement, THQ has revealed that Crytek will take over as the developer for the next game in THQ"s Homefront series. The first game, launched in March 2011, is set in a near future where the United States is fighting off an invasion by North Korea. While the first game sold well, reviews of Homefront were largely mediocre. The game"s original developer, Kaos Studios, was eventually shut down by THQ later in 2011.
In today"s announcement, Crytek"s CEO Cevat Yerli said, "We believe that bringing our level of quality, creativity and production values to the next Homefront title creates an opportunity for both THQ and Crytek to deliver a truly blockbuster game. It"s really important to us that THQ has the faith in giving us a lot of creative freedom over one of its most important properties to allow us to bring the Homefront world to life in a new and innovative way." The next Homefront game, which doesn"t have an official title yet, is scheduled to be released sometime in THQ"s fiscal 2014 year, which begins on April 1, 2013.
Crytek already has a number of game projects in the works. In October, it will release a downloadable Xbox 360 and PS3 version of the first Crysis game for publisher Electronic Arts. It is also working with Microsoft on Ryse, a Kinect exclusive action game for the Xbox 360 console. Finally the developer is working on Warface, a free-to-play first person shooter for the PC that"s scheduled to launch sometime in 2012.