Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Reviews

Darksiders may be dead, but its developers will live on as the newly formed Crytek USA

Anthony John Agnello
By
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Many of THQ’s studios and properties survived the company’s bankruptcy, finding new life at new publishers. Ubisoft saved THQ Montreal, Sega took on Relic, and Koch Media took on Saints Row creator Volition. Vigil Games, sadly, wasn’t so lucky. Having just finished Darksiders II, a game that didn’t light up sales charts in the first place, Vigil was hard at work on a new franchise, but no publisher wanted to take the risk. What’s a studio with a cult following, new ideas, and little marketability to do? Start fresh. Germany’s Crytek opened Crytek USA Corp. in Austin on Tuesday, its first US studio, with much of Vigil’s core staff at the center.

“Crytek has always enjoyed a special relationship with gamers and business partners in North America, so establishing a permanent presence in the US was a natural step,” reads a statement from Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli, “We are extremely excited about the work that we will be undertaking from our strategic new location in Austin, with David Adams and his team of 35 experienced developers.”

Recommended Videos

David Adams was the general manager of Vigil Games before THQ failed to find a buyer for studio. “I’m thrilled to be a part of the newest Crytek studio, which will boast some of the brightest development talent in the industry.” While Yerli mentioned that Crytek USA has an initial staff of 35 in addition to Adams, not all of them are former Vigil team members.

“We weren’t just looking at Vigil’s team [for staff], but the whole Austin development community,” Yerli told Gamasutra. What will the team be working on? Crytek also bought THQ’s Homefront series, so will Vigil start working on a sequel to that game? “It would be pretty much safe to say that this team will be working on online games… and kick-ass triple-A productions. It is going to be quite a significant investment for Crytek over the next five years.”

Yerli did emphasize that Crytek will not be buying the Darksiders license for Crytek USA to continue development on.

This isn’t the first time that Crytek has saved the remnants of a moderately successful studio with a passionate fan base. Following its dissolution in 2009, Crytek bought what remained of TimeSplitters developer Free Radical after that studio was crippled by canceled projects like Star Wars Battlefront III. Now called Crytek UK, it’s that studio that’s reportedly working on Homefront 2.

Anthony John Agnello
Anthony John Agnello
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Anthony John Agnello is a writer living in New York. He works as the Community Manager of Joystiq.com and his writing has…
All Baobab Tree locations in Tales of Kenzera
Zau fights a dragon in Tales of Kenzera: Zau.

While it wasn't marketed as being a particularly punishing game, Tales of Kenzera: Zau is by no means easy. You will have plenty of environmental challenges that can instantly sap your life, and the enemies you face -- especially the bosses -- are no slouches. When you first begin, it will only take a couple of bad hits to send Zau to the land of the dead himself. Alongside the Trinkets you can unlock through hidden challenges around the map, there are also Baobab Trees where Zau can stop to reflect on his journey thus far, have a short dialogue with Kalunga, and get a small addition to his health bar. Like everything in the game, these trees aren't prohibitively hidden, but you could easily pass one by and have no idea where it was when trying to backtrack. These are all the Baobab Tree locations so you can max out your health bar.
All Baobab Tree locations
There are six Baobab Trees to find in Tales of Kenzera: Zau and each adds a small segment of health to your total. When you collect them all, you will roughly double your HP bar. Here are each of their locations in the rough order you should naturally find them in. Most can be picked up on your first time through that area.
Ikakaramba

This one is very hard to miss as it is directly on your critical path. If you do, you can fast travel to the nearby campfire to grab it.
The Great Cliffs

Read more
All Fallout games, ranked
The courier in his nuclear gear and holding his gun in Fallout: New Vegas key art.

Who would've thought the post-apocalypse could be such a fun time? The Fallout franchise has taken the idea of a Mad Max-like future and not only made it into a wildly popular game franchise but also a hit TV series. The core franchise has been around since the late '90s, and yet we've had only a handful of mainline entries in the series since it was revived by Bethesda with Fallout 3. With Starfield in the rearview mirror and the next Elder Scrolls title currently being the dev team's focus, it could be close to another decade before we can set foot in the wasteland ourselves once again. What better time, then, to look back at the franchise and rank all the games from best to worst?

Fallout: New Vegas

Read more
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble is as fun to watch as it is to play
Monkeys race one another in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble.

I couldn’t tell you what the last Super Monkey Ball game I played was, but I can still talk your ear off about the series. That’s thanks to the speedrunning community that has formed around the franchise, making it into the most exciting game to watch when it's played at a high level. After spending close to a decade watching old games turned inside and out, I’m ready to finally dig into a new entry for myself.

Thankfully, I’m getting that chance on June 25 when Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble launches on Nintendo Switch. The latest entry in Sega’s precise platforming series comes loaded with content, from an adventure mode with 200 stages to multiple 16-player multiplayer modes. That’s all exciting, but my attention was on one question when I sat down to demo all of that last week: How fun will it be to watch players master it?

Read more