Please Stand By for an Important If Ultimately Uninformative Announcement

cryteklogoYes, I have been silent lately, even by my usual standards.  You saw me disappear into Germany, and did not see me sneak back out again (although I’ve been back home for some time now).  This time, I have a different excuse for the long silence:  I have been working furiously to discharge past  obligations while negotiating the terms of a future one.

Those negotiations appear to have concluded successfully. I am sworn to secrecy on all details, but am allowed to admit the following: for the next little while I’ll be working on a project for Crytek, which I’m told is Europe’s largest computer-game company.  I’ll be working with them even though they had a chance to observe me before official meetings even began, while I was simultaneously affected by both jetlag and alcohol.  (In fact, I suspect that may have been part of the interview process.)  For this reason and others I expect to have a lot of fun with these folks, while also getting paid.  It will make a nice change.

I cannot show or tell much more— thanks to Crytek’s patented Amnesotek™ mindwipe technology I can’t even remember the details of the gig myself, unless they unlock my digitally-repressed memories with the visual cue streamed to me at the beginning of each work day— but I am allowed to show you the lobby of their main HQ in Frankfurt:

smalllobby

I can also show you a cryptic image which appeared in my camera sometime during my blackout.  If I had to guess, I’d say it was the early stages of an orbital beanstalk, contracted out to the lowest bidder.

smallrainbow

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an awful lot of work to do between now and Worldcon.



This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 7:53 am and is filed under Crytek/Crysis, writing news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Seruko
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Seruko
14 years ago

Yay!
Also, I liked Far Cry.
Still we eagerly await past projects Mr Professional Pants.

Mattan
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Mattan
14 years ago

Wow, nice. I am very excited to see where this goes.

Far Cry and Crysis are great games, but they definitely could use some work in the story department. I can’t even imagine how awesome a Watts written game would be.

Dufaer
Guest
Dufaer
14 years ago

Well the storytelling in Crysis sucked hard.
Especially the whole ensemble of military fiction stock characters was hardly bearable. Hopefully, you will be able to do a far better job (if that is the job you are doing).

gg
Guest
gg
14 years ago

very exciting. gaming technology seems to be perhaps catching up to what creators want to express. aside from all the guns and blood splatter. im hoping for a starfish trilogy virtual world from this secret mission.

your cryptic image, i wonder, is that the end or the beginning of the rainbow-attempt: ruins or construction?

cheers.

Raja
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Raja
14 years ago

Crytek also owns Free Radical now, among other acquisitions. They have a fair amount of intellectual property that could be mined for compelling narrative much more effectively than they’ve managed to do so far.

I, for one, welcome our new story-driven FPS overlords.

Bahumat
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Bahumat
14 years ago

Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

A Peter Watts-written video game. It’d be like System Shock 2 (and everything Bioshock should have been).

Maybe underwater.
Definitely with squidly things.

I would play the everloving fuck out of a Blindsight FPS. One where the gauss-driven hallucinations were a gameplay element. /Shit/ yes.

Jeremy
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Jeremy
14 years ago

I have a feeling that it’s impossible to win a Watts-written video game.

Hannu Blommila
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Hannu Blommila
14 years ago

Oh man oh man. Rifters Online MMORPG. Bring it on! I wanna be Ken Lubin!
Jokes aside, Congrats Peter. Good news.

-Hannu

Branko Collin
Guest
14 years ago

Good for you!

asc
Guest
asc
14 years ago

Very awesome. Whatever you’re working on, I’ll buy it.

Hope it’s the crysis sequel; I’ll give good odds you can retcon those aliens into making sense.

01
Guest
01
14 years ago

Awesome!
Congrats Peter!

jrronimo
Guest
jrronimo
14 years ago

That is pretty awesome news, sir. As a fan of your books as well as video games, I approve of this mating of minds.

Sheila
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Sheila
14 years ago

Congratu… wait, what? I don’t have an xbox or hand-eye coordination. Does this mean I’m going be stuck with tweenager paranormal romances now?

Hannibal
Guest
Hannibal
14 years ago

You big sellout, you.

Congrats!

Nikolas Robinson
Guest
Nikolas Robinson
14 years ago

Well, if they brought you in to pen the narrative behind an upcoming game (or, preferably, games)…they made a wise choice…

Nothing like a bleak, dystopian environment and plot to lead a game down the right path…

Maybe the next Fallout-like video game series could be on the horizon…

shorty
Guest
shorty
14 years ago

Squid,

you’re a TIGER!!!
RRRRAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!

heh heh…
Cryptic, but true.

Dan Ghiordanescu
Guest
Dan Ghiordanescu
14 years ago

FINALLY IS OFFICIAL!!!!!!!!
Welcome aboard Peter, all the guys from the Conceptart department wish you a warm welcome (Boris included).
I still can’t belive this is happening for real 🙂
Hope to see you again lots of times in Frankfurt.

PrivateIron
Guest
PrivateIron
14 years ago

Loved the new story in Space Opera 2! Hope you get some new (book)writing projects as well, though I realize the one we all wanted is probably not going to happen.

jan
Guest
jan
14 years ago

This all sounds great.
Congratulations!

Ben Kohanski
Guest
Ben Kohanski
14 years ago

Ah, Iceland’s lovely steel rainbow… If that’s not a dystopian thought I’m not sure what is.

But yeah, I’d be so incredibly psyched to play a game from your pen. Give ’em hell.

Mark
Guest
Mark
14 years ago

Nice try Dude – but that proto elevator is in *Iceland*…..

http://www.redbubble.com/people/atkinnt/art/1741566-2-rainbow-sculpture-reykjavik-airport-iceland

01
Guest
01
14 years ago

Great!

Peter, IMHO there is hardly anything that could compete, in terms of sheer awesomeness, against a computer game done by CRYTEK with a storyline written by you.

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[…] Watts has worked with Relic on the story for what would later become Homeworld 2, and has most lately been employed by Crytek to lend a hand with the writing for Crysis 2. […]

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[…] Watts has worked with Relic on the story for what would later become Homeworld 2, and has most lately been employed by Crytek to lend a hand with the writing for Crysis 2. […]