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Having first been announced in 2015 and still not formally released yet, to say Star Citizen’s development has been long and protracted would be a bit of an understatement. The latest hurdle for the crowdfunded space sim has come in the form of a lawsuit that’s been filed by Crytek over the original use of its Crytek Engine before developer Cloud Imperium Games switched over to Amazon’s Lumberyard engine.
As first reported by PC Gamer, the suit alleges that Crytek originally licensed its engine for use in the game at a below market rate in exchange for prominent display of its trademarks in Star Citizen itself which was obviously off the cards when the development switched engines in December 2016.
However, Crytek also claim that the switch to the Lumberyard engine was also in breach of contract, claiming ‘the GLA states that Defendants have a license only to exclusively embed CryEngine in the Game.’ Futhermore, the announcement to spin-off the single player into its own ‘Squadron 42’ standalone game constitutes a breach as Crytek claim they only had a license for one title, alongside a number of other breaches of contract.Â
Crytek is seeking damages of up to and exceeding $75,000 and an injunction that will prevent CIG from using any of their code in Star Citizen or Squadron 42, and if found in Crytek’s favour could involve a lengthy of process of CIG being forced to go through the code in those games to remove any traces of the Crytek engine.
For their part, Cloud Imperium Games has denied these claims, saying in a statement to Gamasutra that the lawsuit is ‘meritless’ and that ‘we will defend vigorously against, including recovering from Crytek any costs incurred in this matter’.
Obviously it looks like this is a battle that’ll be resolved in the courtroom rather than space. You can read the entire filing, should you desire, here.  Â
