By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist
This is the big question on the minds of North American and European Warface players at the moment. All mention of Warface has disappeared from the official Trion website, the Warface Facebook account hasn’t been updated since closed beta finished in early April. And even the website is seemingly abandoned. Leaving fans of Warface and Trion asking “where have you gone?”
This isn’t the first time Trion has, with little communication to the fans removed a game from the public eye. Early this year End of Nations was taken from Petroglyph and brought in house. Refunds were given to anyone who had pre purchased the MMORTS and since then all mention of it has stopped. Though several websites which sell games now offer pre orders on it once again. Including Amazon which gives End of Nations a release date of December 31, 2013. There have however been no press releases or representation for End of Nations at any of the major game conventions. Unlike Warface however End of Nations is still featured on the Trion website.
Crytek, the makers of Warface have been tight lipped about the publishing status of the MMO in the North American and European audience, telling VentureBeat “Crytek is not commenting on the status of its relationship with Trion at this time.” They do however continue with their plans to bring Warface to players in Europe and North America. In Russia Warface sits happily with 9 million registered users a year after its release. And thanks to an agreement with Nexon will be expanding into Japan in the near future.
Though this is something that is only now coming to light it may have been something we should have been aware of for several months now. Warface’s closed beta began on January 17th and completed April 10th. During that time a little convention in Boston took place called PAX East. At PAX East Warface had a food truck handing out tasty little burgers. And you could play Warface at one of the booths showing off the latest and greatest in computer technology. There was however no booth for Warface, despite Trion being a major AAA Publisher. And there were only a couple of Trion staff at the booth where you could play Warface. This was at PAX East, in March, while closed beta was still ongoing. To put that in perspective Bethesda was there showing off Elder Scrolls Online with a massive booth, press interviews and was one of the bigger highlights of the convention. This was before their closed beta had even started. So, the lack of Warface representation should have set off more alarms than it did. Fast forward to E3. Trion was at E3 in a big way but the major push was for ArcheAge, a sandbox MMORPG they’re publishing in North America and Europe. As with all things though the mind focuses more on what is there than what isn’t.
On Warface’s Gface cloud the last posted news release which is dated April 9th has now received nearly 2,300 comments. And actually there has been an update as this is being written. Executive Producer Joshua Howard has posted on the Warface website, which you can read in its entirety below.
Dear Warface players and Crytek fans,
After some weeks of silence, we’d like to give you an update on where we currently stand with Warface.
First and foremost, we’d like to thank you for your feedback and patience over the past couple of months. We hope you know that all feedback is incredibly valuable, since Warface is aimed at being a game service rather than “just a game”: it will regularly be updated, improved, and adjusted to provide you all with the most exciting gaming experience possible.
Although Warface is currently not available in Europe and North America, our teams are not sitting still; we have been compiling all sorts of comments and suggestions to optimize Warface as much as possible.
Additionally, we are working hard on setting up the infrastructure required to make Warface the best it can be ahead of its full release. This process will take some more time and we are aiming to announce another Closed Beta phase soon.
Everyone is working very hard to make this happen and we are very optimistic about Warface’s future. Personally, I’d like to thank you all again for your ongoing support and for taking the time to drop us a line with your thoughts and comments. Our goal for now is to keep improving! In the meantime, keep an eye on our official news channels for more updates.
Joshua Howard
Executive Producer
The first thing to point out from his letter is that it doesn’t mention Trion in any way. Though based on the comments from fans it is being well received despite being somewhat vague. The good news is that Crytek is still working towards getting Warface released in North America and Europe. How long that takes, and under which flag it will fly is still up in the air though.
We will be reaching out to both Trion and Crytek to find out more as the story unfolds.
