Crytek has filed a motion to have the trial date of its lawsuit against Star Citizen and Squadron 42 developer Cloud Imperium Games postponed until October 13, 2020, revealing that the game is very unlikely to be released before that date.
Cloud Imperium Games is simultaneously creating two separate games, the online multiplayer Star Citizen and the single-player narrative-based Squadron 42. Both titles were initially being developed using CryEngine 3, which was created and is owned by Crytek. In order to build games using the engine, developers must have a license agreement for each unique title.
In 2017, Crytek filed a lawsuit against CIG, claiming that inspection of code for both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 showed that both games were at least partially still running on CryEngine 3 without a license. In additional documents filed with the court in February 2019, Crytek claimed that CIG had been forced to confirm it had never switched from CryEngine 3 to Lumberyard.
Crytek’s original complaint mentioned other instances of breach of contract such as the fact that, if Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are indeed two unique titles as Cloud Imperium Games contends, then that constitutes two uses of CryEngine 3, each of which requires a separate license agreement. Crytek is asking for both direct and indirect damages as well as a permanent injunction to prevent CIG from continuing to use or possess either game.
Ultimately, the success or failure of the lawsuit hinges upon CIG releasing a game, namely Squadron 42, built with an engine for which there was no license agreement. The lawsuit was originally set to go to trial in June 2020. But because Crytek’s suit holds no water as long as CIG hasn’t yet released Squadron 42, the CryEngine 3 developer has requested that a judge postpone the trial until October 13, 2020. This is because CIG’s court documents reveal that Squadron 42 will likely not be available for even a public beta until the third quarter of 2020.
However, it’s worth noting that in addition to requesting to postpone the trial date, Crytek also filed a motion to dismiss voluntarily without prejudice. In other words, the company’s claims against Cloud Imperium Games could be dismissed with Crytek retaining the right to refile the suit at a later date. This hints that the CryEngine 3 developer may have doubts that even the October 2020 date will be far enough into the future for the release of Squadron 42.
Squadron 42 was originally announced in 2014 and does not yet have a confirmed release date.
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Source: Polygon, Reddit
