Crytek dismisses its own lawsuit against Cloud Imperium Games until Squadron 42 is released

Crytek has moved to dismiss its own lawsuit against the developer of Star Citizen and Squadron 42, Cloud Imperium Games.

As spotted by Redditor RiSC1911 (thanks, Eurogamer), Crytek took action against Cloud Imperium for reportedly developing two games when its CryEngine licence only permitted it to develop one. 

Although Cloud Imperium insists development for standalone title Squadron 42 was switched to Amazon’s Lumberyard engine, Crytek now wants to dismiss the lawsuit as its unlikely Squadron 42 will be released this side of June 2020. While there’s no set release date for Imperium’s Squadron 42, in August 2019 the game’s beta was delayed until Q3 2020, so by dismissing the suit without prejudice – a legal term that enables Crytek to return to the court at a latest date with the same charges – Crytek now plans to reschedule the trial for October 13th, 2020, presumably to coincide with the Squadron 42 beta. 

The parties are currently in discovery, which means they exchange documents and depose potential witnesses in advance of the upcoming trial, none of which is available publicly at this time. Cloud Imperium Clouds has until January 24th, 2020, to respond to Crytek’s motion to dismiss. 

“Based on CIG’s responses to certain written discovery, which Crytek contends revealed new information regarding the ripeness of one of Crytek’s existing claims, Crytek wished to voluntarily dismiss its claims against CIG without prejudice, with the intention of refiling the suit against CIG following the release of Squadron 42 by CIG,” the court filing said.

“This case has been marked by a pattern of CIG saying one thing in its public statements and another in this litigation,” Crytek added. “For example, at the outset of this case, CIG had publicly claimed it had switched to using the Lumberyard Engine for both Star Citizen and Squadron 42, but was forced to confirm during this litigation that no such switch had taken place.

“Should CIG release Squadron 42 as a standalone game, the case would be in exactly the same position it is currently. In short, granting Crytek’s voluntary dismissal now would do nothing more than allow Crytek’s Squadron 42 claim to ripen so that the parties can fully resolve the disputes between them in a single proceeding. Such a result is undoubtedly to the benefit of both the Court and the parties.”