Perfect World Bulking Up MMO Slate, Grabs Cryptic Studios From Atari

It took Atari less than three years to decide it didn't want to hold onto City of Heroes developer Cryptic Studios, but Perfect World, a company well versed in MMOs, has swept in to pick up the pieces.

Perfect World isn't as well known as, say, Blizzard Entertainment, but the company has a sizable presence in the free-to-play market, which has seen more success in Asia than over here.

It's unclear what, if any, impact the sale will have on Cryptic's development slate, which includes a Neverwinter Nights project with Atari. The press release says Cryptic is currently working on that game and "unannounced projects and is rapidly diversifying its portfolio of games to reach beyond the traditional MMORPG genre."

I've reached out to the developer for some clarity.

Neato. Will be interesting to see what, if anything, they do differently with City of Heroes.

I hope Atari can become relevant again soon.

Correction to the title, it's Perfect World. Funny how it's correct in the article.

I hope Atari can become relevant again soon.

I use to play Perfect World lol

Lord Of The Rings Online is a great game, looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

I use to play Perfect World lol

Neato. Will be interesting to see what, if anything, they do differently with City of Heroes.

MMO poop. Away with it, I say! Away! 

It's worth noting that last spring, Perfect World bought Runic Games.  So now they have two relatively well known north american companies making MMOs (well, the Torchlight MMO isn't in full development yet, but it's coming).  Maybe they want to be the next NCSoft.  And from what I can tell with Runic, they get a pretty large amount of freedom.

I've played most of the PW games and found them to be bland and not very unique. I hope Cryptic can make PW games be a lot more interesting.

Lord Of The Rings Online is a great game, looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Lord Of The Rings Online is a great game, looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Glad Cryptic haven't been left to rot, their stuff isn't always the very best, but it is at least always interesting.

I'm cautiously optimistic, Perfect World's games I found were ok, question is will Cryptic still be a division or merged completely into PW. That said, they did publish Torchlight and apparently own a sizable stake in the developer, and we've seen Runic run pretty fine.

meh, I don't really want more MMOs.  I just want Guild Wars 2 and thats it!

Well I'm glad Cryptic won't be left out in the cold. While I wasn't impressed with STO's launch, I still see the potential in what they've done so far to improve it.

I've been thinking about trying Forsaken World, a new F2P MMO from Perfect World that arrived this past March.  It looks pretty nice.  It has nothing to do with Cryptic, but I'm just sayin' anyway.  I guess Perfect World wanted to get a stronger presence in Western markets for their games.  I didn't like Champions Online that much.  

@MichaelBach said:

Lord Of The Rings Online is a great game, looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Wat.

I've played perfect world and I can tell you it's not very good it's typical f2p game, graphics looked pretty good and you can have huge elf boobs on your character and wings, that's kind of it quests and fighting system was not cool.

STO was pretty bad.  I understand they are trying to improve it but it issues at it's very core.  Anything ground based just wasn't fun; when it's half your game that's a pretty big flaw.  That is just the first on a very long list of things wrong with that game.  
 
I hope Cryptic improve, I really do.  Good luck to them.

It's so weird that Atari is still publishing Neverwinter. Or rather, it's weird that Cryptic is still developing it.

@xhavoc86 said:

I use to play Perfect World lol

lol same. Though all I did was fly around and once I had my fill of that I stopped playing.

I would like to see what kind of non MMO game they make.

How much of City of Heroes is Cryptic and how much of it is Paragon Studios and NCsoft?  My memory tells me City of Heroes was a decent idea with a pretty sad execution until Cryptic left.  To do Champions Online, which is about 90% crap.

How much of City of Heroes is Cryptic and how much of it is Paragon Studios and NCsoft?  My memory tells me City of Heroes was a decent idea with a pretty sad execution until Cryptic left.  To do Champions Online, which is about 90% crap.

Good for them, irrelevant to me. NEWS!

STO goes free to play, Jeff cries out in pain as his grand plan is foiled. 

I've been playing a ton of Champions lately for some reason. I really hope this doesn't damage that game at all.

PLEASE PLEASE Perfect World make Star Trek Online Free to play!  Here's hoping they will so I can go back to some fun space combat. :)  

Neato. Will be interesting to see what, if anything, they do differently with City of Heroes.

I have a lot of faith in Cryptic, though none of us little people know what's really going on behind the scenes.  Could be Atari cutting their losses on a company that, after a year, isn't looking so hot anymore.  Only time will tell.

Good for them!

STO was pretty bad.  I understand they are trying to improve it but it issues at it's very core.  Anything ground based just wasn't fun; when it's half your game that's a pretty big flaw.  That is just the first on a very long list of things wrong with that game.    I hope Cryptic improve, I really do.  Good luck to them.

Nice.

Cryptic has let me down too many times,

It's worth noting that last spring, Perfect World bought Runic Games.  So now they have two relatively well known north american companies making MMOs (well, the Torchlight MMO isn't in full development yet, but it's coming).  Maybe they want to be the next NCSoft.  And from what I can tell with Runic, they get a pretty large amount of freedom.

                Neato. Will be interesting to see what, if anything, they do differently with City of Heroes.