'As we started developing the game and working with Atari, we weren't able to fund the project at the level we needed to to make it a fully fledged MMO.

We love MMOs, we love to develop MMOs and that's what we're best at. 'In the very beginning our goal was to make Neverwinter into an MMO,' Craig Zinkievich, Cryptic's chief operating officer, told me. Cryptic made a profit and Neverwinter got the funding its original vision needed. When Perfect World Entertainment - the same company that owns Torchlight maker Runic Games - bought Cryptic, it did the studio a favour. Repurposed to make a quick buck, I thought. Months later - sure enough - Neverwinter became a free-to-play MMO.

It was a new direction for the studio that created City of Heroes.īut then Cryptic's owner Atari went bust and Cryptic was bought by Perfect World Entertainment, the US arm of a Chinese free-to-play MMO powerhouse. I ruled it out because Cryptic had been on a downer with Champions Online and then Star Trek Online, and was fighting fires when Neverwinter was announced - as an online cooperative RPG and strictly not an MMO. I'd ruled Neverwinter out and I shouldn't have.

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