Over the weekend, rumours began to abound that Crytek were once again facing some financial troubles after a post that was posted on both Reddit and Imgur by the same author talked about how employees across all studios were not being paid, how this had been going on for months and even that one studio was on the block for selling off. Other sources came forward around the same time to media outlets, saying pretty much the same thing.
Now one ex-employee who recently quit has launched his own crowdfunding campaign to raise legal fees. He plans to sue Crytek for the unpaid wages he and others are owed. Ludvig Lindqvist is an FX artist who once worked at Crytek's main German studio in Frankfurt from March 2015 until last week when he quit after two months of waiting to be paid for his work. In his GoFundMe campaign, Lindqvist has said that "Crytek has failed to pay salaries on time starting May 2016," and provided screencaps of his last four salary statements to show proof of payments being delayed or missed entirely.
The funding goal of his campaign is about €20,000, and he has said that any excess he raises will go towards other Crytek or former Crytek employees who wish to emulate his example is suing the Germany studio, or if there aren't any will go towards gaming-related charitable causes such as Special Effect and Able Gamers.
There are more rumours now that a lot more employees than just Lindqvist have quit their positions at Crytek recently, and so far there has been no public statement from the studio themselves telling their side of the story. Whatever is actually going on with Crytek, all the evidence so far does not suggest a good ending to this entire story.
We will keep you updated as more news emerges.