Crytek is keeping the name of its free-to-play shooter Warface consistent across all versions of the game worldwide, executive producer Josh Howard told Polygon — and this is the primary reason the team decided on the slightly odd name to begin with.
While Howard says there are a number of stories behind the name of the game, the reality is that Crytek was simply in search of a "quick and easy name that wouldn't get lost in translation." And likewise, the name will be the same "In China as it is in Nebraska."
The game, which has already been live in Russia for over a year, is now a world-wide brand with Crytek at the helm of its release in North America and Europe. The studio is also self-publishing the game after discovering the potential of free-to-play gaming while on a trip to Korea in 2008, says Howard.
"It's been the goal of the company for a number of years," Howard says. " In online gaming you can just bypass a lot of things involved with traditional publishing. You don't need to print disks or deal with warehousing. We still plan on using existing publishers for a big AAA games but going forward with free-to-play games online we will self-publish."
Crytek recently announced Warface is going back into closed beta for a fourth time in an attempt to ready the game for its North American and European market, something that Howard says is an attempt to make tweaks to the game for both the North American and European market.
"We're self-publishing it so we need to make sure customer service is good, that the community is good. Different markets like to do things differently too, so we're aware of that. Some international customers want to buy progress through microtransactions, but Western sensibilities only want microtransactions to be used for convenience or vanity items, or changes in balance.
"In Russia they like heavy recoil, in the West they prefer cleaner UI features. We have done a lot of research in Crytek, with usability testing and other methods of looking at things data-side. We've watched players at the data level to work out what people look for across regions. There's basically a need of data scientists when you're doing something on this scale."
"That's why it's called Warface, early on the creative leaders wanted a world-wide brand."