Is Netease's new shooter Crisis 2015 coming to countries outside China?

Chinese game developers have a tendency to develop games that are only made for China. It’s an understandable approach given the difficulties involved in localization and the fact that China’s gaming market is pretty gigantic all on its own, but’s frustrating for those of us outside the Middle Kingdom who’d like to play Chinese games more often.

Thankfully, there may be some good news on that front for a game that has been on my radar since it was first teased last spring. The game, which was announced as Crisis: Crisis 2015 at ChinaJoy but now seems to be going as simply Crisis 2015, is a Netease-developed first-person shooter that has been, at least to some extent, crowd-designed. And now it looks like Netease is planning to offer the game outside of China: an eagle-eyed reporter at Tencent Games has spotted a job posting on a Korean games site.

The job posting, which is for openings testing Crisis 2015, indicates that Netease plans to release the game in Korea; otherwise it would make little sense for the company to hire testers there. It’s apparently a short-term gig, but Netease isn’t messing around. The ad specifies that the company wants testers with more than five years of FPS testing experience and that it’s willing to shell out $1,000 per day for their services. Crisis 2015 will also be at Korea’s GSTAR games conference, which kicks off next week.

But if Netease is planning to offer the game in Korea, could it also be localizing it for other markets? The move proves Netease believes that Crisis 2015 will have appeal outside China’s borders, and the South Korean market is pretty competitive, so it stands to reason that if Netease is diving in there, the company may have plans to bring the game to other regions as well. We’ll be keeping a close eye on Crisis 2015; the game has thus far excited previewers, and it could be just the thing to shake up Asia’s rather stale FPS market.

(via Tencent Games)