We recently hosted a studio tour to inspire the next generation of female game developers!

CRYENGINE and Crytek were proud to participate in Girls' Day 2023, a day of action in Germany intended to increase the proportion of female employees in fields that have been considered "men's jobs" in the past. Women across all departments make outstanding contributions to the production of CRYENGINE and Crytek’s games, and by participating in this event, we hope to encourage the next generation to follow in their footsteps.

In total, we welcomed 15 young girls with an average age of 12 to Crytek to learn more about game development and take a tour of the studio. The day included an introduction to how Crytek operates on a day-to-day basis and how different departments and roles contribute to game development by Gabriel Ketteler, Sr Manager for CRYENGINE Ecosystem & Communication, and Ronja Hoth, Learning & Development Specialist for HR.

Based on their individual interests, the kids spent 30 minutes with different members of staff to shadow their work. They spent time with Franziska Siebert, Graphic Designer for Marketing, Julia Weigel, Technical Artist for Hunt: Showdown, Saskia Schneising, Junior Technical Artist for Hunt: Showdown, and one of our VFX Artists for Crysis 4 (Working title.)

The kids also enjoyed a session where they were introduced to game programming, level design, and game production and then completed a short hands-on task set by Junior Evangelist for CRYENGINE, Roman Perezogin. Additional staff helping the kids build a game were Jan Hellwig, Lead Systems Programmer for Hunt: Showdown, and Nicole Gransitzki, Product Manager for CRYENGINE Tools. This session proved very popular, and many of the participants didn’t want to stop working on the tasks! The day finished with a Q&A session with members of our team and certificates for their participation.

Slots for this year were booked out immediately, but we hope to welcome more girls to the studio next year as part of the initiative. Interested parents, teachers, and girls can learn more by visiting https://www.girls-day.de. A survey saw each of the girls award their day the official top score of “very good,” and six of the girls who came along said they had found their dream career during the tour! But it wasn’t just a great day for the girls involved. Members of the Crytek team gave their thoughts on the day as well:

Ronja Hoth, Junior Learning & Development Specialist for Crytek HR, said:

“It was really lovely to welcome the girls to our studio and give them a taste of the gaming industry. The girls were super-interested throughout, and some didn't want to stop doing the hands-on tasks, which was very inspiring! The thought that we could encourage more women to become part of the gaming industry through Girls' Day is excellent, and we hope to see some of the girls in the studio again as team members in the future!”

Gabriel Yakir Ketteler, Senior Manager for CRYENGINE, said:

 “I am overjoyed that we were able to participate in Girls' Day. Seeing all these bright young spirits shine during the studio visit was inspirational. All the girls enjoyed the presentations and excelled in the hands-on tasks. The game modding and coding challenges proved popular as the rigging, particle effects, and graphic design examples we prepared. I hope to see these young ladies back in the studio in a couple of years as the next generation of female industry professionals!”

Roman Perezogin, Junior Evangelist for CRYENGINE, said:

"We were all really looking forward to participating in Girl’s Day 2023 and offering the group insight into the vibrant world of game development. Their genuine interest and reluctance to stop with the hands-on tasks were incredibly inspiring, and their engagement throughout the day was fun to see. We hope to see the return of many of these bright young minds in the years to come!"

We want to thank all the girls who participated in the day, and we hope to see many of them enjoy careers at Crytek one day!

And if you’d like to begin your career sooner, we have open positions across all departments. We value diversity and actively encourage people from all backgrounds and experience levels to apply to our open positions, so join us on LinkedIn and check out our careers page. Are you making something cool with CRYENGINE? Let us know in the comments, on the forum, or via Facebook and Twitter. Pick up tips and tricks about our engine, ask questions, and more by joining our community and the CRYENGINE development team over on our official CRYENGINE Discord channel. If you find a bug in the engine, please report it directly on GitHub, which helps us to process the issue quickly and efficiently. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, where we host a range of content, including tutorials covering all aspects of the engine and game design. You can also subscribe to our official Twitch channel for live streams! Don’t forget to show your love for CRYENGINE with merch over at the official Crytek Store.