As you probably know, on April 17th the German software house Crytek decided to show the first teaser trailer of the remastered version of Crysis, one of the cornerstones of the FPS genre that countless players know very well. The very short video did not show any gameplay phase, in truth, but it did give a glimpse of the historic protagonist wearing the iconic Nanosuit.
In total, the franchise has four major chapters so far. The main series consists of Crysis, Crysis 2, and Crysis 3, but it is also reminiscent of Crysis Warhead due to its side storyline compared to the original. At the moment only the very first chapter has been elected for a remastered version, of which, among other things, an official release date has not yet been revealed. What we do know, however, is that it will come up PC (this time, hopefully, without too many problems), PlayStation 4, Xbox One e Nintendo Switch, thanks to a fruitful collaboration between Crytek and the studio Saber Interactive. But why still play Crysis despite her thirteen years of age? Is it still worth (re) getting your hands on such a title?
The first chapter, the debut of the Nanosuit
The very first Crysis officially came to life in 2007, under the precious and mighty wing of Crytek. In the progenitor title of the saga we are called to play the role of an American soldier named Nomad, equipped with the iconic and versatile Nanosuit. A last technological discovery, this one, able to perform four main functions, such as Armor, Strength, Speed, and Concealment, which we can use to create winning tactics against the Ceph, insect-like aliens who threaten to destroy humanity and invade Earth. A real world crisis, this, which we are therefore called to avoid by approaching a style that offers us one great game customization.
Because what starts out as a simple rescue mission in the Lingshan islands becomes the battlefield of a new world war, from fight with cunning, strength, ingenuity and speed, creating creative solutions for each type of combat and exploiting a huge arsenal of modular weapons. Customization, in fact, does not only count on the combination of the various skills of the Nanosuit, but also on the rich weapons compartment, with the possibility of modifying their supports to the clash by adding or removing accessories of various kinds, including silencers, optics, bullets and more ; all in an ever-changing environment, which will require the adaptation and (adoption) of tactics and equipment aimed at dominating the enemies, which will move in a huge sandbox world.
But is Crysis running on it?
The true "crisis”, However, was the one faced by older generation PCs trying to run the game. The first chapter - even more than its successors - in fact exploited the most recent graphic technology of the time, and the torturer par excellence was precisely the CryENGINE, the graphics engine developed by Crytek and which made it possible to achieve a truly impressive level of "realism" for those years. At the time of its release, Crysis therefore enjoyed a engine incredibly complex that required processing power that most computers couldn't handle. This is why the well-known joke "but is Crysis spinning?" when, among friends, they talked about their more or less avant-garde position. The reputation of "critical" title derives from a whole series of wonderful effects that the game was able to show off and that in those days perhaps no other title was able to match.
Crysis was - and is - capable of performing a full 24 hour lighting cycle, offering hyper-realistic ocean rendering, atmospheric scattering simulation, with the sun's crepuscular rays, back lighting of trees and incredible visual distances filled to the brim with NPC and AI creatures. A complexity and a visual richness, those of Crysis, traceable right down to the smallest details, even in the vegetation of the island that moved to the rhythm of our steps. Without forgetting the character technology at that time so advanced, and much more "realistic" than the competitors of the time; observing the eyes and hair of the characters was in fact a joy for the gamers' pupils. But there is also talk of destructibility and dynamism of the game world, with the environmental elements that if hit by the fire of our weapons are damaged (or collapse, overwhelming what is underneath, in the case of buildings), and that if taken in hand can be launched and exploited to hit enemies. In light of this, despite the past thirteen years, that of Crysis is a series that still today manages to lay the foundations and impress significant influences for contemporary titles. Influential then, but also innovative and fun. It is not difficult to understand, then, the choice of its re-proposition to contemporary players. We certainly felt the need, even now that the sector seems to be betting everything on the race for Open-world.
Remastered, not remake
For years there have been rumors and some anticipation of a new Crysis-themed release. We were already talking about a possible remastered and indeed, talking about it it was also Rok Erjavec, the technical director of the German development house. At the end of the day, four years have passed since his last statements, but the announcement has finally arrived. It will be about a very extensive remastered, but not a remake. According to what was explained by the official press release, in fact, Crysis remastered will include the single player campaign while delivering a high-quality texture set, HD texture pack, enhanced art assets, temporal anti-aliasing, SSDO, SVOGI, cutting-edge depth fields, new lighting settings and motion blur.
But not only that, because further additions also concern volumetric fog and light beams, software-based ray tracing and screen space reflections which, in combo, offer a major visual update to this one classic FPS experience. Despite the flaws of the time - more than anything else we talk about a series of optimization problems, an AI with unconvincing behaviors, and some pitfalls found in some game sequences - in 2020 we finally return to playing Crysis, with a remastered perhaps less preferred than a remake, but which will surely delight all fans (and not only) of the series.
