Crysis 3: Less Linear, Better Looking

Crysis 2 felt a little too constrained. As a fan of the original, I
was hoping for larger environments and more space to experiment with
different approaches to battle. Though the sequel still provided more
variety than standard linear shooters with its nanosuit powers, it felt
like a step back for a series that had previously pushed the boundaries
of what to expect from a blockbuster first-person shooter. For Crysis 3, it seems Crytek is going back to Crysis’ roots, at least to some degree.

The environments of Crysis 3
won’t be as open as the original, but will be a mix between both of the
franchise’s existing games, broadening the battle arenas and ensuring
the path from a combat zone’s entrance to exit is a little more loopy,
and ultimately a little more interesting. “In Crysis 2 we were very
restricted by the urban grid we were using,” said producer Michael Read.
“It was very corridor-like. But if we leave things a little too open,
there are spaces that become devoid of really anything. We basically
took Crysis 1 and 2 and scaled them differently by taking 2 and opening
that up, and taking 1 and shrinking it down. So, finding a middle ground
between what we did in 1 and 2.”


In the playable demo area shown at GDC Europe, which included a large
space filled with deep water in some spots, ruined buildings overgrown
with vines and plenty of places to hide, I definitely got that feeling.
As soon as I entered the space, looked at my surroundings, saw the enemy
positions, and started to think about where I should go first, who I
should shoot first, if I should stealth to a better spot, jump up to a
higher ledge, it gave me that sense of hidden possibility that made
playing Crysis so much fun; that sense that no matter what I did, there
were a number of other viable approaches waiting to be discovered, and
that there was room to get creative with the nanosuit’s powers.

Factoring into this is the compound bow, Crysis 3’s
new weapon that can be modified to behave in a few different ways. It’s
not only a weapon to strike at enemies from long distance. By modifying
the draw strength, more arrows can be fire from stealth without
draining all your suit energy, and fired faster. According to Read, the
bow can be used as a sniper-style weapon as well as for rapid-fire
surprises, making it possible to strike from the shadows or jump up and
over an enemy while raining down arrows. “There are four different tips
that are currently in the game. We have the standard tip, airburst,
electrical and explosive. The harder the draw weights are, the more
energy it’s going to use from the suit itself, so you’re able to throw
it over longer distances, pinning guys to the walls. We’ve seen it used
in all different capacities.”

PC gamers reading this who were irritated with Crysis 2’s launch with
less than ideal graphics settings should also be happy to know Crysis 3
will launch with full DX 11 support. “With Crysis 2 our real big push
was to optimize the high end features that we were known for and getting
them running on the console,” said Carl Jones, director of business
development on CryEngine. “People kind of incorrectly thought we were
dumbing things down. We really weren’t. We wanted to get the same kind
of feel from the high end PC into a console game. Now that that work’s
been done, we’re going to add a load more on top. The console versions
look significantly better. What we’re doing with Crysis 3 which is
different from Crysis 2, is we’re building a high-end PC version to
release at the same time. This time around, instead of waiting for our
Ultra upgrade, out of the box, the very high end PC version just looks
incredible. You’re looking at next-gen gaming, right there, in February
of next year.”

“One thing we keep getting back, is ‘is this a console port?’” added Read. “It’s not. Everything’s being developed in tandem.”


“In many cases you’re going to see some things that other people are
calling next-generation features on current generation consoles,” said
Jones. “There are some pretty big upgrades in the areas of lighting and
shading. In terms of the PC version, we’re maintaining, I think, the
same minimum spec as Crysis 2. You can still run it on a decent
machine.”

Along with graphical improvements, Crytek is hoping to build more
advanced artificial intelligence into its enemies to make encounters
more sophisticated. According to Read, “Typically in Crysis, especially
in Crysis 2 it was noticeable, either the AI was green or they were red.
What we’re working on right now are a bunch of systems that are
in-between.” Read says enemies will taunt and tease, panic and hide, and
do far more than wander or attack.

“In Crysis 2, in many respects we were building a game for the first
time. Because it was moving onto new platforms we were having to rebuild
the engine to run on those platforms, so the AI was one of those areas
where the tools we had were a bit slow, some of the processes were slow,
so the guys didn’t get as much time to iterate. What we’ve done since
then is build in more tools so the designers spend less time building up
how the AI works and more time is spend on building different types of
AI and variety and tweaking it and making it play well.“

Depending on whether you’re fighting Cell troopers or the alien Ceph,
you can expect differences as well. According to Read the Ceph will be
more overtly aggressive, but still have shades of alertness, and also
have a better ability to find their way through terrain, which will be
critical in Crysis 3’s bigger environments compared to Crysis 2.

So far it sounds like Crysis 3 is moving along the right path, edging
back towards the original’s design with more ways to customize combat.
Given Crytek’s experience with creating these futuristic superhero
shooters, I came away from the demo hopeful that Crysis 3 will satisfy
in a way Crysis 2 couldn’t, as it will hopefully give me more of an
opportunity to think before I fire.

cannot wait for this baby to get out.