But, can it run Crysis? | Opinion

Even after 13 years, Crysis remains one of the most impressive games. Now, with a remastered version on the way, it is time to take a closer look at the game and discuss why a remaster of this game will be an underwhelming experience compared to the original game. And that is positive. Even after more than a decade, the game still competes with recent titles in terms of graphics.

In the past, a few games have had such a profound influence on the current generation of games as Crysis. The game is still regarded as a title far ahead of its time. After its release, this became apparent as soon as you took a closer look at the system requirements. Crysis was designed to look good, and even better on future hardware.

The search for computer hardware

To experience Crysis on the higher graphics settings, a powerful computer with the most recent computer hardware was required. However, even these hardware components were unable to handle the graphics and technologies implemented in the game at the time of release.

Even today, Crysis looks beautiful and can still keep up with the more recent games. For a game released more than 13 years earlier, it is remarkable that it can compete with the current generation of games in terms of graphics and technologies.

Latest standard in benchmarks

It is clear, Crysis established the foundation for the current generation of games years ago. The game engine was designed to support technologies that were never seen before at the time. Soon after its release, it became clear that computers were not able to run the game effortless with the highest graphical settings.

In 2007, Crysis became the latest standard in benchmarks for gamers eager to push their computer hardware to its limits. Even years after its release, some reviewers continued to cite the system requirements as unacceptable.

Support for the next generation of hardware

Crysis is one of the games that became part of the history of the game industry. Years after its release, both gamers and media still talk about the game and its incredible ahead-of-its-time graphics. Even on this blog, you will not find a bad comment on the graphics and the influence of the game on the industry.

As impressive as Crysis is today, back in the day, the game engine proved to be an enormous step forward in real-time rendering techniques. Crytek developed their own CryEngine 2 game engine. It supports realistic environments and scenery, a complex dynamic lighting system and destructible structures and objects.

Is a remaster required?

Crysis remains beautiful to look at and is by far the best looking game of its decade. The decision of Crytek to release a remastered edition is interesting and questionable. To date, Crysis remains an advanced game. The question remains. Is it really required to remaster this game? The short answer is no.

The end result of this re-release of Crysis will be a similar experience to the original release and not much of a step forward in terms of graphics and technologies. The current and next generation of consoles will be able to render the game in an even higher resolution, but the gameplay experience will remain unchanged apart from some small adjustments and tweaks.

Not comparable to other remasters

The difference between the game released in 2007 and the remastered edition is not as large as some gamers would prefer. You notice visual changes and improvements, but it is not as noticeable as the effort put into the remastered edition of the game Mafia re-released as the Mafia Definitive Edition.

This game was rebuilt in a different game engine with re-recorded cutscenes and reworked gameplay mechanics. The end result is a different gameplay experience that shows the differences in technological possibilities between the periods of development. Between Crysis and its remastered edition, the differences are more subtle.

An identical experience

To be clear, the Crysis Remastered will feature better textures and assets, global illumination and ray-traced reflections, but the core of the game remains identical. The era of games such as Crysis being released with features and technologies that require unreleased hardware rather than the present seems to be long gone, and that is a bummer.

It is ironic, but Crysis, a game that still melts laptops and computers 13 years after its release is not yet remastered for the latest hardware but instead released on the current generation of console hardware. However, without a doubt gamers need to play the game after its release. It is still the original Crysis in its best form.

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Disclaimer. This post contains copyrighted images from Crysis Remastered, a video game developed by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts. The fair use of copyrighted works for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting or research is not considered as an infringement of copyright.