With the overall consensus being that the gameplay trailer for Crysis Remastered wasn't quite at the level Crysis should be -- that is a game that will melt any and all graphics hardware that attempts to run it. Ahead of it's official debut, the gameplay trailer for Crytek's re-imagining of the original leaked and was met with mostly negative feedback.

Here it is (with footage captured from the PC version).



The problem? Apparently it doesn't look like much of a an upgrade, and with a few mods the PC version from back-in-the-day looks a lot better. Though it's worth noting, that for a 2007 game - the year of the very first The Witcher and BioShock - this still looks good. But, this leak came after Crytek hyped its remaster efforts by teasing the inclusion of modern effects like "volumetric fog and shafts of light, software-based ray tracing, and screen space reflections". The hype was real so the trailer that was set to debut last night was postponed, alongside the release of the game.

“Your passion for the Crysis franchise deserves an undeniably high-quality game,” Crytek said in a statement on Twitter. “And we are committed to delivering just that. To ensure that we meet that commitment, we will need to delay the launch date (all platforms) and trailer premiere by a few weeks.”

Here's the word in full.

We would like to share an important update with you all! pic.twitter.com/ylu0OisDf3

— Crysis (@Crysis) July 1, 2020

With the gist being that the team will spend a few extra weeks to polish the game and push the visuals to the "PC and console breaking standard" that fans are used to. Of course, one of the reasons Crysis doesn't run all that great on modern hardware comes down to some of the obsolete tech it uses (the original first hit the scene in 2007) - so the game is due for an overhaul. That said, it's hard to see how - in the space of a few weeks - the game will go from "yeah, that looks like Crysis" to "ooh, Crysis".

Crysis Remastered is still headed to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One.

Thanks to a new in-depth video by the tech gurus over at Digital Foundry it looks like the infamous 'but can it run Crysis' meme is about to get a new lease on life. Thanks to a mod that adds a layer of global illumination via path tracing (similar to the recent Quake II mod), the aging and still impressive PC tech demo now looks even better.

The update comes via the Reshade RT filter still in development, which does have one limitation. In that the ray traced or path tracing is screen space only - meaning that only objects you see will factor into the calculations. Which also means that it's guessing where the light sources are coming from, leading to some issues.

As Rechade works with a number of older titles the effect isn't limited to the NVIDIA RTX line or RTX specific hardware usage. As expected the performance impact is significant but as the effect and filter applies to older titles - this should still be playable on high-end cards.

Here's an example taken from the video of ray tracing off and then turned on.




The full Digital Foundry video showcases the tech alongside a since abandoned co-op mode for the game - which you can watch below.



Also, be sure to check out the full write-up on the mod here.

For a series that we haven't seen a new entry in years, Crysis is still well-known for its impressive visuals. And on PC, for bringing hardware to its knees for almost a decade. So much so that its takes NVIDIA's latest RTX 2080 card to run the game in 4K at high frame-rates. Segue-way! The Crysis trilogy is now backwards compatible on Xbox One.

As per the following tweet from Xbox's Major Nelson.

Crysis, Crysis 2, and Crysis 3 are coming to Xbox One Backward Compatibility today https://t.co/qPMRNs2ZLo pic.twitter.com/Xe0hcBJQEN

— Larry Hryb (@majornelson) October 16, 2018

Which technically answers the question "Yeah, but can it run Crysis though?" for the Xbox One X. Albeit the Xbox 360 versions.

For the entire day of January 12th, Electronic Arts are offering the original Crysis game on Origin for the pretty rad price of $1.

If you haven't had a chance to check out Crytek's sci-fi FPS - well, now's probably a good time to pick it up. Those who came in late might want to check out our game page for some more information, but if you have a dollar to spare, go buy it now from the Origin store.

edit: The deal is over!

Another tidbit of news that might be of interest to console gamers today is the announcement from EA that the PC FPS Crysis will be winging its way to Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network:

In 2007 and again in 2011, critics around the world hailed Crysis and Crysis 2 as titles that ushered in the next-generation of gaming with jaw-dropping visuals, industry leading technology and groundbreaking sandbox gameplay, featuring the super-powerful Nanosuit. Today, the original, award-winning 2007 single-player campaign has been remastered for Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Network with optimized Nanosuit controls, fine-tuned combat and full stereoscopic 3D support.

The only price listed is for Xbox Live - 1600 MS points. The game is currently scheduled for release in October this year.

It's not an official announcement from either EA or Crytek, but a listing for an Xbox 360 version of Crysis on the American ESRB ratings manifest, and the Korean version suggest we'll see the first Crysis making its way to console, most likely through CryEngine 3, reports GameSpot. The ESRB also has a mention of PS3 for the game.

Most people remember the first Crysis being a system eater, in that it would crunch any machine not spec'd out to deal with it, but anyone who could get it up and running were privy to one pretty-ass game. Since then the team have released Crysis 2 running on their in-house CryEngine 3 tech, on all platforms to much praise.

Console users - would you pick this up and play it on your platform of choice reskinned with CryEngine 3?