Multiplatform Crysis 2 brings 'a better game to everyone,' Crytek says

@Special Agent Steve

And PC. Seeing as they had to optimise the console version SO much, The mid range PC users can run a game that looks amazing, Rather than having to upgrade for it.

Crytek have said they are working on a DX11 patch.

@LEONLEONLEON I'm all for providing even mid-range PCs with a great visual experience, but no matter how you slice it, if they made it with the eye towards bringing down the cutting edge PCs of today it would be even more gorgeous and would truly set a benchmark for graphics. At the end of the day the game is beautiful and it's great, but it doesn't live up to the meme that its predecessor started. It's not a big loss but it's a bit of a disappointment. Furthermore, it's looking like Battlefield 3 will match Crysis 2's graphical prowess, and possibly suppress it. The original Crysis wasn't matched for at least a couple of years I think.

@2late2die

I´m a strong believer that multiplatform is the way to go, in this times the only way to get a good amount of money is to develop for everybody, it´s the smart thing to do. Exclusive titles are no longer a good enough Bait to force you to buy a console, even more with the current prices, a single game is not really worth it to buy two consoles just for a couple of special games. Crytek from a commercial point did the right thing, even though they did awesome with the p.c. only ( more than a million copies of the first one, that´s a hit even in consoles) but they sure had a big market to squeeze, now with that said i do believe that at the end, even though they improved financially this crysis was nothing really "special" this one was not as amazing as the first one, even if it was for small details like the trees that now only "bounce" when you shoot them instead of breaking on as many pieces as you wanted like in the first one, those details are really gone, to be honest i think they just downgraded their original engine to make it work with all the machines. True, it was the right move, but from a technical point of view it was a step backward.

@Hunter141072

Multiplatform only works if you care about the individual experience on ALL platforms.

Developing on an 360 and then just changing the color of the buttons for PS3 users doesn't pass. Removing expected features on a PC and keeping an interface optimized for consoles doesn't pass.

That's not aimed just at Crysis, but that's the case with the majority of "multiplatform" games now.

If you can't be bothered to develop your game specifically for each platform you release it on then don't bother. I'd rather have one choice than two choices that are churned out by the sales department.

@arkweld

Nice idea, but not finacially feasable. Pipe dreamin',,,

@LEONLEONLEON

DX11 Patch? That's just a formality to pacify some people.

A game not built from the ground to with DX11 in mind wont take advantage of all the things DX11 has to offer, and that's what they won't tell you.

@arkweld

I see what you're getting at literally speaking, but it's not really a pipe dream to expect some features the past game had. DX9 only was a sham (and I already explained the DX11 shenanigans), The lack of graphics options is pathetic and lazy, and the lack of mod support for people to make custom maps and such is only proof of EA's greed since they will obviously start shoving map packs down people throats.

@OnToGloryReturns

No it's very feasible. You see it all the time.

Uncharted exists on the PS3.

Halo exists on the 360.

Starcraft 2 exists on the PC.

etc. etc.

They all have one thing in common. They didn't castrate their games just to rake in money. They stuck with their focused platform and they came out better.

Like I said. Make an effort or don't bother. I'd rather have one choice than be given the slops purely to justify another price sticker.

@arkweld

True, but let´s be honest what´s this "real experience" we are talking about?? it´s more a technical experience if you ask me. When people complains about a p.c. version we complain about the game running slowly, or the visuals are the same than those of the xbox, it´s always technical stuff, it´s not really that we want the game to work better with a mouse and keyboard because that´s the "experience" on the p.c. And from that point i think dice is right, they made a p.c. version who is technically better because at the end p.c. will always be better, but when you make a crappy conversion that runs slower on the p.c. then that´s when the "experience" is really a mess.....

@LEONLEONLEON
I'm not sure you understand what "optimise" means.
Crysis 2 is not as optimised as Crysis 1.
You can run Crysis 1 from computers with low specs to computers with very high specs and fully utilize the computing power of ALL tiers of computers.
For Crysis 2, first, you cannot run it on low specs computers; second, it's a waste running it on high spec computers because it doesn't fully utilize computing powers.
Oh and for mid spec computers, Crysis 1 runs smoother while looking better than Crysis 2.

And I say again, one game with much less graphic tweak options COULDN"T possibly be as optimized as one with much more options.

@arkweld

Uncharted is a series owned and published by Sony.

Halo is a series owned and published by Microsoft (Halo 1 and 2 are on PC as well)

Starcraft is owned and published by Blizzard, they don't do console games (appart from 1 or 2 games on the PS1). It's also an RTS, RTSs don't sell millions on a console.

@allinwonder

Crysis 2 is not a waste running on a high end computer, I run it on mine and it looks great.

@arkweld

Those examples still do not apply - Uncharted and Halo were developed by 1st party studios that create software exclusively for their publishers (Sony/Microsoft) and Starcraft is a PC centric franchise in a genre generally recognized as not suitable for consoles, nor is there a large market for RTS on them.

A third party developing software with a huge budget/cost needs to recoup as much capital as possible so releasing on multiple platforms makes fiscal sense; especially in the always hot FPS market.

Developing for one specific platform is a nice idea/ideal but just isn't finacially feasible as I mentioned before. Just look at all the former exclusive titles and franchises that have gone multiplatform for that exact reason. Again - nice idea, but not realistic as these companies first duty is to make a profit without the luxury of subsidies from a first pary publisher.

@Special Agent Steve

Was just about to say something like that but you beat me to it sir! I do think the console chaps got a great game. PC on the other hand....

@arkweld thosegames you mentioned also have another thing in common

they destroy Crysis in terms of sales

Crysis isn't nearly as recognizable or well known, so to make up a lot of the budget they have to make it multiplatform (especially with piracy being such a bad problem)

@Hunter141072

I know I have personally been greatly put off by the controls not being done well in a port. To be honest the experience for me has always been of control and much less about whether or not it had some extra visual buzzword. I play on the PC because the PC controls better, it gives me the control to add in mods to make my games last longer{most of the time}, It lets me control the way the game looks to a point{Turning off horrid bloom and blur effects}, It allows me to customize keys to just what I like, and I can use my 100$ bad ass joystick to fly choppers and planes in the battlefield series.

It allows me to control my experience. It doesn't lead me by the nose and tell me that it has to be one way. The visuals for me have never made a game, They can break a game certainly if they try to go too high and make the game unplayable for all but the best systems, but not having the best flashy flashy never bothered me at all. Its about the games, not how much they can make your eyes bleed. Its this thought and desire for the next bleeding edge experience that causes companies to break themselves providing these higher graphics and what do we really get out of it?

Worse games, Because higher and higher chunks of the budget are spent on graphics and less on the important thing GAME-PLAY. Making sure that the game plays great, and is FUN.

Maybe I am old fashioned, But I will take a game that looks like something from 5 years ago as long as the game-play is great. Take Mount and Blade for instance, The game looks like something from 5 years ago or more but the game is FREAKING FUN. Ill play that for 300 hours longer than I would play the best looking FPS on the market that just isn't as fun with one quarter of the features.

But hey, that's just me, and obviously I am in the minority these days. Or am I?

@Dracownsu


Man, i just hope you are not the minority, if that´s the case then games are doomed.

I agree with you in a lot of things, it´s true that p.c. should be considered as a system that has to work with mouse and keyboard, although i find completely unforgivable not to buy a wireless receptor for the p.c. to use the xbox controllers, many people complains about control pads when the wireless receptor is the best solution and the must supported one. It´s true that game play should always be first in a game, but a lot of people really want to see something good specially on the p.c. as it is the system with the best GFX, it´s always going to be like that, however sometimes people don´t understand that games had to be created with other two consoles in mind because well, as i said it´s a money thing. And sometimes p.c. users can be a very unfair judges, for example. A lot of people hated the port of resident evil 4, they said it was awful and that the lack of controls with a mouse and keyboard was a big mistake, i couldn´t disagree more.... first of all not many people understands the difference between port and a game designed for the p.c. a port is exactly that, a game that is going to be exactly the same as the one of the ps2 ( in this case) because they didn´t made a special version for the p.c. it was a port, and to be honest i like it a lot, it was a good game but many people felt the version didn´t had as many special effects as the p.c. could handle, true but that´s what happens when a game has to be created for many platforms, now i can live with that, as you said as long as the game is really fun visual aspects can be ignored, but sadly not all the people thinks like that......

@BaronVonSachsen
You don't play it online do you? This POS is a cheaters/pirates paradise.

@mund0x

Hell man, I get that Black Ops console lag on the PC. Hit detection is just plain out BAD!

@BaronVonSachsen

As a veteran of Crysis and Crysis Warhead, Crysis 2 on PC is a disappointment and it shows across PC enthusiasts forums. Played it on console and it was disappointing too.

PC enthusiasts have completely lost trust with Crytek and are now hopeful with DICE's path of having PC as the lead platform for Battlefield 3.

@Ballistic H

PC enthuisiests need to stop crying.

They got just as good a rendition of Crysis 2 as consoles, which is far from being a bad game.

@Ballistic H

If you can make the right game for PC, it will make up for whatever budget you put into it. The budget should not be the attractive factor; Sousa is here basically saying that Crytek is proud it made Avatar. But look at Battlefields, TF2, Civilization. It just has to be the right game for the PC market.

@This Little Man Says His Name Is

"PC enthuisiests need to stop crying. They got just as good a rendition of Crysis 2 as consoles, which is far from being a bad game."

Wall of text warning:
It doesn't make it a bad game, it makes it a console port that ultimately suffered from having to work within the constraints of console hardware. The game completely lacks POM, environmental interactivity has been severely diminished, the overall quality of water effects have been lowered, vehicle interactivity has been all but removed, Crysis 2's motion blur is a less precise knock off of what Crysis's DX10 per object motion blur, the levels are far more linear, menu options have been capped to 3 (instead of the 12 we saw in the title's predecessors), texture quality has been lowered (they are 1/2 to 1/4 the size of what came out of the box with Crysis), the game does not have a real time day/night cycle, the skybox is static (not dynamic like it was in the previous games), the CVAR commands have largely been removed (there were 3000+ in the beta; there are now just 47) and the move from the jungle to the city (contrary to what the PR mouthpiece says) was done largely because the consoles are geometry constrained; thousands of trees require more polys than a few static buildings. Why was this all done? Because Crytek's focus was console centric and the implementation of those features would have drastically diminished their 30 FPS performance target (something they still failed to achieve despite the sub-HD resolution on both platforms). If you remove the global illumination and lens flare, you're ultimately left with a game that's inferior in almost every way to its predecessors.

Crytek told PC enthusiasts that the PC version would be the definitive version of the game. We were promised DX11 support out of the box, we were promised a greater level of interactivity than what we had previously experienced, and we were promised a level of visual fidelity the previous games could never achieve. DX11 support wasn't made official until earlier this month (up until that point it was essentially, "We've never confirmed it") and the game is DX9.0c only. Considering everyone who's purchased a videocard in the last 5 years has DX10 capable hardware (which can use most of DX11's new features) and DX10 allows for proper hardware AA in a game using a deferred renderer (which would be a massive improvement over the texture blurring edge smoothing filter as well as the artifact causing temporal AA currently in use), there's no good reason to have a DX9.0c renderpath.The texture and physics .pak files have been encrypted, thus preventing the community from release high resolution texture packs or creating particle mods like Xigamtek's. The lack of a Sandbox editor prevents us from altering the Time of Day, motion blur level, and other variables that could have a MASSIVE impact on the overall appearance of the game. To put it nicely, Crytek completely lied to its PC users and it has been unapologetic since then.

Not to sound elitist, but it seems you don't own modern PC hardware and aren't fully aware of what it is capable of; the technological gap between what I have in my PC and what's available in my consoles (360, PS3, Wii) is much wider than what it is between a PS3 and PS2. If a small Ukranian developer with a fraction of the capital and staff Crytek has can release a game that takes advantage of contemporary PC hardware, why can't Crytek? Also, if I wanted a console game, I'd play it on my 360 or PS3; I built my gaming rig to break away from the various technical handicaps on those platforms.

@jackal You built your rig using I don't know how much money, and became a hobbyist. Unfortunately, you apparently did not take into account that the people supplying you with fuel for your hobby--i.e. games--have to spend millions to do so. That means those games have to sell millions of copies to recoup a profit so that the developers may eat, sleep, and live relatively comfortable (maybe even buy some games of their own.)

Now, follow me here: let's say the userbase of people with high-class PCs = x. Let's say the Xbox 360 install base = y, and the PS3 install base = z.

Currently in the U.S. at least,

y>z>x. Both y and z > x by a large margin.

There are two, and only two, sensible business approaches here. You either develop exclusively for one of the two higher install bases, ensuring that the exclusivity will help your cause, or multiple systems if you want the largest possible user pool.

Why would anyone who isn't Blizzard or Valve spend millions of dollars on developing a decent game so that even if every single high-end user bought the game--which they wouldn't--they wouldn't see nearly as much profit as a console release? Profit and money are everything, and telling yourself otherwise is naive.

@jackal

it's a game, dude. a game. when do we reach the point that we say 'i'm cool with this' because you know - it's not like the game looks bad, not like we're dealing with low resolutions.

at some point you need to take a look at what you think is important, not saying we shouldn't keep pushing the boundries but at some point you gotta get real - games look great today, the sound is great - sure there are plenty of crap titles out there - but we're there. so is it so bad that the pc game is so on par with the consoles? really?

i can't speak on the mp portion, but i thought the sp was great

i have some bells man, but i don't have a ton of bells. and devoting resources costs money. and money is having some problems as of late. the nets are going to be getting wider my friend, and hey....you can multi-task on that there computer. So you still got one on us!

@TheChezDispenser

My desktop was built for $1200. That sounds like a lot of money until one considers that my Xbox 360 was purchased for just under $600 at launch (the Canadian prices were extremely high) and my PS3 came in at just under $700 when it was purchased; considering my PC game library is more than twice the size of my PS3 and Xbox 360 libraries combined, how large my aggregate play time is (several times the number of hours put in on all of my consoles), and how much money I've saved for the vast majority of titles (saving $15-$30 per title compared to the console counterparts adds up remarkably fast), the PC has not been an overly expensive investment in the grand scheme of things.

I'm not saying Crytek should have made Crysis 2 PC exclusive. I'm saying they could have still released a multiplatform game and reached out to a larger audience without crippling the PC version or alienating that particular demographic. Smaller, less well known developers have been able to do precisely that with their releases. Avalanche was able to release a great console game in Just Cause 2 and an even better PC game by taking advantage of more recent hardware; the game completely lacks a DX9 renderpath and makes extensive use of DX10 because, as I've said before, everyone who's purchased a videocard since November 2006 has had the functionality available to them. Metro 2033 is A4's first game and, somehow, they were able to release a multiplatform title where the PC version wasn't nigh identical to the console build. It isn't too much to expect Crytek to put a little more effort into their PC game than simply increasing the resolution of their Xbox 360 port and adding a few more dynamic lights here and there.

As far as business goes, Crysis sold 3 million copies over two years; this puts it right on par with the lifetime sales of severally highly reviewed, highly anticipated top tier console exclusives. There is money to be made in PC gaming; if there wasn't, CD Projekt would not be in business, nor would Valve, Blizzard, GCS Game World, or dozens of indie developers. But you have to treat the platform as its own distinct entity; slapping a "PC DVD-ROM" sticker over an Xbox 360 decal and saying, "Eh, that's good enough" isn't a good way of generating sales from those people.

@jackal Did all those things really make Crysis 1 more fun for you? Were you just walking around in stealth mode, assassinating guys, but stopping once in awhile to say "Gee, that dynamic skybox really enhances the creative experience of this work"?

This is just my personal jam, but I think working in the confines of a console really made Crysis 2 a better game than it's predecessor. The first one, for all it's graphical prowess, was pretty bland and aimless. Sure you had the freedom to explore the island and all that, but to what end?

You say 2 is a more linear and guided experience like it's a bad thing. The first one was so devoid of motivation and purpose that I barely ever made it past the third or so base of Koreans before getting bored.. I thought being guided in a more controlled and focused experience in 2 was much, much more fun than wandering around for an hour looking at light through the trees from a dynamic skybox trying to find any objectives.

@TheDarkWayne

Actually, they did. The object motion blur was almost jaw dropping the first I saw it after snatching a KPA soldier and flinging him into a shack and replaying the first level after altering it in the Sandbox (rainy weather with atmospheric lightning in the clouds) completely changed the game's mood, especially when you come across Aztec's mangled corpse. Throwing a grenade into a cluster of trees and watching a pursuing patrol getting squashed under the falling trunks was delightful. The undulation of the ocean and rainbow mist given off by the spray of a waterfall added greatly to the game's immersion; I didn't stop, look, and say, "Jesus christ, that looks absolutely awful" in Crysis or Crysis Warhead when it came to water effects, but I did multiple times playing Crysis 2.

A guided experience isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as it's being used to enhance the presentation of the title's plot; the Uncharted games use linearity to great effect when it comes to character development and progressing through the series' more intense levels (most notably the war torn ones in the second). Crysis 2 does not have a strong plot to fall back on (the dialogue is crap, the plot is full of holes, and the voice acting is awful for most of the new characters); the atmosphere of the title could have greatly benefited, IMHO, from larger levels. Greater interactivity with the buildings (like we saw in the Cryengine3 tech demo) would've provided more options for enemy engagement; walking through a level of the downtown core area comparable in size to the first game's Island filled with abandoned cars, smouldering wreckage, and the bodies of hundreds of victims could have driven home what's at stake if you fail. Larger levels also allows for a larger number of NPCs, both enemy and allied; the battles could have been larger and more intense. Crysis 2's guided approach came about because Crytek was having issues with getting the game to hit its anticipated performance target of 30 FPS with any form of consistency; the company went on record saying that any gameplay feature that could not be implemented on the console versions without a performance penalty would be scrapped for all versions, not just the ones running on half decade old hardware.

@jackal So do you think if Crysis 3 were to have the kind of graphical power you'd expect from a sequel to Crysis, but with a more focused and guided experience, would you enjoy that more than Crysis 1? I hope this doesn't come off as hostile or anything, I just wonder what you think about it. I played the first one on PC (obviously) with mostly all of the options turned to max, but like I said it was just kind of boring after awhile. I didn't pay enough attention to find a disparity between the graphics of 1 and 2 to be displeased, and I think overall I enjoyed it more, but it definitely could have been better in ways more than graphics.

@TheDarkWayne

While I would obviously desire to see an increase in visual fidelity on the PC side of things (comparable to or exceeding what we've seen with the pre-alpha footage of BF3), I would find the game much more enjoyable if the game 1) the degree of interactivity was increased beyond what we had with Crysis (killing your opponents with the environment is a rare treat), 2) if the levels were made larger (not as large as they were in Crysis, but large enough to build up the atmosphere of war ravaged city), 3) I'd like to see Crytek filling in the gaping plot holes created by the second game, and 4) I'd also like to see a large change in the Ceph's involvement; in Crysis 2, their presence almost seemed like an incursion to test our ability to defend a major city as opposed to a full scale invasion. Though it wasn't a good film, the deployment of the alien ground troops and how they fought in Battle: Los Angeles should give you an idea of the kind of invasion I'm thinking of.

@PointlessPuppies

Considering how bad things could've been, no DX11 support and auto-aim aren't that bad.

I thought the game was fine. I'm sure it was just as fine on the PC... After the patches.

@Apsac D

No DX11 support (while it literally would have made no difference) is a huge psychological deal. When all the huge PC tuners found out that Crysis 2, the game that was supposed to be their ultimate benchmark used old tech like DX10 instead of 11 they flipped out. Hardcore.

@Colin - I could be wrong, but I've heard that Crysis 2 isn't even DX10 at the present, much less DX11.

PC gamers have a reason to be irked.

@Colin

This is true, but once this issue is fixed, it'll be a regular game, just like the rest. Sure, the PC version got hurt, but it's still a good game regardless of what issues plague it.

I feel like a hyprocrite, because I loathed New Vegas for the very same reason.

@Apsac D

New Vegas at launch had issues on all platforms though.

@Apsac D
I think the worst blunder of all was that pirates were able to play online without paying/banning. Making legitimate user's question their decision (at least from what was posted on the forums ;) to buy a game when pirates can get every feature including online.

Making paying users consider piracy by your own faults is a pretty massive problem.

@Premature ejaculation man

Legit users always get screwed.

What say you, Premature Ejaculation Man?

@PointlessPuppies

I remember when Crytek was underground man...

They were cool then. Now they're just slaves to the Man... man...

@Misfit Toy
Like, dude man. Many manny men, man. Man...

@Ender7 lol wtf is hd memory

@chinedooo
High definition memory, of course! Where have you been these last few years? It's all the rage.

@Ender7

I was with you till "HD Memory", "4 GB of ram", and "200 GB+ discs"

They barely use 20+ GB they got now

512 GB is enough space, 2 GB of ram is enough, and 25/50 is probably more then enough space for discs.

Why cram shit we wont need into them to up the price

@chinedooo Sorry, really tired. I meant Hard Drive space. My brain is sweeepy.

@Faenix I am flexible on the 500 gb, 2gb is probably is enough, but I still think that they should at least have up too 200 gb storage space like blueray, or just use blueray. The reason is that true HD images are HUGE and easily eat up gigs of space. Not to mention audio tracks along with all the other files can add up pretty quickly. I just want developers to have the freedom to do create the game they want to create without having to cut out and dumb down the game to fit on the medium and console.

@Ender7

New consoles need SSDs with the same capacity we have on consoles today. A 250gb SSD drive in a(n at least somewhat reasonably priced) next gen console would be monstrous.

@Ender7

Also Ender, please see the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte

A gig is a temporary job, not a unit of measurement.

@chinedooo
Hard Drive...

@Anticrawl

Really? You've never used gig as shorthand for gigabyte ever? Really? I don't believe you.

I mean, even my mother has done that.