In the fall, Crysis 2 and Crysis 3 Remastered will be released for current and last generation consoles as well as the Nintendo Switch. Today we can show you the first shots of Crysis 2 on PlayStation 5. It’s part of an interview with a developer we compiled during a visit to Crytek’s headquarters in Frankfurt, where we spoke to project manager Steffen Halbig and lead artist Marcel Schaika. The full interview is included below, where we talk about the successes and failures of the Crysis Remastered project and how to proceed with completing the trilogy.
Crysis 2 on PlayStation 5 is basically a multi-generational project – you can see the PS4 Pro codebase working on the latest Sony hardware. So it’s backward compatible, with Crytek taking a similar approach with Xbox series consoles. As you can see in the debug info at the top right, Crysis 2 Remastered runs at a native resolution of 1440p and what we’ve seen so far shows that the frame rate is 60fps. Expect higher resolutions on Xbox Series X.
The actual development process has evolved significantly since the beginning of the collaboration between Crytek and Saber Interactive to release the first Crysis game. While Saber remains in charge of development, Crytek has appointed more internal staff to lead development and better realize the project’s potential. In fact, Digital Foundry itself took a look at the early builds and provided feedback (unpaid just to make it clear!). Ultimately, it’s about making sure the Switches are as good as possible without breaking the bank – one of the reasons there aren’t any original PS5 or Xbox Series releases.
Jon Lineman visits Crytek headquarters to talk to project manager Steffen Halbig and lead artist Marcel Schaika about Crysis 2 Remastered – and this is also our first look at the game itself.
In terms of production, we should see a smoother process this time around. With the first Crysis game, Crytek decided to upgrade the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the original PC, which means that a slew of features from the 2007 original are missing. Little by little, the missing content has been incorporated into the game, but you still get the feeling that the game is not where it should be. For the last two chapters of the Crysis trilogy, Crytek could downgrade to better PC versions that are based on more modern CryEngines and support DX11 functionality. So the foundation of Crysis 2 is the DX11 code, so important features like tessellation appear in the Remaster – but the team got past that.
The old greenish and orange color scheme has been replaced with something that looks a lot better, while there are plenty of actual remastering effects as well as DX11 improvements. New 3D scans have allowed for increased texture accuracy, material handling has been greatly improved (particularly noticeable in aspects such as vehicles and weapons), while lighting in particular is seeing a significant increase in accuracy thanks to Crytek’s global realities. Time Lighting Systems (SVOGI). Screen space reflections are also improved with improved cube map sampling. There are also improvements to the level of detail.
However, there are some changes to the available viewing modes. Crytek has removed performance, fidelity, and ray tracing options from consoles and is focused on striking the right balance between quality and performance in a single mode. However, on PC, everything stays the same, and we can expect raytracing to be used here as well, along with the usual customization options.
Crysis Remastered has evolved over time, especially on PC. Here is our analysis of the game’s latest major overhaul.
It is worth noting that Crytek has removed the “Can it run Crysis?” mode. From the PC versions of the sequels. This mode was originally created to maximize resolution and use the graphics hardware as much as possible for the engine, even if the improvements to the graphics are minimal. The final result? Users automatically turned everything on at maximum settings and were disappointed with performance – an unfortunate situation when you consider that Crysis Remastered isn’t truly Took a huge GPU to look great. Speaking of performance: Crytek also told us that they are working on CPU optimizations to improve the performance of Crysis Remastered.
While we can’t show it today, we’ve seen and played Crysis 2 and Crysis 3 Remastered on the Nintendo Switch, where the target is understandably 30fps – just as with Crysis Remastered, we’re pretty impressed with what we’re seeing there. We will be reporting on this project in more detail shortly before its release.