Crysis is a 2007 first-person shooter game developed by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows. It is the first game in the Crysis series. A standalone expansion, Crysis Warhead, was released in 2008, following similar events as Crysis but from a different narrative perspective. A remastered version of Crysis titled Crysis Remastered was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in 2020 and is also part of the Crysis Remastered Trilogy compilation.
Crysis is set in a future where a massive, ancient alien-built structure has been discovered buried inside a mountain in the fictional Lingshan Islands, near the coast of the east Philippines. The single-player campaign has the player assume the role of U.S. Army Delta Force soldier Jake Dunn, referred to in-game by his callsign, Nomad. Nomad is armed with various futuristic weapons and equipment, most notably a "Nanosuit" which was inspired by the real-life military concept of Future Force Warrior. The player fights both North Korean and extraterrestrial enemies in various environments on and around the island.
When Crysis released, it was praised for setting new milestones in video game graphics, commensurate with its notoriously high hardware requirements for the time. This has led to the phrase "Can it run Crysis?" becoming an Internet meme as the game continued to be used as a benchmark for the performance of gaming PCs years after its release. The game received critical acclaim, with praise for its graphics design, presentation, and physics, while some criticized its story and multiplayer mode. A sequel, Crysis 2, was released in 2011.
Gameplay
As with Crytek's previous game, Far Cry, Crysis is a first-person shooter game with many ways to meet objectives. The player controls a special forces soldier codenamed Nomad. The player's weapons can be customized without pausing the flow of time, for example changing firing modes, changing scopes or adding sound suppressors.
The player is also capable of selecting various modes in Nomad's military "Nanosuit" which draw power from the suit's energy. When the suit's energy is depleted, no modes can be used and the player is more vulnerable to damage before the suit recharges. One of four modes can be selected: Armor deflects damage and recharges the suit's energy faster; Strength allows stronger hand-to-hand combat, the ability to throw objects and enemies with deadly force, higher jumps, steadier aiming and reduced weapon recoil; Speed increases running and swimming speed, as well as other forms of motion such as reloading weapons; and Cloak, which renders Nomad almost completely invisible and suppresses movement noise.
The suit's integral facemask has its own HUD, displaying typical data including a tactical map, health, current energy levels, and weapons information. The view is electronic in nature, shown in-game through things such as a booting readout and visual distortion during abnormal operation. A particularly useful utility is the binocular function, which allows the player to zoom in and electronically tag enemies and vehicles from afar, thereby tracking their movement on the tactical display.
The player can engage enemies in a variety of ways; using stealth or aggression, bullets or non-lethal tranquilizers, ranged rifles or short-range weaponry, and so on. Enemy soldiers employ tactical maneuvers and work as squads. All soldiers will respond to noise caused by the player, including using signal flares to call for reinforcements. If the player has not been detected in the area, enemies will exhibit relaxed behaviour, but if aware of the player they will draw weapons and become combative.
Weapons The game features assault rifles, sub-machine guns, pistols, missile launchers, shotguns, miniguns, sniper rifles, gauss rifles (coilguns), the MOAC (a machine gun style alien weapon which fires high-velocity ice shards), and the TAC gun (a hand-held nuclear grenade launcher). Most weapons can be modified with attachments; these attachments may be given to the player by default, acquired from picked-up weapons, or purchased in multiplayer. Attachment options are given a fair amount of leeway even if the result may seem strange. For instance, a 4x/10x sniper scope can be attached to the buckshot-firing shotgun, though there might be no practical use for such a particular combination. Additionally, most weapons have multiple firing modes (single/automatic fire) and different ammo types; for example, the KPA's FY-71 can fire both conventional bullets as well as incendiary bullets, which increase damage. Crysis also incorporates some features that have appeared in other recent shooters such as accounting for already-chambered rounds when a reload occurs.
Vehicles A large selection of vehicles are present, most of which are usable by the player. Available ground vehicles range from pickup trucks to tanks, while naval vessels range from motorboats to light military hovercraft. A larger patrol boat is available in custom-made multiplayer maps using the sandbox editor. All vehicles, including Humvees, pickup trucks, even tanks, have a turbo mode that can be activated via the Shift key (by default). The aircraft selection is limited to the North Korean attack helicopter and a fictional American VTOL (each of which can transport six passengers and two crew). Crytek also included an amphibious armored personnel carrier, its wheeled version that can travel on water and land, although this vehicle was only available for those who pre-ordered the game.
Damage modeling, although limited in vehicles, is most noticeable in the ability to burst tires, although wheeled vehicles can still move even if all the tires are gone, slowly rolling along on the rims. Tracked vehicles such as tanks or APCs can lose their tracks as a result of damage, but may continue moving even though there is no way for the drive sprockets to propel the vehicle. Exposed gas cans on Humvees can be shot in order to detonate their contents, which usually results in the explosion of the vehicle. While burning, destroyed vehicles will cause proximity heat damage to objects and characters. Unavailable vehicles shown in-game include jet aircraft, excavator, forklift and for reasons of scale, destroyers. None of the alien machines can be commandeered by players. The wheeled carts which would presumably be used to move aircraft or heavy vehicles, can also be moved by the player, but movement is very slow and useful for little more than entertainment and novelty.
Multiplayer Up to 32 players are supported in each multiplayer match in Crysis multiplayer, which used the GameSpy Network and required the user to have an existing user ID or otherwise create a new one. There are two different modes, each with six available maps: Instant Action, a deathmatch type mode; and Power Struggle, which is played by two opposing teams, each trying to destroy the other's headquarters.
Power Struggle features the American soldiers fighting the North Koreans; both sides, however, have nanosuits. All players begin armed with only a pistol and a nanosuit. Weapons and vehicles can be found throughout the map, but generally must be bought by using "Prestige Points," which are earned by killing enemies or capturing buildings.
The aim of Power Struggle is to destroy the enemy headquarters, a task which is achieved using nuclear weapons in the form of a TAC Tank, a TAC launcher, or by using a Singularity Tank, which generates a temporary black hole in the target area. To gain access to nuclear or singularity weapons, the player must first capture the "prototype facility" which is used to make them, and then use the alien crash sites which feed the facility with energy necessary to build up enough energy to build weapons of mass destruction.
One must earn Prestige Points, attained by killing enemies and taking over Bunkers, Power Stations, and Factories, to buy weapons and vehicles, including any of the aforementioned superweapons. Some of the weapons available in the game are machine guns, pistols, a shotgun, a precision rifle, ammo, a rocket launcher, explosives, and a gauss rifle (a sniper-type weapon able to kill another player in one shot).
The advanced weapons available for purchase from the Prototype Factory (aside from nuclear and singularity weapons) require 50% energy. Weapons the player can buy are the handheld minigun, the MOAC which has infinite ammo and fires ice shards, and the MOAR, which is an upgrade that can be attached to the MOAC causing it to fire a beam that will instantly freeze all enemies and some vehicles.
Capture The Flag, originally planned to be included in the game, is no longer part of the game mode line up, due to its similarity to Power Struggle. Even so, Jack Mamais, lead designer, stated that Crytek hopes that this mode will be developed by the modding community. Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli also said that Team Action would not be included as a multiplayer mode, because players would gravitate toward either Instant Action, or Power Struggle.
On April 14, 2014, Crytek announced that the multiplayer mode would be unplayable after GameSpy switched off its servers on May 30, 2014.
Plot The game begins on August 7, 2020, when North Korean forces led by General Ri-Chan Kyong take control of the Lingshan Islands. A team of American civilian archaeologists, led by Dr. Rosenthal, sends out a distress call indicating that they have discovered something that could change the world. A week later, United States Army Delta Force's Raptor Team is dispatched to the islands, with the core mission of evacuating them and securing any valuable information that they have. The team consists of Nomad, Psycho, Aztec, Jester, and team leader Prophet (all under code names); they are outfitted with technologically advanced Nanosuits, which help protect them from gunfire and explosions, as well as giving them superhuman strength and abilities. As they perform a high-altitude jump onto one of the islands, an unknown flying entity disrupts the jump by smashing into Nomad, and the team is separated. The crash deactivates Nomad's Nanosuit and destroys his parachute, but he is saved because he lands in the water and his nanosuit absorbs the impact. Once he reaches shore, Prophet remotely resets Nomad's suit, restoring its normal functions.
As Raptor Team regroups after the jump, Aztec is killed by an unknown entity. When the team finds him, they discover that whatever killed him also killed and dismembered a nearby squad of KPA soldiers. The remaining members of Raptor Team proceed with the mission. Along the way, they discover the hostages' boat frozen on a hill near the coast of the island. They also get their first look at the aliens who have been attacking their team when a flying alien machine sneaks up on them and snatches Jester, killing him shortly thereafter. The first hostage the team rescues turns out to be a CIA agent who was sent to monitor Dr. Rosenthal's work. In the jungle, Nomad finds another hostage named Badowski dead with ice shards in his back as the KPA battle an alien machine nearby. After Nomad regroups with Prophet, Prophet is suddenly snatched by another flying machine, which carries him away in its grasp. Shortly after, Nomad is contacted over the radio by Major Clarence Strickland of the American military, asking if he wishes to abort the mission since most of his team has been killed or missing; Nomad refuses, saying that he can still complete the mission.