Once Crysis hit the gaming scene in 2007, the popular slogan used to describe any rig was: but can it play Crysis? That's because the game was way ahead of its time, requiring high-end hardware to crank out the most modest of graphical settings. It became the primary PC benchmark for years to come, causing waves of hardware upgrades so that gamers could play the PC exclusive.
Crytek has always prided itself in saying that the engine is three years advanced, and it shows in the quality of its shooters. But now the popular slogan is about the change. Once Crysis 3 hits the PC gaming scene, the new question will be: so has Crysis 3 melted your computer? Will it be a mere marketing campaign to sell millions of units? Probably not.
"That joke will be resurrected again with Crysis 3, I’m quite sure about that," Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli said during an EA-hosted Q&A session live-streamed from Gamescom 2012. "There are brutal expectations around the PC version of Crysis 3. So this time we promise to melt down PCs."
Many Crytek fans grew bitter after the company chose to shift its focus over to the consoles. Crytek blamed the new love on piracy, but the true cause is likely due to the popularity of the lucrative Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles, and that it's essentially cheaper to develop for a single hardware set. Still, Crysis 2 proved that the developer still had love for its core PC gaming audience, and that won't change for the third installment. Promises of melting PCs is like being in 2007 all over again.
"There is unfortunately always in a multi-platform development that kind of compromise that we have to take, but at the same time we are trying not to take it, so we try to make sure that the PC version looks fantastic, plays fantastic," he said. "This time we’re saying, 'Okay, let’s not compromise the PC but let’s try to push the consoles so make the PC version happen.'"
Yerli added that high-end PCs are leaps ahead of the current crop of consoles in terms of raw power (Nvidia's Keplar), further widening the gap that already existed at the time of Crysis 2's release back in March 2011. The third installment is slated to invade the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC in February 2013.
Let the PC melting commence this Winter.
