what to expect from Crytek’s next game • Eurogamer.net

Lessons from the original Crysis remaster.

Scheduled for release in the fall, Crysis 2 and Crysis 3 Remastered are heading to the latest generation and last generation PlayStation and Xbox consoles and Nintendo Switch and today we can show you the first images of Crysis 2 running on PlayStation 5. This is part of and taken from a developer interview we did during a recent visit to Crytek’s headquarters in Frankfurt, where we spoke to project manager Steffan Halbig and lead artist Marcel Schaika. The full interview is embedded below, where we talk about the successes and failures of Project Crysis Remastered and the approach to take to complete the trilogy.

In terms of what we can show you today, Crysis 2 running on PlayStation 5 is basically an intergenerational project – you see the PS4 Pro codebase running on Sony’s latest machine. So it’s retro-compat more, with Crytek taking a similar approach on Xbox Series consoles. As you’ll see in the debug info at the top right of the screen, Crysis 2 Remastered runs at native 1440p resolution and what we’ve seen so far shows locking very close to 60fps. Expect higher resolution on Xbox Series X.

The development process itself has evolved considerably since Crytek partnered with Saber Interactive on the first Crysis. While Saber remains on point, Crytek itself has deployed more of its internal staff to guide development, to better realize the potential of the project. And in fact, Digital Foundry itself has reviewed early drafts and offered comments (unpaid, to be clear). Ultimately, it’s about making sure the remasters are the best they can be within the project’s budget – which is why there isn’t a native PS5 or Xbox Series app.

John Linneman heads to Crytek headquarters to talk about Crysis 2 Remastered with project manager Steffan Halbig and lead artist Marcel Schaika – and it’s also your first look at the game itself.

In terms of production, we should see a much smoother process this time around. For the first Crysis, Crytek opted to upgrade the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions as opposed to the PC original, meaning a plethora of features found in the 2007 original were missing. Gradually, the missing content was restored to the game, but it still feels like the game is not where it should be. For the final two chapters of the Crysis trilogy, Crytek has access to much better PC versions, built on more modern CryEngines that support DX11 features. So the benchmark for Crysis 2 is code DX11, so key features like tessellation appear in the remaster – but the team went beyond that.

The era’s teal and orange color grade has been replaced with something that looks a lot better, while there’s a lot of actual remastering indeed besides just rolling out the DX11 enhancements. Texture resolution is dramatically increased via 3D scans, material handling is dramatically improved (especially evident on aspects like vehicles and sight weapon), while lighting in particular gets a boost. via a large increase in fidelity thanks to Crytek using its real-time global lighting systems – SVOGI – while screen space reflections are increased via a large increase in cube-map samples. Improvements at the level of detail are also in place.

There are, however, some changes in terms of the rendering modes available. Crytek has removed performance, fidelity, and ray tracing options from console versions and is focused on getting the right balance of fidelity and performance in a single mode. However, this is business as usual on PC, where one can expect to see traced ray highlights rolled out again with the usual levels of customization.

Crysis Remastered has evolved over time, especially on PC. Here’s our last look at the most recent major overhaul of the game.

One interesting thing to note is that Crytek removed the “can it run Crysis?” Message. »Mode from the PC renderings of the suites. This mode was originally incorporated to maximize fidelity and push graphics material to the full extent of the engine, although tangible improvements to the actual presentation were minimal. The final result ? Users ran everything automatically at maximum settings and were disappointed with the performance – an unfortunate situation considering that Crysis Remastered didn’t really need a huge GPU to look great. Speaking of performance, Crytek also informs us that CPU-based optimizations are still being developed to further improve the performance of Crysis Remastered.

While we won’t show it today, we’ve also seen and played Crysis 2 and Crysis 3 Remastered on Nintendo Switch, where, naturally, 30fps is the target – and in common with our thoughts on Crysis Remastered, we’re pretty impressed with what we see there. We will come back to this project in more detail as it approaches its release.