Crytek: Crysis 2 "backfired a bit"

By Fred Dutton Published 23 June, 2011

Studio boss laments PC gamer backlash.

Crytek's decision to make Crysis 2 more accessible to low-spec PC gamers and their console brethren might have been a mistake, reckons the studio's CEO.

Cevat Yerli told Gamasutra that the move upset a significant portion of the shooter's fanbase, something that it's now trying to remedy with the impending DirectX 11 patch.

"Crysis 1's intention was, if I were to play it three years later, it looks great. And it does, actually, it fulfilled that. But it made it difficult for entry-level players," he explained. "So with Crysis 2, we took a different direction, and it backfired a little bit."

As detailed earlier this week, the DX 11 patch arrives on 27th June alongside update 1.9.

"This is much more like a gift to the high-end community," said Yerli. "And I think gamers will appreciate that. It lifts up Crysis 2 and gives a sneak peak of how PC gaming will evolve in the future, if you support a high-end preference."

The original Crysis was infamously demanding on PC users' hardware, and was one of the first games to use the Direct3D 10 framework of DirectX 10.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (55) Latest comment 11 months ago

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  • Sharzam #1 11 months ago

    So basically now that they have some community stuff ready they say 'oops' where as before it was about 'dont worry , trust us'. I had worries the day Crytek said they were looking at consoles so we shall see how the future goes i am sure the PC community will welcome them back if they decide to return to there high end roots.

  • HyperTails #2 11 months ago

    Crytek, the problem was that it wasn't just PC gamers you pissed off for a number of reasons, it was also console owners. Releasing a game that was buggy as hell with issues that still haven't fully been fixed, hyping it up by saying that its 'going to be a 90+ metacritic rating' and saying 'it will have the best AI in any video game'... what, you mean AI that stands on the spot and runs round in circles? Or continuously into walls? Or throws grenades at their own allies?

    And lets not forget the MP that was as laggy as hell, and had a player count that (certainly on PS3, don't know about the other two) dropped like a 6 tonne boulder hurled off a cliff. If its not TIA or Crash site, you've got no chance of playing the modes (ever find Extraction matches regularly?), and even they are low.

    And then there is the lack of communication, which Crytek take to a whole new level.

    You screwed up Crytek. PC gamers never seem to forget anything, and console gamers aren't happy that they got this turd. Will hurt you for Crysis 3, which I won't be falling for again.

  • chaywa #3 11 months ago

    By all means optimise the game for lower end users. But equally at the same time don't ignore the high end community who you aimed at for the first game in your franchise.

    You could've easily delayed the launch of Crysis 2 for PC for now in order to add Dx11 features and i'm sure most people wouldn't care.

    Me, I couldn't care given the release of Red Orchestra 2 at the end of August, which i'm easily more excited about than BF3, or the impending relaunch of Crysis 2.
    Edited by chaywa at 23/06/11 @ 17:53

  • Seehuusen #4 11 months ago

    Now that it's out of the way. Get back to proceding with the original Crysis story allready! Im talking about Nomad, WTF happened with him ? they fly back towards the island in a VTOL and then what !? I wanna play the stuff that happened not get fucking told about some lame ass story and suddenly be a new guy in frickin New York....

  • jack_klugman #5 11 months ago

    "if you support a high-end preference."

    Matron!

  • Osahi #6 11 months ago

    Well, at least is proved to be a much better game that didn't have the graphics as only selling point

  • Inmediasress #7 11 months ago

    So it still goes that Crytek is a shitty company who are money grubbers first and quality assurers second.
    Wow now that's a sudden revelation!

  • bad09 #8 11 months ago

    It certainly is a difficult one. You release a game hardly anyone can play for a few years so what do you do with the sequel.

    Problem is Crysis is a legendary game and was THE benchmark on PC due to the fact is was so demanding. How many of us threw on Crysis as the very first game to look at when we upgraded?

    Sure with a less demanding sequel you get more low end sales and the consoles as well but you've lost the magic of that demanding original and ended up with just another shooter.
    Edited by bad09 at 23/06/11 @ 18:03

  • Caimbeul #9 11 months ago

    I have not had any AI issues, in fact I have found the AI to be quit brutal. In relation to the graphics, the mistake was not catering to lower spec machines (that was a good thing!) The mistake was forgetting the high end users. I am looking forward to the patch and appreciate that creek have acted on feedback.

  • FortysixterUK #10 11 months ago

    I think it's great they catered to consoles and lower spec PCs.
    Elitist pc owning bastids...all you need is a high rez texures pack.
    However, when it goes cheap I will buy it for my UBER GAMING RIG, as such I purchased it first on 360 as I is an achievements whore. like.
    What.
    You is moist bro.

  • Iain815 #11 11 months ago

    My mates recently upgraded their rigs. To put it to the test the first thing I did was throw Crysis on it, and it still looks astonishing today.

  • subedii #12 11 months ago

    Glad to see they missed the point. At least as far as I'm concerned.

    I didn't care about the graphics. They looked good enough in the sequel anyway. Crysis was a good looking game, but that's not the primary reason I played it.

    I enjoyed Crysis because it was an awesome, free roaming action game, with massive non-linear levels that encouraged you to approach them as you saw fit. Assaulting an objective in Crysis was always a cavalcade of possibilities, and the open plan levels allowed those possibilities to come through.

    I was hooked on Crysis from the moment I played through the demo. And it wasn't because of the visuals (although those were awesome). It was because in-between getting the demo and getting the game, I must have played through that demo six times, and each one of those playthroughs was almost completely different. Go in by stealth, or guns blazing? Shall I head for my objective by land? Maybe steal someone's jeep and gun it straight past all the trouble? I could do that. Heck, I could snipe someone out in the sea, grab their boat, and literally bypass whole swathes of the level and meticulously designed action bubbles. And the game was totally OK with that approach, just as with any other. To date, the Harbour "Assault" level still stands for me personally, as one of the best designed FPS levels I've ever played. And that's pretty much because they dump you into a map and say "Your objectives are here, here and here, you'll find various resources scattered around the map, now go to it as you see fit". I've lost count of how many times I replayed that level.

    Come Crysis 2, it wasn't the graphics that killed my interest. It was them trying to turn a much larger, non-linear and open plan game into something more linear and desperately trying to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd (because we saw those sales NUMBERS! Call of Duty had huge NUMBERS! Why don't we have those NUMBERS?! Quick, copy it some more and we might get those NUMBERS! Grief, that philosophy even invaded the multiplayer).

    It was never going to work, they were never really going to steal the CoD crowd away, and they lost my interest in the process. It's a real pity, because I haven't really seen since that same marriage of non-linearity in level design and solid action gameplay. Other games pretend to be action movies. Crysis was a game that at its best, felt as if you were directing your own. And when you're the one that's involved in the events happening on-screen, and it's not all just some scripted set piece but a makeshift plan coming together (or even falling apart), that's something that feels really awesome.

    In some ways, Crysis was a pretty unique game. What's sad for me is that they then took the sequel and tried to make it a more generic action game instead of playing to the original game's strengths. A tossed in DX11 patch after-the-fact isn't really going to solve that.
    Edited by subedii at 23/06/11 @ 19:56

  • NeoKenzi #13 11 months ago

    At least the DX11 patch is on its way! I need to melt my graphics card!

  • DrStrangelove #14 11 months ago

    I liked Crysis 2.
    I liked that it ran really well on my PC even with its great graphics.
    I liked the setting, much more so than the muddled blind jungles of C1.
    I like that a DX11 update is coming, I bought a better graphics card in the meantime and would love to play through again with improved graphics.
    I liked that this German studio chose not to cut the violence for the German market, unlike so many who try to reach a wider audience with a lower age rating.

    Well, I did hate the serious bugs, but most of them were fixed soon.
    Now they bring a major graphics update for PC even though that probably won't sell more copies of the game.

    I'm pretty satisfied with Crysis 2, unlike some other recent FPS games I could mention.

  • StooMonster #15 11 months ago

    Although I bought Crysis 2 at launch, I haven't played it yet because of the multi-GPU not working (and I had other games to play) so waited for that to be fixed (which took ages), and now we're due the DirectX 11 pack I'm going to wait until then.

    So, I don't know how long it is after launch that the game will be (finally) ready for me to play, but it's been a while.

  • Cjail #16 11 months ago

    Think about every possible wrong move a developer can make in a videogame and be sure that it has been done for Crysis 2: unplayable online, glitches that force you to start over the entire game, 360 had a very unique particular visual bug, glitched trophies/achievements, countless online bugs, poor performances both in single player and online...these and many more problems are still 70% unfixed on the console and the first decent patch arrived only after more than 2 months from the release.
    I wanted to love Crysis 2 with all my heart but thanks to Crytek it was impossible!
    Edited by Cjail at 23/06/11 @ 18:53

  • The-Jack-Burton #17 11 months ago

    I can't believe how horribly unoptimized the greatest engine ever made in the history of man, CryEngine 3, is on consoles. I've played through both versions, the PS3 copy is slightly more stable with marginally better AI, and the 360 is actually running at 720p.

    That's what we get after being subjected to your incessant hype and hyperbole. The fact that nobody is knocking down your doors to license your fabulous middleware is enough retribution. And the fact that Kingdoms is a fucking Kinect game, that made me laugh.

  • markcocjin #18 11 months ago

    We made a mistake!

    We thought we could improve our critically acclaimed game but making it a better game without cutting edge graphics. We later on realized that we were critically acclaimed because of only the cutting edge graphics!

  • MegaCadet #19 11 months ago

    To the above; both versions run sub-HD.

  • drumbaby #20 11 months ago

    It was the confusion over the piss-poor PS3 demo that put me off going anywhere near it. Sort of made it look like Crytek were incompetent when programming for my console of choice, and ultimately this shook my confidence in making a purchase.

    By the time it was cleared up (maybe...never quite got a clear picture of the final result) I'd totally lost interest in the game. I think it was simply the victim of an extremely bungled multi-platform release.

  • rayscoota #21 11 months ago

    The biggest problem most think its down to the graphics that made Crysis 1. it was the envioments as much as the graphics which lead to freedom in the gameplay.

  • aidey6 #22 11 months ago

    [link url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK8sxngSWaU
    ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK8sxngSWaU
    [/link]

  • dutzan #23 11 months ago

    "Crysis 1's intention was, if I were to play it three years later, it looks great."
    But I won't be playing Crysis 2 three years later, I payed for it recently so I'd rather be able to play it on my current mid-range rig. Which I did, and it looked good enough. I understand they want to keep pushing the boundary, but just don't do what you did with the first one.

  • koopa #24 11 months ago

    The original Crysis sold 3 mil. on PC, C2 so far sold "only" 2 mil. on all platforms combined, something sure backfired a lot. I doubt they're gonna get much PC users with this late patch. That said, I enjoyed all Crytek games so far, but their user support was much better in the time of the original Far Cry.

    Wonder if they now regret for letting the tropical setting for grabs to Ubi and Far Cry 3...
    Edited by koopa at 23/06/11 @ 20:11

  • obscured021 #25 11 months ago

    I have a modest setup and @ 1080p at max quality its dose 100--130fps on avg which is alot of unused horse power, they really need to start pushing pc hardware again like the witcher 2 is doing now.

    nice negs, do you want to keep gaming in the dark ages or do you want to have better looking games that play better? they could have doubled the graphic in crysis 2 as its stands the first 2 games still look better and that was 4 years ago
    Edited by obscured021 at 24/06/11 @ 00:46

  • DUFFKING #26 11 months ago

    I'm not seeing the CoD comparison subedii... it may not have been as open as the original but there's a hell of a lot more scope than in most other linear shooters. CoD is entirely scripted with very little pacing. For the most part C2's encounters have a degree of openness to them, and the pace is varied enough to keep it interesting.

    I guess my main point is that when a building explodes and collapses in C2, it's exciting because it's not happening every 5 seconds, as opposed to the CoD ADD approach. So I don't see where the comparison comes from. In SP, anyway.

  • bad09 #27 11 months ago

    "C2 so far sold "only" 2 mil. on all platforms combined"

    Well to be fair Crysis amassed those sales over a few years so comparing lifetime sales to a few months sales for C2 might be a bit harsh.

  • Deckard1 #28 11 months ago

    PC gamers are always going to complain about a game if its also available on a console. It gives their life some meaning. Its the one time in their life they can ever feel superior to anyone.

  • Grayvern #29 11 months ago

    Talking graphics in terms of PC accessibility is spurious at best, Crysis would run really well on lower end systems providing the gamer didn't have a yin for moving sliders all the way to the right.

    As subedii says it's gameplay that was at fault with Crysis 2, small badly designed areas, powers that felt weaker, esp sprint, and a general feeling of fatique and boredom by the end of the game.

    As a final note the main graphical problem I had with Crysis 2 wasn't textures or lack of options it was more the fact that postprocessing and depth of field made it look like a thin layer of vaseline had been applied over the screen.
    Edited by Grayvern at 23/06/11 @ 20:41

  • Chufty #30 11 months ago

    Boring.

    Crysis 2 was a bloody good game. Crysis 1 wasn't, even if you were lucky (stupid?) enough to have a PC that could run it properly.

    I'm glad I got the chance to play this utterly gorgeous game with my £110 graphics card with no framerate issues.

    You can keep your Crysis 1.

  • Xardan #31 11 months ago

    PC players are a whining bunch of tits.

  • Grayvern #32 11 months ago

    To put it another way Crysis Warhead rewards death as you can try another approach, get something new out of the game. While the core action of Crysis 2 wasn't punchy enough or varied enough to provide this and death didn't feel like a punishment it felt more like I'd accidentally saved the wrong version of an essay and would therefore have to redo the bibliography.

    Again Crysis 1 at the time would run okay on a cheaper graphics card as long as the settings were low enough, If you want to argue that the game should have had a better settings detector I'll take that argument.

  • CaptainQuint #33 11 months ago

    Graphics are the least of this game's problems.

  • subedii #34 11 months ago

    @DUFFKING:

    Unfortunately, I wasn't looking for a game with 'a degree of openness' more than CoD. I was looking for a game that was open enough to play the same or better than the first game.

    I'm not going to lie and say this is anything other than personal preference, but at the same time, I don't doubt that this is one of the core gameplay features that made Crysis unique and stand out from the other FPS's. And speaking personally, if I'm the kind of person who held 'Assault' to be the epitome of Crysis' level design, where was that style of level in Crysis 2? Anywhere? In Crysis there were literally maps where you could circle entire bases, just to get into the undefended areas. In 'Relic' for example there's an entire sprawling base covering a large chunk of the map, complete with MG nests, watchtowers, and dozens and dozens of soldiers. It's a whole, meticulously designed bonanza with the intent of showing the player a thoroughly action packed time. But when I played 'Relic', here's what happened:

    I snuck around the base, Solid Snaking it through the forests, making use of the concealment offered by the plants (I was actually on a no-cloak run at the time :p. Believe it or not, it's something I recommend everyone try at least once, it was buckets of fun). Bypassed a forest patrol as they walked past without even noticing me in the brush (concealment works very well if you know how to use it). Silently took out another two-man squad. And gently dropped down into the back of the base completely unseen and without raising the alarm. I got to Dr. Rosenthal past all their defences, past this ginormous and carefully designed action set piece, and by being smart and stealthy, they didn't even know I was there.

    To me, Crysis 2 doesn't really offer up those kinds of gameplay experiences. It's also very evident that they were influenced by CoD in moving away from that kind of non-linearity, and trying to craft more of a linear action set-piece spectacular. And there's nothing wrong with that necessarily, but that's not what made the first game great.

    And heck the multiplayer? Same deal but x10. Instead of massive maps and vehicular warfare, battling for control of facilities, we got persistent freaking rank unlocks, like EVERY game dev seems to think we need now.

  • HoloDust #35 11 months ago

    What other said - the main problem is not subpar graphics (compared to Crysis 1), but linear levels. Crysis 1 was pretty good in that department (though IMHO nowhere near as good as FarCry 1), and that is what made game enjoyable, not just being graphics benchmark. Crysis 2 is sadly neither.

  • DaemonSpawn #36 11 months ago

    Problem with Crysis 2 wasn't its graphics - it was that the game was worse than original in some aspects.
    Crytek has improved controls immensely, made gunplay fun and removed annoying floating aliens, but we also got extremely linear (even corridor-like at times) levels and lost that feeling of epic scale of Crysis. Even though it was supposed to be about the entire New-York, Crysis 2 somehow felt much less epic than the first one. And also the music was bland - I actually prefer original Crysis OST.

    Sequel wasn't a bad game - it was just forgettable. I finished it, and it was a good fun, but I don't really remember much of it and don't want to revisit campaign in the near future.
    Can't say anything good about multiplayer though - without vast levels of original and its use of vehicles it's more like Call Of Duty than Crysis.

    What I really would like to play (and even buy) is Crysis (1) with controls, gunplay and bipedal aliens from the sequel.

  • DrStrangelove #37 11 months ago

    @obscured021

    I have a modest setup and @ 1080p at max quality its dose 100--130fps on avg

    What exactly do you consider a "modest setup"? When I bought the game, I had what I consider modest, which is an overclocked Core i5 with 9800GT. On 1080p and max detail that did about 20 fps. To get a fluent experience (60-ish), I had to use 1280x800 and low detail.

    Now I have a "super-overclocked" GTX 560 ti, which at 200 quid is not really modest imo. That does about 80 fps using the settings you mentioned.

    What did your modest setup cost, a thousand?

  • Eraysor #38 11 months ago

    SNEAK PEAK?!! FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

    IT'S NOT A FUCKING STEALTH MOUNTAIN

    Sorry but when people write "sneak peak" instead of "peek" it drives me insane. I mean, even the front dashboard on Xbox Live last week had the error...
    Edited by Eraysor at 24/06/11 @ 00:49

  • MizzouGaming #39 11 months ago

    The elite PC Gaming Faction are more sensitive than a group of 10 year old girls with skinned knees.

  • oi #40 11 months ago

    "and the 360 is actually running at 720p"

    Both versions run at "720p" but neither version run at 1280x720, with the PS3 version running at a lower overall screen resolution. Something else the PS3 version doesn't have is the super-annoying grain problem which Crytek are hoping people wil stop complaining about. I actually really like the PS3 version of Crysis 2 and it controls very well with the DS3, which can't be said for every fps.

    As for the DX11 patch...well I've gotten used to running the PC version at 60fps and doubt my 6950 will be able to achieve that with all the new bells 'n' whistles so I'll probably cap it at 30fps. I really don't like frame rates bouncing all over the place.

    edit

    "I have a modest setup and @ 1080p at max quality its dose 100--130fps on avg"

    That sounds like complete fiction to me. What exactly is this "modest setup" of yours?
    Edited by oi at 24/06/11 @ 07:02

  • connos #41 11 months ago

    That's the problem when you try to hear and please the community. You lost you self, then you don't have a vision of your own and you just try to sell as much as you can. Crytek thinks that sales are the most important thing for a game.
    Edited by connos at 26/04/12 @ 06:57

  • twyford #42 11 months ago

    So they remembered that they are actually a business that needs to shift boxes to make money and to do that they needed to allow for a wider audience. That some people who upgrade their PC hardware on an almost monthly basis so that they can play the latest games (I gave up doing that a long time ago) got a little humpy about it is surely their issue and not Crytek's.

  • UncleLou #43 11 months ago

    Boring, if well made, run of the mill shooter. Starts nice enough, but quickly develops into your typical corridor shooter. Didn't even finish it, not a patch on the first one.

  • carlitoswagon #44 11 months ago

    As a games horder this is one of the very few titles I've traded shortly after completing. The multitude of reasons has been mentioned already. Was very disappointed with both the campaign and multiplayer. A missed opportunity to expand and improve the features of the original.

  • iamtheoneneo #45 11 months ago

    C2 failed not because of its graphics but because it was boring as shit....now move along crytek go make cry engine 6 or whatever cack you want to push out now, a flashy engine doesnt mean anything when you cant make a decent gaming experience out of it you bunch of money grabbing tards.

  • UncleLou #46 11 months ago

    The elite PC Gaming Faction are more sensitive than a group of 10 year old girls with skinned knees.

    That a joke? The Crysis 2 thread in the forum was full of console gamers complaining about a million different things. PC gamers mainly complained about the "two steps back" approach to level design.

  • subedii #47 11 months ago

    Strange. No matter how many people here say "it wasn't about the graphics", people keep bleating out cries of "ELITIST PC GAMERS SCUM!1!!1" As if it actually means anything.

    It's almost like there's an established narrative, and it's impossible for people to accept a rational veiwpoint which doesn't fit their worldview, the one that seems to exists solely in Console Warz! mode.

  • Byzanite #48 11 months ago

    Agree. Crysis 2 is boring. I started it but its been sitting on my shelf for the past few weeks.

  • Byzanite #49 11 months ago

    Maybe obscured021 thinks his 1024x768 is 1080p :p i expect that could run at 100fps lol

  • TackyCheeba #50 11 months ago


    "a bit" ???......You went from an OPEN WORLD technically amazing piece of work to an dumbed down corridor railer.
    What did you expect to happen?!

  • curtlikesmeat #51 11 months ago

    Is anyone else bitter than they splashed out on a DX10 card and about two games used it? :p

    (Crysis being one of them).

  • Snake_2k #52 11 months ago

    Yes Dx10 was such a load of crap - hats off to Microsft and Nvidia for so effectively mugging me off. What a waste of $500 on some completely useless graphics cards that I spent three years playing DX9 games with. This has left me scarred and devastated. :*(

    FYI the reason the original Crysis ran like shit on everyones cards was that it was a BROKEN game, no amount of patching will ever get that game to run decently on any PC. Wake up people it was a big conspiracy by Crytek and Nvidia, I am learning that the hard way now. THEY WANT OUR MONEY!!
    Edited by Snake_2k at 24/06/11 @ 15:22

  • sabbede #53 11 months ago

    I'm just glad a dev has actually admitted that they fucked up a sequel.
    Take a hint BioWare.

  • freethinker101 #54 11 months ago

    My PS3 copy was buggy as hell. I took it back, got a full refund and got Portal 2 with the money. I then rented Crysis 2 and completed it. To be honest I really enjoyed the game. After all it is just a game!

  • TheGuvernor #55 11 months ago


    These poor bastards can't win for trying - even though they're some of the greatest devs around.

    Bollox to the haters, this game rocked! (On PC)