Whatever Happened To... Crysis?

Has there ever been a point where you were looking through your games collection and wondered, “Huh, whatever happened to this title?” Well, I’ll be taking a look at videogame standalones/franchises and the lead up to their eventual absence. With that being said, I’ll be asking the question: “Whatever Happened To… Crysis?”

Let me just start off by saying that the question; “Whatever happened to Crysis?” can really be expanded to; “What on Earth happened to Crytek?”. They went from being the developers of wondrous hits like the original Far Cry and Crysis to not really doing anything at all these days. Well, I do tell a lie, they are still making games, it’s just that the games they’re making have no release date in sight. The most notable one being, Hunt: Showdown which is set to come out… eventually? Soonish? Somewhere in that ballpark, I’m sure.

Actually, now that I think about it, Crytek has been doing more than just making games with no release dates. What could that be? Well, I’ll give you a hint, it has something to do with not paying their employees… actually that’s a pretty good goddamn hint. Yes, though I’m sure it’s old news to everyone now, Crytek hasn’t been the best at keeping up with the paycheques to the hardworking developers at their company. As one can find in the link here. It seems that from 2016 (and even 2017) that several employees have been less than pleased with the financial situation of Crytek.

Alongside that minor issue (obviously not minor), Crytek hasn’t been as busy as usual in the AAA game department. Especially in regards to their biggest franchise, Crysis, which had its last entry released in 2013. But why? Well, according to VideoGamer.com, this was due to the developers switching perspectives around three years ago when they decided to pursue free-to-play games instead of the ‘bigger’ titles. Which is fair, but also a bit strange as Crytek also stated that the future of Crysis would be unclear, possibly implying a new game somewhere down the road.

Well, it certainly has been unclear to fans of the franchise who’ve been waiting for another installment to their beloved series. A series that, uniquely, doesn’t really have a bad entry among its ranks. The first title absolutely crushed it in the reviews department, scoring well across the board. This being due to the mind-blowing visuals (even today) that the CryEngine was able to provide and the gameplay that made things both fun and challenging.

Then, moving to the second title, things were still as fresh as ever. The graphics were, once again, stunning in every sense of the word and the gameplay was entertaining from beginning to end. Reviewers were a little bit harder on Crysis 2 than Crysis, but it still received excellent scores.

Finally, we move to the third game that, you guessed it, continued the trend of scoring well and being fun. Crysis 3 did have a bit of a noticeable bug problem in a few places, but it wasn’t enough to derail any positive momentum it had moving forward. Long story short, Crysis 3, along with the first and second titles, are all solid games that everyone should try if they get the chance.

Moving away from the games and the shady business practices (well, not to much from shady business practices), that should be all there is to say in regards to both Crytek and Crysis, right? Wrong. Fellow GameGrin writer, Gary "Dominoid" Sheppard, wrote a piece in regards to the Crytek trying to compete with Amazon by offering to CryEngine to indie developers and the like. You can read that article here. This, along with another certain situation that I’m sure many of you are aware of, may be a core reason as to way Crytek hasn’t gotten around to a possible fourth entry into the Crysis series (i.e., a lack of hold on their engine.)

Speaking of engines (as well as that situation I mentioned), the lawsuit between Crytek and Cloud Imperium Games (the creators behind Star Citizen) has certainly got to be a factor in time taken away from making a sequel. For more information on this despite (from someone who can describe it much better than I can), here’s a YouTube video from Leonard French of Lawful Masses who reads through the case.

So, all this taken into account, what happened to Crysis? Well, despite the positive reception towards the trilogy, Crytek apparently had a change in perspective (as mentioned earlier) where they decided to invest in the free-to-play market instead. Along with that, the lack of payment towards employees and the multiple issues surrounding their engine certainly had an impact towards a new game coming out. Also, with the recent development of their Hunt: Showdown game, I would honestly say the possibility really doesn’t exist for Crysis to come back, at least for now.