Crysis PC Game – GamingHeaven Q&A with Cevat Yerli

GamingHeaven have posted an interesting Q&A with the one and only Cevat Yerli, who seems to be doing the rounds lately. The Q&A covers such topics as DirectX 10, Consoles, the AI and pretty much a whole range of various questions unrelated to one another (which is always good).

Gaming Heaven: With all the recent DX10 games released gamers can't help but be a bit disappointed with the overall situation. Is this due to limitations of the DX10 architecture or were the developers simply lazy, not putting enough emphasis on DX10?

Cevat: I dont want to put words into other developers situation. I am sure they have their good reasons. We took from the moment DX10 was announced the decision we will push it to its limit.

Gaming Heaven: We were told several times that more or less anything that is possible in DX10 can also be done in DX9, but with greater performance drops. Does this mean Crysis will look more or less the same in DX10 and DX9, or do you intend to make the DX10 version a completely different experience?

Cevat: No it will be different in look. You could effectively do almost anything already with SM 2.0 hardware, but the raw power you need needs to be there too. Plus it must be economical to develop certain features. So under the line, DX10 will certainly benefit from performance gains and hence have some technologies appear now, that were possible before, but not in such dense and alive environments. Its really the context you have to evaluate features, not individually.

SunShafts DX10

Gaming Heaven: With all the videos of machine gun fire chopping down trees one can't help but wonder what the limitations of the engine are. Will we be able to chop down every single tree on the island, or are there artificial »barriers« in place that will prevent the game from getting bogged down with all the physics simulations of countless tree trunks?

Cevat: Certain trees are too big to be cut by machine guns, that’s true in real-life. Of course any engine has its limitations and as such we present a world that is highly interactive, but not unlimited. Finally its not about the trees, but the moment where they change the gameplay or battlefield and whilst doing this increase immersion.

Gaming Heaven: In the gameplay videos we have seen several different locales, namely air carriers, the proverbial Crytek jungles and the frozen version of them. Will modders have the ability to include new scenaries into the game, or is the engine »locked« to what you guys provide us with?

Cevat: The modder can add any theme or expansion wihtin our outside of the Crysis Themes if they desire. Their creativity paired with the technical specifications is the limit. They can create new vehicles, new characters, new worlds, new sounds, new cutscequences, new weapons etc…or just modify what we have provided.

Gaming Heaven: Performance, the main question every gamer has. What will be needed to run the game at playable framerates? How about playing with everything maxed? Will current rigs be able to run the game at 1920x1200 without making sacrifices? Do you recommend ATI or Nvidia and have you any performance figures for us for the Nvidia 8800 and ATi 2900?

Cevat: Everything maxed and at that resolution, you will need a seriously high rig of the latest generation available now. Bear in mind we don’t expose, but have built in scaleability for the upcoming 1-2 years. That will be available as hardware catches up. So when I say maxed, its maxed for now.

Gaming Heaven: Crysis is one of the few bastions of PC gaming. What were your main reasons to ignore consoles? Wouldn't the fixed architecture make them prime candidates for optimizations?

Cevat: Yes would be. But the original Crysis game as we designed wouldn’t be possible on consoles that’s why and our key reason to ignore other platforms is to focus on quality and the game.

Gaming Heaven: In Far Cry the open ended nature of levels gave players plenty of choices on how to approach a mission. Does Crysis offer even more opportunities, or is it mainly the same as before? How about the alien ship/carrier levels? By design they should be pretty linear, right?

Cevat: Crysis offers you more options effectively, also adding the nanosuit into the mix your playstyle will differ more greatly. Some sections are more linear, but the nanosuit and weapon customization add layers of non-linearity.

Gaming Heaven: The new weapon system you will be introducing with Crysis – how did you come up with the idea? Aren't you afraid players will be able to upgrade their weapons to near godlike characteristics?

Cevat: The idea came simply about the fact that people have preferences and choices. The tune their choice, they now should customize their weapons with the available modules. A godlike status is not possible though

Gaming Heaven: The story in shooters isn't the most important aspect, but it can help a great deal. Will Crysis have a more personal story, similar to something we saw in Half Life 2 or the recently released Bioshock?

Cevat: It's an old Hollywood adage: show don't tell. Showing you something always has more impact than telling you something. Where traditionally games tells player the story, through radio messages and data recorders, Crysis shows it to you with dozens of beautifully choreographed actions sequences and ambience through an environment that is a character itself, it evolves and is alive – speaking in a metaphor.

3dWaves DX10

Gaming Heaven: The enemy AI – in Far Cry players often accused the AI of cheating, firing at Jack even though he was well hidden in foliage. Will staying behind a bush actually make us »invisible« this time around?

Cevat: That was never a cheat. What happened is that the AI enemies saw the player going behind a bush, effectively blind shooting into the bush and potentially hitting the player. We improved this though this time so it feels more right and not like a cheat.

Gaming Heaven: While on the subject of AI, does the Crysis AI code support squad combat? If you were to pit two 10 men AI teams against each other, would they try to flank one another? Is suppressing fire a tactic they can use?

Cevat: The core AI system supports it. In Crysis if you are fighting alongside a squad member or friendly AI, the AI will handle either you or the AI that is attacking him. Suppressing and flanking along other tactics are part of their intelligence.

Mountains DX10

Gaming Heaven: Scripted sequences – Far Cry had a few and they can help forward the story in ways dynamic encounters never will be able to. With the huge open ended levels of Crysis, how do you intend to tackle the problem of players who manage to avoid the script triggers?

Cevat: Encounters are not to tell story, but to create the adventure through the players experience. So he can tell the action bits of the story. The players will experience a non-linear gameplay to the point where we funnel the experiences to tell the story through aforementioned choreographed action sequences.

Gaming Heaven: What is the aspect of Crysis you are most proud of? Now that the release date is closing in, were there any features you liked that had to be cut in order to finish the game in a given timeframe?

Cevat: The highlight for me is the Nanosuit. You will get used to it and don’t want to miss it. It will save your life couple of times! No features that were liked were harmed during the development of Crysis J So yes we are very excited about this fact and hope our fans will be too!

Crysis PC Game - News: Demo Delayed

The bad news is that the Crysis demo has been delayed until the 26th of October. This is no doubt a huge blow for those who missed out on the beta. The good news however is that when the demo is released, it will come with the Sandbox 2 editor so modders and map makers can have content ready for the release of Crysis.

Crytek didn't delay the demo for no reason, and although the fact that it was originally scheduled to be released on the same day as Halo 3 may have had something to do with this delay, there's many reasons as to why Crytek pushed the demo back a month. Here's what Cevat Yerli said in an official press release...

Hi everyone, We have some news to announce.

First, I am sorry for the bad news - the Crysis single player demo will now be available everywhere on October 26th, 2007. We are taking some extra time to make sure you that you have an amazing experience but also we did not want to risk the release date of Crysis at this stage. To get the game into your hands by November the 16th, we had to make this call.

Now the good news - the big surprise. The SP demo will be released with our CryEngine 2 - Sandbox 2 game editor, giving the community the opportunity to get familiar with the vast amount of tools they will have at their disposal four weeks before we ship, something we have always wanted to do. This is an exciting time for us at the studio as the development of Crysis comes to an end and we are only a few weeks from Gold Master.

We appreciate your patience and are looking forward to getting Crysis into your hands on November 16th.

Thanks

Cevat Yerli
CEO & Crytek

Crysis PC Game - Crysis Receives 16+ PEGI Rating

Europeans can expect to see a big fat 16+ PEGI rating on Crysis when it shows itself instore on November 16th (15th for some). Strong language and violence are the two major factors which have determined this rating. So while this news isn't surprising, it's good to have confirmation. This rating doesn't apply to Germany though. Germans can expect to see Crysis with an 18+ rating.

More information can be found on the official PEGI website...

Go to PEGI.info

Crysis PC Game - News: Gamespot Zero-G Exploration

Gamespot has just posted a new article on Crysis. Besides clearing up the story, they also let loose on many of the intricasies of the aliens and their environment. Along with the article is a new video from within the alien vessel.

With the demo for Crysis coming out next week, as well as the game itself in November, EA and Crytek have begun to reveal more of the game to us. This eagerly awaited first-person shooter promises to raise the bar for graphics fidelity to all new heights, but Crytek wants to also prove that the excellent gameplay in 2004's Far Cry was no fluke. To that extent, we got to delve through a level that appears midway through the game that shows off the alien environment and zero gravity combat. So read on for some details, but please note that what follows contains spoilers for the game.

Crysis is set in the near future and deals with an alien invasion. However, while these aliens are from outer space, they arrived on Earth thousands of years ago and remained in hibernation until scientists discover one of their vessels on a remote Pacific island. You'll play as a member of a US Special Forces team sent to investigate and you'll encounter the North Korean military, which is also racing to secure the island. We went into the ancient alien vessel ourselves in a level called Core. Without spoiling the entire story, your character, clad in a high-tech nanosuit, will find himself stranded inside an old mine shaft. However, as you explore the shaft, you'll discover it's an alien vessel, and you're all alone and cut off from outside help.

One of the major points of Core is the sense of exploration and discovery. In fact, there's no real objective to this mission, we're told. After all, you suddenly find yourself in an alien environment and have no idea what to do. Thus, your job is to watch the aliens to go about their business, trying to decipher what's going on around you. "The game effectively tells the story of the aliens" through such observations, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli said. It's all part of what he calls the game's "ambient storytelling" at work. It's an effectively eerie storytelling technique because you'll find yourself in an environment that is both alien and perplexing at the same time. If you shoot out some of the crystal formations on the walls, the shards float through the air instead of fall to the ground. Little particles flow through the organic corridors of the ship, looking like the detritus that floats around at the bottom of the ocean. The lighting is also muted and diffuse, making it feel like you are underwater. Incredibly, we were playing the DirectX 9 version of the game, so the DX10 version should look even better.

While Crytek won't let us show the aliens, we can discuss them, and they look like nothing seen in a game. The developers told us early on that they went through an entire game's worth of concept sketches to come up with the single alien species in Crysis, and it has paid off. These aliens aren't bipedal like humans. Instead, they're aquatic in nature, with thin, ghostly tendrils for appendages. They're almost like phantoms, in a way, because up close you realize that their skins are translucent, and you can actually make out their skeletal structure through the light. Yerli noted that they were inspired by marine life, and it shows. Seeing them is like watching documentaries of deep sea life that has never seen sunlight. The aliens dart through zero gravity the way fish swim through water. One second they're floating serenely, the next they're zipping around with great velocity. One tactic is that they can swarm you, racing all around your field of view, forcing you to spin around to track them. Then, suddenly, one will dart head-on at you, like a shark going for the kill. The impact of such a collision hurts, and then the alien darts away just as quickly.

We were armed with the standard assault rifle during this mission, and you've got to be careful about how often you use it because we didn't see any extra ammunition scattered around the alien ship. Thankfully, you can load up on ammo shortly before you enter the alien vessel, but from that point on, you need to conserve. Getting in a firefight with the aliens can be dangerous, because they're so quick that you can burn through a lot of ammo just trying to hit them.

Navigating through a zero gravity environment sounds like it could be difficult, but we found it fairly easy and only got turned around once. It didn't take long for us to realize we had backtracked, so we headed back in the right direction. Yerli said that this bears out in the company's focus testing because almost everyone gets through the level properly. There are all sorts of subtle hints of where you need to go, from flashing lights to the "flow" of particles around you. There are also some environmental puzzles that we encountered, such as a device that strengthened the flow of particles through the corridor, making it impossible to progress forward. We were told that all environmental puzzles in the game will have at least two solutions; one involves using weapons and the other involves your nanosuit's abilities. You can use your rifle to take out the device, which slows down the flow of particles and lets you pass. In this situation, you can also use your nanosuit to boost your speed, which lets you swim past the device.

One thing that we haven't covered yet is just how amazing the game sounds, which is something that cannot be conveyed through screenshots. But being inside the Core level is an incredible audio experience. If you don't have a surround-sound setup or really good headphones, invest in them because they'll pay off just as much as a new video card. Throughout most of the level, there's just a layer of sonic tension conveyed through the ambient sound effects. The alien ship also "moans", which has a big significance in the game as well. It's like listening to the sound of humpback whales singing. One of the cooler moments we encountered was when we found out that by using our nanosuit to cloak, it actually muted the ambient sound. This will play a role in the game because some sounds are loud enough to actually hurt you.

The music for the game is also very haunting and powerful, coming from composer Inon Zur, a noted video game veteran. Zur's credits include SOCOM II and Prince of Persia. But just because Crysis is a big-budget game, it doesn't mean that EA and Crytek went out enlisting top-notch Hollywood talent to provide voices in the game. "I was opposed to the idea in the beginning," Yerli said. "Crysis needs to stand on its own...without the point of having famous composers or actors or writers." From what we saw in the Core level, it's a safe bet that Crysis will be more than able to stand on its own.

Crysis PC Game - PowerStruggle Beta Tutorial

For those getting prepared to play the Crysis beta, here's something to wet your Crysis buds. Crytek have released the PowerStruggle Beta Tutorial video to the public. The video will give you a basic run down of PowerStruggle, so when you play Crysis, you know what your objectives are.

Keep in mind that this video is of some age, so you may notice a few differences between what's seen in this video and what you see in the beta. Here's part of the press release...

PowerStruggle – Basic Tutorial Video

As a special appetiser for the community we would like to provide you the official PowerStruggle Basic Tutorial Video. Explaining the basic steps of the PowerStruggle game mode and visualized by our intense ingame graphic this video should be watched by all the gamers who are participating in the Beta but also and especially by the people who want to get a first look into the tactics and game rules.

Name:	PowerStruggle Basic Tutorial
Date:	19 / September / 2007
Resolution:	1024x768
File Size:	217mb
Length:	3:55
File Type:	WMV
Enhanced:	No
Quality:	Good

Source: Crysis-Online

Crysis PC Game - Crysis Graphical Gameplay Demo

Gamespot have just added 3 new gameplay videos, each with it's only little graphical tech demo which involves a freeze-frame labeling all the different graphical technologies. The 'Frozen' demo also demonstrates the frost shader which Crytek have been talking about since 'way back'. We've started seeing a lot of frozen gameplay lately, and it all seems to be of the same level. It got me thinking that maybe the 'huge surprise' in the demo is this frozen demonstration. Who knows, it's only speculation.

You may download the three videos below, or you may stream them if you wish (lower quality).

Stream Gameplay Techo Demo - Frozen
Stream Gameplay Techo Demo - Boat
Stream Gameplay Techo Demo - Shore

Name:	Gameplay Techo Demo - Frozen	Name:	Gameplay Techo Demo - Boat
Date:	06 / September / 2007	Date:	06 / September / 2007
Resolution:	640x368	Resolution:	640x368
File Size:	6.91mb	File Size:	10.2mb
Length:	0:31	Length:	0:47
File Type:	MP4	File Type:	MP4
Enhanced:	No	Enhanced:	No
Quality:	Average	Quality:	Average

Name:	Gameplay Techo Demo - Shore
Date:	06 / September / 2007
Resolution:	640x368
File Size:	10.1mb
Length:	0:48
File Type:	MP4
Enhanced:	No
Quality:	Average

Source: Crysis-Online