Crytek has officially announced Crysis 3, the third game in the popular sci-fi shooter series, which began with the PC power benchmark, Crysis, in 2007. New screenshots showcase a New York City strangled by overgrown green weeds, seeing a return to the iconic city after Crysis 2’s epic battle in 2011. As great as Crysis 2 was it certainly wasn’t perfect, and with so much excitement and hype now surrounding the series’ third entry, there’s hope that Crytek can expand on a great campaign and action-packed multiplayer for the newest game.
Just how can Crysis 3 improve on its predecessor?
Improved AI
One of the biggest in-game gripes for Crysis 2 was the low intelligence level of both friendly and enemy AI. During battle, human and alien friendlies and enemies stood around within close proximity of one another, sometimes standing stationary and leaving you to do all of the hard work. Friendly AI often broke out into cover but didn’t actually shoot, while human enemies seem to ignore you as they ran straight past and moved into cover.
Online Connectivity
While Crytek promised to fix any online issues with a post-release patch, matchmaking issues plagued the PC version’s online component rather significantly for several weeks after launch. Joining a dedicated server didn’t actually get you into a game, either, plaguing a with such a strong focus on online play.
Better Campaign Introduction
It was a shame that the fantastic second-half of the Crysis 2 campaign was preceded by such a borefest that was its opening half. Unless you had played the first Crysis it could have been a little hard to understand or care about what was going on. Thankfully this was countered with a great second-half, so it was just a matter of shooting your way through the poor AI early on. Hopefully Crysis 3 can offer an explosive campaign right from the get-go, as this unbalanced experience felt more like a distraction from the second-half’s excitement, rather than a quiet, planned lead-in.
Faster Multiplayer Advancement
Crysis 2’s multiplayer was great, but ultimately held back by an upgrading system that sometimes took just far too long to advance. It was hours before you’d unlock new modes, and while this long, played-out design seemed to have been intentional so as to encourage more precise, planned gameplay, the initially moments of the multiplayer often felt tedious with such little reward. This sort of implementation really encouraged you to stick to the individualistic modes (like FFA and TDM) rather than the team-objective modes, which certainly seems like a discouraging design aspect looking back.
Wider and Taller
The first Crysis felt wider and more open than its successor; you were given more freedom to explore and move off the beaten path, whereas Crysis 2 kept you quite confined in urban areas surrounded by large buildings. There was plenty to jump on and take cover behind, but its linearity certainly held it back. Hopefully Crytek can address this, and in returning to New York City, will hopefully lead to an open city with more room to move (and shoot).
What improvements would you like to see in Crysis 3?
Crysis 3 will hit Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in 2013.
By Gaetano Prestia