But Can It Run Crysis 4?
Dodging gunfire, my invisibility cloak flickering, I grab the enemy soldier by the neck and, utilizing my Nanosuit's incredible strength, I THROW HIM THROUGH THE ROOF OF A BUILDING, sending wooden beams and metal panels flying.
That was cool AF, but I don't have time to admire my handy work (get it!), as the immense racket caused by the collapsing structure has alerted the soldier's friends, one of which fires off a flare to call in reinforcements. He dies quickly, shot through the head with my SCAR rifle, though, so does the gunner on a patrol boat that approaches from across the bay.
Turning to the military jeep that's just arrived loaded with more soldiers, I activate my Nanosuit's armor mode and storm the vehicle head-on, the suit absorbing plenty of damage. Just as the suit's shield collapses I take cover behind a rock and then, after a second's pause to recharge the shield, I take out both the dismounted soldiers and the vehicle's gunner with headshots. It's then that I commandeer the jeep and start assaulting enemy encampments, rattling off its .50 caliber cannon with wild abandon.
This is me having a great time playing Crysis Remastered, and the carnage-filled gameplay video can be watched in full below.
I've been on a huge Crysis kick recently, playing the second game for a reinstall feature (coming soon!) as well as the original game, both in its original format on period-accurate hardware, as well as in its Crysis Remastered format on my modern rig, with real-time ray tracing and various other modern graphical bells and whistles turned on, too.
And, while I've yet to replay Crysis 3, a couple of things have really stood out to me during these play sessions. Firstly, Crytek delivered some damn good FPS games here, shooters loaded with explosive action and super cool set pieces.
In fact, looking back now years after the dust has settled on the original Crysis trilogy, I'd go as far to say that it is underrated in terms of the history of PC gaming. Take a look at PC Gamer's Crysis review (scored 98% in the US PC Gamer magazine), Crysis 2 review and Crysis 3 review for a moment… how many series can boast three games with such strong review scores? And that's saying nothing about the well-received Crysis Warhead, either.
But I say it's underrated not just in terms of the experiences the games delivered, but also their now kinda forgotten impact on the PC gaming industry. When the home console market was in its ascendancy, with the Xbox 360 the most popular gaming platform on Earth, Crysis was treating PC gamers to gaming experiences that were so far in advance of what a console could manage visually it was almost laughable.
I don't know about you, but the Crysis series was a huge factor in me buying plenty of new PC gaming hardware, as well as keeping the fires of the one true PC gaming faith burning, for over half a decade. I wanted to be able to experience these great games as their maker, Crytek, intended. And I'm sure that was the case with millions of PC gamers around the world, too.
I mean, the original Crysis was such a huge step into the future in terms of graphics that it coined the whole But Can It Run Crysis? meme, which endures to this day in the PC gaming community, going on a decade since the last game in the series was released. Crysis' impact was huge, as was Crysis 2's thanks to its 'Ultra Upgrade' delivery of a smorgasbord of DirectX 11 enhancements.
These games set down benchmarks for other developers to chase, something that raised the bar for all games. Without the Crysis series would we have had such spectacular visual offerings in the Metro series of shooters, for example? Or the graphical testbed and showcase that is Cyberpunk 2077? No chance. Crysis reminded PC gamers why they played games on PC, which is to experience the optimal version of any game and to taste the new first. And it also pushed developers to higher levels of fidelity and quality in their own games.
Now, in 2024 though, with PC ports from consoles a mixed bag at best, exclusives fading away, the cost of gaming hardware rising to scary new levels, and the most recent poster child for PC gaming, Cyberpunk 2077, seeing its engine being moved on from and discontinued, PC gaming needs a new technical leader to sell hardware and reaffirm why PC is the place to play.
In my mind, I can see no better advocate for PC gaming over the next five years than a visually jaw-dropping, game-changing Crysis 4. We know a new Crysis game is coming, with the project announced a couple of years back, so just imagine a new Crysis adventure but with Unreal Engine 5 trailer levels of fidelity, lighting, particle effects and overall realism? All I can say is, I for one would be buying Nvidia's new flagship GPU if that happened. I want to live in a world where I can say, without irony, "But Can It Run Crysis 4?"
