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“But can it run Crysis?”
~An old meme

Admit it, you've seen that meme. Even if you aren't old enough to remember the actual game, you've sure seen the meme with it at least once. It's either that, or you should cancel your Vault-Tec subscription ASAP (trust me, you've been in a bunker for too long). Anyway, Crysis was that first-person shooter that quickly became infamous for its ridiculous system requirements. It was a PC exclusive and, well, despite being released in 2007, it acted like it came from the future. We've got realistic jungles with an incredible amount of plants, we've got destructible environments, we've got top-notch effects... Nowadays, we take such stuff for granted, but again, it was only 2007. A year when games like Unreal Tournament III and Call of Duty 4 were released. Great games, of course, but Crysis offered something they never had—an amount of detail that could be compared with, say, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. Terrible comparison, I know, but I just want people who didn’t play this game at launch to understand what made it so different.
Usually, when you make a game, you don’t want too many details to avoid performance issues. Crytek, who developed their own engine, said “screw that” and simply added everything they had in mind without worrying much about boring stuff. You know. Like frames per second. And the result? The result was quite interesting. Nowadays, people invest in expensive rigs just to get things like better ray tracing, but Crysis? Crysis was true next-gen. It was gaming porn for those “PC mustard race” people.
And it wasn’t just about visuals—Crytek really aimed for a proper next-gen experience. A big part of that was the so-called CryNet Nanosuits. Heavily inspired by Predator movies and games, they allowed us to move faster, jump higher, and even disguise ourselves with Predator’s signature cloak. We also got weapon mods that let us customize our current weapon for our preferred playstyle. In other words, while having big Far Cry-like maps at our disposal, we were free to choose our approach. Use stealth and take out enemies one by one, or activate our shield and go medieval on their asses—it was all up to us. Battlefield-like vehicles were included, too. All that made Crysis a pretty interesting experience, but guess what? There was more.
Even though I’m not an online shooter person, my favorite part of Crysis was always its multiplayer. GameSpy-based, it allowed up to 32 players at the same time and it had everything the single-player mode offered. Big open maps, nanosuits, vehicles... Sure, both Battlefield and Call of Duty series were already there, but thanks to its unique features and next-gen approach, Crysis managed to stand out, and I played it a lot back in the day. Up until GameSpy servers went down in 2014. And it was one of those rare cases when I actually missed the multiplayer. Starting with nothing but a nanosuit, earning points to “purchase” vehicles, and ultimately nuking the enemy HQ? On a massive map? I just loved it. More than I loved my Battlefield. Naturally, I was excited about the remastered version, but... Yeah. Guess it’s time to finally talk about the remaster.
First things first—visually, the original Crysis hasn’t aged that badly. Sure, it doesn’t impress anymore, but on its highest settings, it still looks decent. That means there was no real need to remaster it. Crytek understood this and added a new graphics option called, you guessed it, “Can It Run Crysis?” The idea was to pay tribute to the PC crowd and “make Crysis look impressive again.” And like that other “make great again” thing, it didn’t really work. To the point where people are comparing the remastered version to the original side by side with mixed results. Even though the new version does look better in most aspects, somehow it manages to look worse here and there. And the “Can It Run Crysis?” thing? It’s a big disappointment, too. Sure, the new version has ray tracing, but it’s not the NVIDIA kind and isn’t nearly as impressive. So yeah, this here isn’t eye candy. And it’s easy to understand why.
See, “Can It Run Crysis?” is just a gimmick for the PC audience—something to give them nostalgia. In reality, this is a console-oriented product. Something to be released on “inferior” systems, including Switch. And for consoles? It’s actually a good thing. Unlike the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, this one includes all the levels. Sure, nobody liked that aircraft level that was cut from the seventh-gen versions, but it’s still nice to have the complete package. On consoles. On PC? This version actually lacks tons of content.
First of all, there was an expansion called Warhead, which focused on a secondary character from the main game. And it’s not included here. That’s right—they made a remastered version but didn’t care enough to give us the whole package. And the worst part? The multiplayer is gone, too. That’s right. That juicy thing I told you about? It just isn’t here. There’s no multiplayer in the remastered version at all. And again, while console players might not care much, the PC audience? The PC audience will most likely go, “DA FUQ?” I sure did. I mean, what’s the point of this? The original is still there (available in Steam too), it still looks fine, and there’s even a third-party multiplayer patch that brings the mode back. Yet Crytek re-releases the game, asks for fifteen bucks, and doesn’t include half of the original content. DA FUQ?
Like I said, this wasn’t meant for PC. The PC version is just a byproduct. You know how sometimes last-gen console versions get quick overhauls to run on newer systems? The Ezio trilogy (Assassin’s Creed) got one, the BioShock series got one, etc. Crysis Remastered is one of those things. Even that annoying language selection screen is exactly the same as the one from Xbox 360 and PS3 versions (and yes, you’ll need to select the language every single time you launch the game, for whatever reason).
If we consider this a console-oriented product? It’s not that bad. It’s a solid port—gamepad controls are good, it has rumble feedback (something the original PC version never had), and it includes all the original levels. If you played one of those console ports back in the day? You’ll like this one too. Well, the aircraft level still sucks, of course, but you know what I mean. It’s a fair deal. But for the PC crowd? It’s a joke. A pretty sad one, too. Not like we got nothing, but still, gamepad support and questionable ray tracing are hardly a fair trade for multiplayer. Especially since the single-player story was never that great, and the final levels were actually pretty bad (remember the first Half-Life? That kind of bad).
So yeah. Either grab this for your console of choice or ignore it completely and stick with the original. That’s the way. Dixi.