medicnick83
Paramedic
Next-Gen briefly caught up with Crytek to get the latest on the technology behind Crysis - Warhead, and what the game means for the company’s previous statement of “no more PC exclusives."
Next-Gen: Were Cevat's recent comments about "no more PC exclusives" for real, or just out of frustration felt at that moment?
Engine business manager Harald Seeley, Crytek: When Cevat said we would not create new PC exclusives, he was referring to any new projects we will start in the future. Of course Warhead has been under development for quite some time, and we had no desire or intention to disappoint our loyal PC fans. So, after some careful consideration, we decided to continue our support for the PC Crysis franchise with this release. But yes, all new franchises we develop in the future will be created with a cross platform strategy in mind. Of course we're also aware of the danger of making a game that is only designed for one particular audience and platform, and failing to meet the needs of the others. So any game we create will always offer something unique on each platform and will be carefully tuned to both the capabilities and strengths of that platform, as well as the intended audience.
Will any extra measures be taken with Warhead in order to combat piracy?
While we are certainly very concerned about piracy and copy protection, we are also concerned about the potential opposite problem, that of inconveniencing legitimate buyers with newer measures that interfere too greatly with their enjoyment of the product. So we are carefully considering all possible options here, however we are not yet at a stage where we have made a final decision. Once we do make it, I very much doubt we would announce it publicly before Crysis Warhead releases.
The press release for Warhead said that the game will be running on an "enhanced and optimized version of Crytek's CryENGINE 2 technology." Could you offer some basic details about which enhancements have been made? Will Crytek try to make Warhead more scalable than the original Crysis?
Yes, we have made further enhancements to make our CryENGINE 2 even more scaleable, which is a side benefit of having to add features that make it more console friendly, and the luxury of still more time to polish and tune it. At the same time, since the release of Crysis, newer and less expensive hardware has and will continue to become available which reduces the cost of acquiring a PC that can run our game at the highest possible graphics settings. But in reality, the engine has always been quite well optimized for what it does, and now with the latest updates from ourselves, Microsoft and the hardware vendors, most users have reported very satisfactory frame rates at their preferred resolutions, whatever their hardware. This is a point that has not received much public attention, nor has the fact that the scalability of the engine has never actually held back the sale of Crysis. You only have to look at the comparative PC sales volumes of other prominent FPS games which shipped around the same time to see that other's lower perceived hardware requirements did not actually translate to bigger overall sales numbers than Crysis. Sorry, but we aren't yet ready to reveal the other enhancements to the CryENGINE 2 that we made until we are nearer to our final ship date.
Next-Gen: Were Cevat's recent comments about "no more PC exclusives" for real, or just out of frustration felt at that moment?
Engine business manager Harald Seeley, Crytek: When Cevat said we would not create new PC exclusives, he was referring to any new projects we will start in the future. Of course Warhead has been under development for quite some time, and we had no desire or intention to disappoint our loyal PC fans. So, after some careful consideration, we decided to continue our support for the PC Crysis franchise with this release. But yes, all new franchises we develop in the future will be created with a cross platform strategy in mind. Of course we're also aware of the danger of making a game that is only designed for one particular audience and platform, and failing to meet the needs of the others. So any game we create will always offer something unique on each platform and will be carefully tuned to both the capabilities and strengths of that platform, as well as the intended audience.
Will any extra measures be taken with Warhead in order to combat piracy?
While we are certainly very concerned about piracy and copy protection, we are also concerned about the potential opposite problem, that of inconveniencing legitimate buyers with newer measures that interfere too greatly with their enjoyment of the product. So we are carefully considering all possible options here, however we are not yet at a stage where we have made a final decision. Once we do make it, I very much doubt we would announce it publicly before Crysis Warhead releases.
The press release for Warhead said that the game will be running on an "enhanced and optimized version of Crytek's CryENGINE 2 technology." Could you offer some basic details about which enhancements have been made? Will Crytek try to make Warhead more scalable than the original Crysis?
Yes, we have made further enhancements to make our CryENGINE 2 even more scaleable, which is a side benefit of having to add features that make it more console friendly, and the luxury of still more time to polish and tune it. At the same time, since the release of Crysis, newer and less expensive hardware has and will continue to become available which reduces the cost of acquiring a PC that can run our game at the highest possible graphics settings. But in reality, the engine has always been quite well optimized for what it does, and now with the latest updates from ourselves, Microsoft and the hardware vendors, most users have reported very satisfactory frame rates at their preferred resolutions, whatever their hardware. This is a point that has not received much public attention, nor has the fact that the scalability of the engine has never actually held back the sale of Crysis. You only have to look at the comparative PC sales volumes of other prominent FPS games which shipped around the same time to see that other's lower perceived hardware requirements did not actually translate to bigger overall sales numbers than Crysis. Sorry, but we aren't yet ready to reveal the other enhancements to the CryENGINE 2 that we made until we are nearer to our final ship date.