Yerli: Crysis 3 our masterpiece, but tepid reception due to console fatigue

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http://gamasutra.com/view/news/187602/Whats_holding_back_Crysis_3.php#.UTDgnlrw4VU

Crytek founder Cevat Yerli is frustrated. When Gamasutra asks him about the fact that Crysis 3 isn't making the same kind of splash as its predecessors, it's obvious that this is a raw topic for him. The original game sits at a 91 Metacritic, while the PC version of the sequel has an 86. As of this writing, Crysis 3 scores a 78 on PC.

This, despite the fact that Yerli tells Gamasutra that the game is "so far, our masterpiece."

"It is better than Crysis 2. It is better than Crysis 1. Technical and creatively, and storytelling -- all aspects," he says.

Even if that's true -- after all, it is, to a great extent, subjective -- the developer anticipated lower ratings this time around. After researching, Crytek found "about 20 games that we analyzed that got hammered, sequels or three-quels, where number two, number three, or number four got significantly lower ratings than the previous iterations."

He lays the blame on two major factors.

One is the current console generation creating "fatigue" in gamers. "Some games have lost up to 20 percent, despite the fact that the games are quite good still," Yerli says. "That's because there's a certain fatigue level with the old generation currently. The markets are down." In his words, "people's expectations are much more radical than the current generation of games are doing."

"I think the new generation of consoles will reinvigorate that and help to elevate that again, and elevate new concepts of gaming which old platforms are right now limiting, too."

He also places some blame on the fact that the original Crysis came to the market "free of any burden."

When it launched in 2007, only on PC, it was released against first-generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games. Thanks to that, "it was so different to others that the relative impact it created was so much more bigger than Crysis 2 or Crysis 3," Yerli says.

And if there's one thing you just can't compete with, it's the subjectivity of human memory. "So, for me, the relative impact that Crysis 3 has created is lower than what Crysis 1 did. But I would think at any level it's better than Crysis 2, and it's certainly still better than Crysis 1. People remember Crysis 1 much bigger than it was, because it had a high impact," Yerli says.

He notes that Crysis 3 has triple the budget of the original game in the franchise -- a budget it can only get thanks to the fact that it's multiplatform. But that creates limitations.

"The consoles are eight year old devices. Of course, in one way or another, they will limit you. It's impossible not to be limited by a limited console. By definition it's the case. So if it were PC only, could we have done more things? Certainly, yes. Could we have afforded a budget to make a game like Crysis 3 PC only? No. People have to understand that this is a journey of give and take."
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Blah blah blah...

What I'd like to know is how Crysis 3 cost 3x the amount of the first one despite it being a bigger and much longer game. I'd like to know how these games keep costing more and more despite there being less and less. Look at Modern Warfare 3...they spent how much making that game? For what?

And color me surprised that they could have done more on PC if they didn't have to develop for consoles first...isn't that a "no shit" point? To me Crysis 3 was nothing more than a console port prettied up with a DX11...which even then was implemented half assed as only a few things were actually tessellated and used DX11.
 
He's spot on with his analysis. I will eventually get Crysis 3; but I'm not falling out of my chair, running to the store to stand in line excited about it. It's just another Crysis game. Played one and you've played them all. What they should have done in the single player mode on the PC was made it a 5 - 10 hour demo for everything they ever dreamed they could do in their engine. Just balls to the walls effects thrown at their audience. Then sell the engine to MMO startups, other shooter developers, racing game devs, etc.

Crysis 3 like all other trilogies not named Call of Duty are destined to sell less copies than their predecessor. People may love what makes it Crysis, but they are also fatigued of doing that same thing over and over. I kinda feel sorry for them having to deal with the pathetic console limitations. Investors back sure winners and that's just a facet of the game industry today. Console owners tend to buy the same thing over and over without regard for the fact that they are just playing the same game for a third time. I guess they see it as another opportunity to get better at what they do best.

Maybe Yerli will get investors to allow him to do an original game that's not a shooter. Doubtful, but would be interesting to play.
 
If you think Crysis 3 was a "CONSOLE PORT" then you are down right insane and a fanboy of some other shitty fps. It is in no way a console port, it is by far the best looking game on PC to date and that including the original Crysis, if you want proof go to the thread I started with more than 500 replies every single one saying the game looks absolutely incredible. Just because you cant run it on modest hardware does not make it a console port. Yes the game is demanding but it looks absolutely amazing with graphics settings cranked all the way up. The campaign was short and the story was not groundbreaking, yes but dont even begin to complain about the graphics department, they have created a technically beautiful game that even next gen consoles will struggle to achieve. PERIOD. You get a shitty port like Crysis 2, you whine, you get a beautiful looking game that pushes your hardware to the limit, you whine, just get out!....
 
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I find it difficult to listen to devs talk about their current game. Of course he's going to say Crysis 3 is their masterpiece, and that the previous games in the franchise aren't as good. He's not going to turn around and say "You know what, Crysis 1 was better!".

I don't trust game developers, and neither should any of you.
 
JoeUser said:
Blah blah blah...

What I'd like to know is how Crysis 3 cost 3x the amount of the first one despite it being a bigger and much longer game. I'd like to know how these games keep costing more and more despite there being less and less. Look at Modern Warfare 3...they spent how much making that game? For what?
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Like everything else in life, costs rise over time. That programmer that they paid $70k for in 2005 probably costs $90k now.
 
Maybe they should have released Crysis 3 without any burdens.
 
murkris118 said:
If you think Crysis 3 was a "CONSOLE PORT" then you are down right insane and a fanboy of some other shitty fps. It is in no way a console port, it is by far the best looking game on PC to date and that including the original Crysis
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So, basically what you're saying:

If it has pretty graphics, it's not a console port.


Right.


And here I thought bad UI, dumbed down gameplay, lack of optimisation were what determined a "console port".
 
Everything's about the consoles. Too bad.

I think the PC version of this game kicks ass.
 
murkris118 said:
If you think Crysis 3 was a "CONSOLE PORT" then you are down right insane and a fanboy of some other shitty fps. It is in no way a console port, it is by far the best looking game on PC to date and that including the original Crysis, if you want proof go to the thread I started with more than 500 replies every single one saying the game looks absolutely incredible. Just because you cant run it on modest hardware does not make it a console port. Yes the game is demanding but it looks absolutely amazing with graphics settings cranked all the way up. The campaign was short and the story was not groundbreaking, yes but dont even begin to complain about the graphics department, they have created a technically beautiful game that even next gen consoles will struggle to achieve. PERIOD. You get a shitty port like Crysis 2, you whine, you get a beautiful looking game that pushes your hardware to the limit, you whine, just get out!....
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It IS a console port. The levels and game play were designed for the limitations of current consoles. YERLI JUST SAID IT HIMSELF ABOVE THAT CRYSIS 3 WAS HELD BACK BY CONSOLES. If Crysis 3 wasn't a console port on PC OTHER than graphics then he wouldn't make that statement. Hell, even most of the graphic differences are simply options turned on and off. Very few things if anything in the game was designed SPECIFICALLY for the PC...what, some tessellated vegetation and a couple of tree trunks (that were in like 1 or 2 levels, the rest was the same quality as the consoles). Sure, its a good looking game, but nothing close to the graphical leap that Crysis 1 was.

Crysis 3 is a console port. Pure and simple. If you think otherwise you are down right insane and a fanboy of some other shitty fps.
 
lack of optimisation were what determined a "console port"
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Lack of optimization?.. I mean did you play it on a high end PC with a 680 level Graphics card?. It plays beautifully without even a single hiccup except for the first two levels, but even that was not game stopping... and FYI I mean exactly that when I say that it is not a console port. Just compare the PC version of this game to the console version.. It is literally miles apart and dumbed down to such antique hardware. I also quoted in my post that the story and gameplay was not on par if you have not read it properly. I also am criticizing the game to some extent but to deny that it is a gorgeous game is just madness because it just isn`t.

I was with you up until you said Crysis 2 was a shitty port. You should go play it again in dx11.
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Yeah you are right, it does look better in DX11 but nowhere near Crysis 3`s standards if you have played the game already. Even a mid level card like a 560ti could easily achieve 60 fps on Crysis 3 with graphics settings cranked all the way up but Crysis 3 is notoriously difficult to max out with AA turned to max which in game is 4xMSAA. You need a 690 to get fluid fps at that settings.
 
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murkris118 said:
Lack of optimization?.. I mean did you play it on a high end PC with a 680 level Graphics card?. It plays beautifully without even a single hiccup except for the first two levels, but even that was not game stopping... and FYI I mean exactly that when I say that it is not a console port. Just compare the PC version of this game to the console version.. It is literally miles apart and dumbed down to such antique hardware. I also quoted in my post that the story and gameplay was not on par if you have not read it properly. I also am criticizing the game to some extent but to deny that it is a gorgeous game is just madness because it just isn`t.
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No, the two versions aren't that different. Slightly lower draw distance, lower texture quality, and a few missing tessellated items here and there (which only appear here and there on the PC version, I mean, even Psycho isn't even tessellated! Love that blocky skull of his one the PC version:rolleyes:)...other than that it's the exact same game.

http://www.videogameszone.de/Crysis...en-Grafikvergleich-Xbox-360-gegen-PC-1046306/

Check the link...lower resolution, lower textures, lower draw distance, etc on the consoles. This is to be expected, obviously. Other than the expected changes everything else is the same. Even then though the PC version is still a far cry from what it SHOULD be...even things like brick walls and what not aren't tessellated...something that even Crysis 2 had! 90% of the graphical upgrades for the PC version didn't even have to be specially inserted, they were simply things that had to be enabled in the engine. Have you played with CryEngine 3? Besides the few tessellated objects in the game the rest (like volumetric shadows, better lighting, etc) are just options...they require no special attention or creation.
 
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No, the two versions aren't that different. Slightly lower draw distance, lower texture quality, and a few missing tessellated items here and there (which only appear here and there on the PC version, I mean, even Psycho isn't even tessellated! Love that blocky skull of his one the PC version)...other than that it's the exact same game.
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what about AA? PC has eight different modes of AA in this game, console is all jaggies everywhere.... Th texture resolution is just waay better on the PC plus you get many DX11 effects like Global Illumination, Water Caustics, better lighting and Real time reflections which are mimicked on the console and not the real thing. All these make the PC version miles better. I think you are the only one in the world who things this game sucks in graphics.:rolleyes:
 
murkris118 said:
what about AA? PC has eight different modes of AA in this game, console is all jaggies everywhere.... Th texture resolution is just waay better on the PC plus you get many DX11 effects like Global Illumination, Water Caustics, better lighting and Real time reflections which are mimicked on the console and not the real thing. All these make the PC version miles better. I think you are the only one in the world who things this game sucks in graphics.:rolleyes:
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I didn't say the graphics sucked. No where did I say that. AA? Really? What PC game, even if it is a console port, doesn't have AA? Also, if you read my post above (edited it just now) you'll see that all the things you just mentioned are simple options that can be turned on and off by a simple box in the engine. None of the PC specific graphic features are "special" or took time and money to put specifically into the PC version. You want global illumination? Check the box! You want real time reflections? Check the box! Speaking of real time reflections though even they weren't everywhere in the game! Go look at some puddles and stuff in the game and see if they reflect what's actually there. The only reflections in the game that are real time is the water, and even it only shows reflections when you're about 10 feet away from it.

Crysis 3 is a good looking game, no one is denying that, but it's still nothing like what it could be if it were developed specifically for the PC. Yerli even admitted that.
 
JoeUser said:
Crysis 3 is a good looking game, no one is denying that, but it's still nothing like what it could be if it were developed specifically for the PC. Yerli even admitted that.
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Exactly. It's pretty straight forward.


Now that being said: It's a hell of a top shelf port.
 
Wonder why these developers can always find 1000 different reasons for their games not being received well and NONE of them are their faults!?

Pirates, gamers, economy, console fatigue (new one) the but never once has the thought, "hey maybe we should try to reinvent the genre like we did with Crysis 1 instead of making a multi player first, standard, linear fps"?
 
MacLeod said:
Wonder why these developers can always find 1000 different reasons for their games not being received well and NONE of them are their faults!?

Pirates, gamers, economy, console fatigue (new one) the but never once has the thought, "hey maybe we should try to reinvent the genre like we did with Crysis 1 instead of making a multi player first, standard, linear fps"?
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The problem is if it doesn't make them mega millions immediately, they consider it a fail.
 
I just beat C3 recently and I thought it was pretty fantastic. However, my impressions aren't focused solely the gameplay/graphics. Hell it has nothing to do with the politics of gaming. Is it because of it may be a console "port?" is it because it was only available on Origin? I don't really give a fuck, but almost everyone talks about these things in one way or another. Anyway, it had great narration, dramatic dialogue music and general presentation. The voice acting was worse than the others (particularly the woman Psycho had a thing for), and the science fiction has some holes in it (if the aliens sent a transmission to their home galaxy millions of light years away as mentioned in C1, it would've taken millions of years for them to receive it), but it was still pretty heavy in the existential themes of being human and whatnot.

Despite that it was strikingly nice looking, there were still some things that made it look worse than its predecessors. The human models looked more plasticky, as if they didn't have all the fancy "subsurface scattering" effects to simulate natural skin tones. And some general cinematic post-processing effects seemed absent. Also, the motion blur has shown a major reduction in quality. It was most noticeable when my game just loaded and the screen froze for a few seconds. You'll notice that the "blur" creates a "trail" of motion instead. Theoretically, motion is supposed to leave smear because it's continuous, leaving no "trail." However, it seems to have been cut back significantly, or maybe redone entirely.

Overall, I felt the amount of thought effort put into the game. Too bad it still wasn't as received well in the end, but I certainly enjoyed it.
 
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Q-BZ said:
Exactly. It's pretty straight forward.


Now that being said: It's a hell of a top shelf port.
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I still wouldn't call it a port though (Not accusing you, lazy and yours was the shortest post). Rather, I agree with that it was held back. Developed separately with limitations in mind.

Crysis 2 when it came out was more of a port. Call of Duty is definitely a port. Dark Souls is a port. You play them, it's the same exact game with just a higher resolution (well, except with Dark Souls unless you mod it).

The community wanted better graphics? They got better graphics. The textures were higher resolution. The object count was higher. The smoke was different. The lighting was significantly different. These are not things a company just needs to take a day or two to modify.

People in the community have also been complaining about lack of controller support. It's there, but auto-aim and aim adjust are missing! If this was a port, you'd figure this would be something that wasn't removed from the game. Few people can deny that controller users need extra help. I can't see a company deciding "Well, let's give kbm users an extra advantage". Rather, it's more that they didn't want to take the time adding in a feature.

There's dedicated server support for the PC game. Why not just copy the console version and have player hosting with all it's host migration goodness! 2-3 matches in an hour? We don't get that. And we get 8 vs 8 rather than 6 vs 6. Yes, map size is an area where the console held it back, but if you've visited many console forums, they're complaining the maps are too large. Oh, and we get an actual ping value display rather than bars. This is something I absolute HATE about console games. They don't have to do it, but they obscure information from the user, and sadly, this has trickled into PC games.

Is Crysis 3 perfect? No. I do miss open ended worlds, and yes, consoles are a lot to blame for that. And yes, we don't have the ability to lean. But not having complex controls doesn't immediately portify a game. And the lack of tessellation I'd put more as a bug/oversight than a cry of a port. After all, why spend all this time to add DX11 features such as the lighting and forget to add tessellation?

Anyone who's played Crysis 3 on both the PC and console should easily be able to tell that they're not the same game. Being held back and having to take consoles into account does not make a game a port.
 
Nytegard said:
I still wouldn't call it a port though (Not accusing you, lazy and yours was the shortest post). Rather, I agree with that it was held back. Developed separately with limitations in mind.
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What exactly would you call it?

You really think there was three development teams working on this game? One for the 360, PS3 and PC? If that was the case, there wouldn't have been any reason for the PC version to be "held back" since it was developed separately. :rolleyes:
 
Agreed.

Also with multiplayer the 6v6 compared to PC's 8v8 I would would think has something to do with a fake limitation than a actual one. Plenty of console games (Battlefield 3 for example) have just as good graphics along with larger maps and more players per map. I think this is a "special" item added for the PC version, not because consoles can't handle it.
 
MacLeod said:
Wonder why these developers can always find 1000 different reasons for their games not being received well and NONE of them are their faults!?

Pirates, gamers, economy, console fatigue (new one) the but never once has the thought, "hey maybe we should try to reinvent the genre like we did with Crysis 1 instead of making a multi player first, standard, linear fps"?
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Crysis 1 certainly did not reinvent the genre. It was more of an evolution of Far Cry with significantly better graphics. The problem here is that as we get further along in technology, the jump between being able to create ground breaking graphics becomes harder. We're not talking just a generation jump in graphics cards. We're now talking multi-generations. A model made of 1000 polygons to 2000 polygons looks awesome. A model made of 1000000 to 2000000 becomes barely noticeable.

To reinvent or to create something revolutionary takes risk. It's easy for an indie to create Minecraft, because they have little to nothing to lose. You can't just view it that Minecraft made lots of money, because for every indie game that succeeds, thousands fail. Businesses are not created to take on unnecessary risk. They're not allowed to assume "Well, maybe we'll get a 25 million percent in return on investment" because the data just does not back that up. If something becomes extremely successful without prior history, you chalk that up to an unexpected success, not a guaranteed success.

Yes, a company can build good will. I'm sure if Notch or Valve release something, they'll have hordes of followers willing to throw down their money. But at the same time, it's significantly easier to destroy good will than to build it. It doesn't really take much, and it can happen virtually overnight. Blizzard use to have as much good will as Valve in that it could do no wrong, but that doesn't exist anymore. And with Crysis 2, Crytek has already destroyed a lot of theirs. It doesn't help that with Crysis 1, they got bad will from players complaining how unoptimized the game was because their archaic teletype couldn't run the game on ultra settings day one.
 
Skillz said:
What exactly would you call it?

You really think there was three development teams working on this game? One for the 360, PS3 and PC? If that was the case, there wouldn't have been any reason for the PC version to be "held back" since it was developed separately. :rolleyes:
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I don't work for Crytek, but if it's like many other places, you have base code which all games share, and you have specific teams to handle individual platforms.

How small do you think Crysis 3 was? The game had a tremendously large amount of programmers from looking at the credits. The amount of man hours needed to create such a game would make it near impossible to have individual platform development, well, unless you wanted to finally see the game released in 2025.
 
Nytegard said:
I don't work for Crytek, but if it's like many other places, you have base code which all games share, and you have specific teams to handle individual platforms.

How small do you think Crysis 3 was? The game had a tremendously large amount of programmers from looking at the credits. The amount of man hours needed to create such a game would make it near impossible to have individual platform development, well, unless you wanted to finally see the game released in 2025.
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In most cases, the game was developed on the lowest platform, then ported to the others giving them special attention in the process. Either way you look at it, it was ported. This does NOT make it bad.

You have good ports and you have bad ports. I do not think this was a bad port, but it was a held back game. Even the developer said it himself.
 
Reason I don't like Cryteks games is the boring gameplay... They "fix" the graphics, but it's still dull...
 
These devs need to wake up and stop catering to Xbox kids because the wind is shifting - PC game profits are up while console profits are down. Ubisoft was the latest to have to admit that - their console crap lost money while PC was actually profitable.

Sure some of it has to do with the old age of 360/PS3 but there's the issue of momentum that PC has going for it until nextgen consoles launch - all the people building modest gaming PC's and taking advantage of the excellent economics of digital downloads with their constant steam & amazon & origin sales, are likely customers that nextgen console sales have lost since many people can't afford both.

Regardless, nextgen consoles are win-win for PC and console gamers alike. Win for PC because nextgen consoles *are* essentially PC's so we can look forward to multiplatform games that aren't nearly as handcuffed in their PC iterations. And I look forward to a Crysis 4 that is free from 360/PS3 limitations and shackles in terms of the map design and scope.
 
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Nytegard said:
Anyone who's played Crysis 3 on both the PC and console should easily be able to tell that they're not the same game. Being held back and having to take consoles into account does not make a game a port.
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I agree.

This time they let PC be PC, but they were forced to make the same game for each platform.
The visuals are there but it's limited by level design. A PC only exclusive would have looked better with bigger levels, but where would they get the budget to support it.
 
People actually think Crysis 2 and 3 are console ports? LOL
 
"Crysis 3 our mediocre experience, but tepid reception due to tired series".

Fixed.
 
Thats like me saying the turd i just crapped on Cryteks front step is a masterpiece, i still know its a pile of shit because im not in denial.
 
murkris118 said:
what about AA? PC has eight different modes of AA in this game, console is all jaggies everywhere.... Th texture resolution is just waay better on the PC plus you get many DX11 effects like Global Illumination, Water Caustics, better lighting and Real time reflections which are mimicked on the console and not the real thing. All these make the PC version miles better.
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I agree, I'm wow'ed

There's been a lot of lackluster games last year, Crysis 3 is a step forward visually, not backwards, like even some game's released this year have been. Aliens game for example, step backwards visually. Crysis 3, step forwards.
 
crysis may be visually a step forward but its still hasn't caught up to crysis 1 in freedom.
 
Won't comment on the story, leave that up to you all. I come at these games from a visual and performance GPU perspective.
 
MacLeod said:
Wonder why these developers can always find 1000 different reasons for their games not being received well and NONE of them are their faults!?

Pirates, gamers, economy, console fatigue (new one) the but never once has the thought, "hey maybe we should try to reinvent the genre like we did with Crysis 1 instead of making a multi player first, standard, linear fps"?
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Because accepting responsibility for failure is the last thing investors want to hear.
 
Graphics are good enough with some issues which can be addressed in the textures department.

Really though, it is the story and the gameplay which are only ok. Fairly generic feeling to me. I never get scared or terribly excited. Kind of feels like an interactive movie. Not bad, not great.
 
RedSh1rt said:
I find it difficult to listen to devs talk about their current game. Of course he's going to say Crysis 3 is their masterpiece, and that the previous games in the franchise aren't as good. He's not going to turn around and say "You know what, Crysis 1 was better!".

I don't trust game developers, and neither should any of you.
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John Carmack will tell you that Quake 3 is his favorite id game. Not all developers are trying to spin everything at every turn.

I'm no fan of Cevat in general, but he makes some interesting points here. Crysis was not the great game everyone thought it was: only a relatively small percentage of it was really entertaining, and Crytek used to be only particularly good at executing on one very narrow type of gameplay experience (the rest was very average). They have to dilute what they're doing to appease console gamers now, but he's probably right when he says that Crysis 3 fires on more cylinders than any of their past games. How they judge these things is not the way we tend to judge them, though, so his assessments are based on his own perspective on things.
 
Crysis 1 was awsome because if you played the final mission before jumping into MP it gave you super beefed up incendiary rounds that would 1 or 2 shot people in armor mode.

it was funny that some how a bug that major and game breaking could follow you from single player into MP i mean how does something like that slip through.
 
I've had two crashes already with the game, for no reason, loading the next chapter/level. Game just quit to desktop.
 
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