What a crysis

Crytek is a weird, but cool company... when it comes to making games. Otherwise its quick to point out what goofs they are by just asking "What games did they make again?" and "Aren't they the guys who think graphics are most of the game?" The answer to both of those questions are quite sad. Somehow the same people who started Far Cry with this awesome B grade alien plot, were among the very first of this "play it your way" trend with semi-open level designs, and had you powering through aliens and soldiers in a super suit customized to your liking, are the same guys that only successfully made a moderately recognizable trilogy, and only talk like their sole purpose is selling a pretty engine that looks glossy (no seriously, I don't mean that as some emphasis on good graphics, I mean there's just a vibe with every crytek game that its just textured to look strangely like glossy plastic at some points. Am I just crazy or something?). They don't make any recognized games outside of Crysis (which has ended as far as I'm aware, and never was a major seller), especially with Ubisoft hijacking Far Cry and doing some amazing stuff with it, and then there's just blatant flops and wastes of time like Ryse or their experimental VR as if that's a good use of a failing company. Oh yeah, and the remainders of Free Radical were sold off, and they really are a failing company having now decided to close all extra studios, and have only just now paid salaries employees were owed for months. *sigh*

Okay, so the first problem is exactly what I just stated. They were never making strong progress out there. We're past about 3 years into the new generation of consoles, with enough time for all major publishers to pump out a dozen or so games. These guys aren't publishers (even if they had enough extra companies to call themselves one), but even Insomniac has three titles on consoles (with like 7 or so smaller games floating around on mobile or Oculus, and spider-man coming next year), and then Dice basically has had two releases in this year alone, even ID has come up with an actual hit release, Blizzard has been hitting out a bunch, and yet these guys... don't even have a single PS4 game I can play right now. Even comparing them to Guerrilla, nearby region competitor and similarly as obsessive over visuals, and they've had a 2+ million seller out at launch, long support window, and are on their way to making their first open world game, and they've also stopped to go send important figures to work alongside a long passed vita game. Crytek, what the hell have you been doing with all those companies, and all this time? I appreciate patience in game design, but even if you could afford to waste time, you can't afford to keep all those studios open and only make experimental flops. You could have made Ryse something great, but its a clunky and silly combat game that was made to look nice, the same is being said for the stumble into VR which was a risk you should have never taken. At the very least, you could have made profitable mobile games to keep a money flow, but nobody has ever heard of such a thing. I'm almost willing to encourage you to go hug up to a publisher and be bought into Ubisoft (Ubisoft seems like the best fit, and maybe you could even get back to Far Cry if you ever wanted to). Maybe they'd give you more of a focus and pace, and also supply you with easier funding. However I have two hypothetical solutions I'm much happier to ask of you first, assuming you're even able to try them with whatever is left...

1) Crysis Trilogy

Psst! Hey, graphic whores at Crytek! Yeah, what gives with your "derp, 60% of the game is graphics" and yet you miss the obvious train to update your console ports to modern systems while everyone else is doing it! Welp, I guess 60% of your game died years ago then, much like 60% of your company. You want to know what I would love to change about having no crytek games on my PS4? Having the full Crysis series on one disc I could pop in, and play through any of the three campaigns. That'd be awesome! I don't care if you ditch multiplayer, I don't care if you have to beg EA to do it, and I don't care if you go the sloppy ill-advised route of 30fps, just bump up the visuals and assign them all to a working PS4 disc that has everything campaign-wise from all 3 games on it. It'd be an easy cashgrab to people who missed out on the chance, and what small amount of megafans you have, as well as those who just buy it to review its technical stuff. It can't be that expensive to make, and you'd get people talking about it all again if just maybe for a little.

2) Timesplitters

Welp, the picture just did my job for me. Yes I'm offering yet another HD remaster sorta solution, and yes I'm also aware of Timesplitters rewind. Meanwhile Crysis is sitting on and doing nothing with a series that is somehow a mere cult-hit and yet is more discussed, loved, and remembered than all of Crytek's catalog combined... and we haven't had a single entry from that since 2005 which was just after Far Cry 1. So basically, Timesplitters's last release was nearly before Crytek even started, and its still more discussed, and what does Crytek do when they have their hands on the cult-loved game complete with a petition for its resurrection? NOTHING! They did nothing, even when presented someone who had started remaking one for them, they continued to do nothing. The very least they could do is designate a small volunteer team to help out with the fan project, and yet they had one of the most interesting names in FPS go to waste, and their skeleton crew of a team wound up being pushed to make a poor-man's COD clone side of their Crysis multiplayer, up until they were sold off to Deep Silver WITHOUT their own IP Crytek wasn't even using. So they still have it, and still sit on it. This is another reason people really don't care about your possibly demise Crytek. In addition to making little of relevance, you sit on and dance around a great nerd legacy of FPS brilliance and nostalgia, and you have the best opportunity to flaunt your engine with either a remake or a new game using it, or even just a freakin' PS2-PS4 emulation port, but you just leave it dead in a corner while burning money on cinematic Xbox exclusive romans, and first wave PS exclusive VR walking sims. What the hell is wrong with you guys!? Don't even begin to talk about whether or not the IP is risky, when you go and pull those stunts in its place.

So, getting that anger out of the way, there's four or so great options to take with this beloved series that will net you easy money from at least a cult crowd...

-PS4 emulation. Charge $10-20 on PSN for each game.

-Full HD remake, or a heavy remaster in the form of something more like Legend of Kay. Either way, make multiplayer an online relevant thing for whichever game it works best, but obviously keep the bot support available and don't be an idiot about it.

-Get your team involved with the makings of Timesplitters Rewind, and ask for part of the profits.

-Make Timesplitters 4. This should probably be the last resort, as its more costly than updating something, and there ain't a whole lot of casual or new FPS players who will get what this is without somehow re-releasing the past games to them first. Oh yeah, and you waited until you had nobody of the original team, kind of a goof there huh guys? Maybe if this was a priority sooner, it could stand better on its own. Still, it ain't an option I'd ignore completely, so here it is.

Dang, still remember when this looked like it was happening!

wow, this all came off a bit angrier than expected. I came into this with the idea of "Hey guys, here's two very easy projects to consider for some simple flow of cash!" to "Oh, now I kind of see why these guys are always being yelled at". Look, I really do like some of Crytek's games. I don't hate the guys. I also think they unfairly get beat up and thrown under as a "ew, they just have nice graphics" team. People overlook all the quality and effort that went into Crysis, or have the quality of modern day Far Cry eclipse the awesome original. I don't see it that way, I hear of Crysis and Far Cry 1, and I think of some awesome sci-fi games. I think of fun gameplay, diverse open fields that are worked in a linear fun campaign. I think of how awesome and strong in length Crysis 2 was, or that awesome scene where you're driving in this mass field of neon blue and gray hills at the finale of Crysis 3, or just how damn fun it was to get into a trial and error and then triumphant rhythm with Far Cry's gunplay and intense AI. I really enjoy some of their FPS games, and I have a strange sense of pity with this team. However the writing has been on the walls, and these guys have sat and done nothing but frustrating things on the corporate outlook. They're this weird company that really isn't quite sure what they are, what their place is, or how they should be using their money. They're a frustrating and poorly managed team to look at, and it'll be sad if they go away, but at the same time its clear why they would. I hope they manage to change that in time, if they still have time to fix things left.