Bummer: Crytek Denies Crysis 2 DirectX 11 Patch

Games pretty awesome anyway, despite all the whiners.

I'm whining, because there are other tons of connectivity issues they haven't sorted out since the demo.

I'm complaining because the original crysis was the game from which people compared graphics cards in relation to graphical capabilities and was always looked up to in a graphical sense, this has now diminished and comes as a disappointment to avid PC gamers and hardware enthusiasts alike!

I don't give a rear end if it's DX11 or not - is it a GOOD GAME?

True, coming from the graphical behemoth that was Crysis we all had expectations of another monster that took 3 generations of GPUs to max out, but in all honesty (and I said this about Doom 3) what's the point in pushing an engine beyond realistically-obtainable means if the game itself is dull and really only a tech demo?

Cryis 2 looks amazing as it is, but no doubt PC diehards will lament that "it's been dumbed down for consoles" because the geometry isn't as complex as a tropical island and doesn't push PC hardware as hard as it might.

@addictxd

Crysis came at a time when the field was stagnating. Remember, there is a reason why Crysis was one of the more pirated games; because people didn't want to spend $2K on an SLI'd 8800GT system, and STILL have it slow down in spots.

You don't have to have the hype and marketing baloney that DirectX releases have become, to innovate and improve. Just slapping on DirectX 11 isn't actually going to change much of anything (assuming you've read the DX11 specs and understand what's going on). A box in DX9c is going to be a box in DX11.

You'll probably see more complaining that 16 players is pretty woeful for online play.

@h3d Have you looked at the competition that Crysis had in 2007. That was the year of the FPS without any shred of doubt. The PC FPS market was not stagnated at that point, it is now. Crysis 2 is the embodiment of why it has stagnated.
Look at it, from both a technical standpoint, and a gameplay standpoint.
From a game play perspective it is just CoD in a suit. Adding very little, just a generic run of the mill FPS.
From a technical perspective, like it or not the game was not BUILT for PC. It is a Console game. Crysis pushed the PC to a limit no one had touched at before, while bringing in innovative gameplay. Crysis 2 does neither. The whole thing smacks of EA minimizing the effort and maximizing the profit. Good for them, bad for the consumer.

As for what DX11 brings to the party: its actually irrelevant. PC Gamers want PC games. PC Gamers own reasonably up to date systems. A PC Game is not using all it has at its disposal to create an experience if it isn't using DirectX 11. EA have always been poor at this (Any early adopter of a widescreen PC monitor will tell you) and it is a shame to see them drag Crytek into their philosophy.

@Vamppyrbyte

My specific context was referring to the level of innovation in real-time graphics (that's sort of my field). That had basically stagnated ever since iD Tech4 stunned the world with *gasp* normal maps. Sure, every so often an engine would pull a rabbit out of the hat for hype (HDR), but really, it was all the same basic development with higher poly counts and sometimes crisper textures. Again, this is all in context to addictxd, who was specifically referring to the explosion of graphical capabilities, which gave the falsetto impression that the Crysis franchise is suppose to push hardware boundaries.

Crysis came around just about the right time; Windows was unfortunately using the false idea that DirectX is some graphical magic powder to sell Vista to gamers. It pushed hardware to the limits, not necessarily because of the techniques used to achieve the effects, but Crytek's distinct desire to not optimize anything. That attitude blew up in their face; while Crysis sold well, it wasn't up to par with what it should have been for "bringing PC games back to the front". That's why this time around there was a concentrated effort to show how MANY people could play Crysis2 at decent settings.

Since, however, you decided in your oh-so-glory quest, to shoe-horn in gameplay into a discussion that did not merit it, I will address that below.

On a gameplay level, Crysis 1 (IMO) didn't really hit home. It was shallow, once you got beyond the graphics and beyond the novelty of the Nano-suit. It was a horrid mix of an attempt at open-world with a cliche of mega-hard-alien-invasion, both of which were done better in other titles. Deus Ex did open world much better and there are loads of games that pulled off the alien invasion one many army scheme better. In all actuality; the only part (aside from the visuals) that I enjoyed with Crysis were the battles with the North Koreans. However, that fun, too, wore off once I realized all I had to do was go into stealth mode, take pot-shots with a pseudo-sniper AR, hide, and rise/repeat.

Now, I will give them credit for the multiplayer mode in Crysis Wars. It was innovative, yes, but entirely trite. The player base con-deluded it to just rush and camp the factories. That's the problem with players; they will always find a way to take multiplayer matches and reduce them down to their simplest form due to sheer will to be lazy.

I think advanced eye candy does in itself not make a good game. Look how popular Sir Clive's Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer was back in the 80's: basic graphics (often with terrible colour clash); 48K RAM memory; a 4MHz 8-bit CPU.. yet the games sold by the bucket-load due to things like playability and innovative level design.

So, if Crysis 2 doesn't live up to expectations under DX9..would bringing DX11 to the table really change that much? I personally don't think it would to be honest.

Perhaps the Crysis 2 team wanted to focus on optimizing the current Cry Engine's speed and stability across all platforms, at the expense of providing PC owners with advanced eye candy most regular hardware can't handle. If a game is fun, challenging and stable [like Half-Life 2 ], then I don't mind if it doesn't support DX11.

This article isn't on the .com portal? Strange. Just a heads-up, Kevin.

This game is nothing like COD in a suit, gameplay options are much more diverse in the single player campaign. Not interested in multiplayer at all. Its not really dumbed down either, its essentially the same game as Crysis. I reinstalled Crysis to try that and its the same gameplay. The graphical options are still there just buried in the console.

While Crysis 2 has not pushed hardware like Crysis it is still an evolution of graphics.

Bottom line, its a superb single player game just like the first one.

i think what most people are getting at is that cryengine 3 was supposed to be this all singing all dancing engine that would crumple even the highest end system.
in truth it is, or at least has the potential to be.
but it would have been commercial suicide for crytec to give 2 such wildly differing versions of the game.
so what they did was hit a middle ground, where the basic premise was, get it to look as good as possible on the lowest common denominator. in that it must work well on a £300 pound pc as it does on a £300 console setup, and look virtually identical so console owners dont think they got short changed.
in that respect they hit the mark and will sell lots of units because of it.
if they had of went to the lets see if we can crumple even a £3000 multi gpu system then yeah it would have gotten praise, but wouldn't have sold anywhere near what its expected to. praise is 1 thing but proffit is what its about at the end of the day.
cryengine 3 was to my knowledge, built with dx11 as an intrinsic part of it. yet to release the game without it seems very strange. my hope is that they can just turn it on via an update, rather than a full blown 500mb patch. because i see very little difference between the lowest settings and the highest in dx9(baring screen rez). so hopefully its already there waiting for the console sales to die off. crtytec then turn it on and show us what the cryengine can actually do, and by that time the console players will have had there moneys worth. so wont mind so much that they bought a potentially inferiour product.

Oh, come on! Crysis 2 graphics is great as it is! They better fix the AI first! The AI is lame!
I love the game. I've played 5 hours so far and it is the best FPS since Half-life 1 (except Chronicles of Riddick but technically it isn't an FPS).

DX11 patch won't make this game any better. I don't get these lamers who compain about the lack of DX11 patch. There won't be any big difference as DX10 didn't give any visual improvements.

A game is supposed to have a great gameplay first and graphics is second. These days there are so many great looking titles who look good and have 9 content. Yeah! 99% of modern shooters all graphics and everything else utter crap!

well when you have dx11 hardware you sorta hope that new games will support it, not stick with an old standard on an engine that is supposed to offer the future.

and just for reference i actually have finished it yesterday. and yer rite the ai is severely broken on some maps. for instance goulds lab on the dox.
i went in there killed the 3 guys then had to survive the helicopter attack.
first kill the guy on its mounted gun and wait to be swarmed from the roof by half a dozen swat type guys...

i just ran out side the room near the elevator and they couldn't find me... ??? even though there was about 6 of them in the room next door...

DX11 big deal I also have some DX11 mobile GPU. Last time anybody made a non-DX9 game they were performed worse for a marginally better graphics.

I've learned my lesson years ago. Paying lost of money for a top graphics card is just waste of money.

BTW "9 content" above was supposed to be "0 content". And the last sentence is also severely broken.