‘Crysis Remastered’ review: a broken link to the past

Crysis has long been held as one of those games that’s almost mythical in nature. The idea of this pure powerhouse of graphical fidelity being contained within a decent FPS is something that has been handed down for generations. I remember my grandfather once regaling me old tales of… oh wait, it’s only been 13 years.

Alright, as somebody who only recently got their first PC, Crysis is a game that I’ve only really seen, never played. How could I, a poor person who could hardly even afford the latest console, ever hope to achieve power and graphics the likes of which the world would hold up as a benchmark for years to come? By that I don’t mean howI can physically process graphics (I’m not a GPU), I just mean I’ve always viewed Crysis as something completely out of reach.

Well, 13 years later and Crysis’ graphics still hold up for the most part and makes its age seem even more impressive. But despite having all of that time behind it and some undoubtedly talented people doing the remaster, I’m afraid I have to be the bearer of bad news: Crysis Remastered runs like most of us would after six months of lockdown: poorly, while out of breath and stuttering.

It’s a real shame as well because the core gameplay seems like a lot of fun. The idea of running around in a super suit and delivering all kinds of punishment using a mix of guns and over-powered mechanics is certainly intoxicating.

There’s a reason that power fantasy games do so well; it’s because that kind of escapism is a lot of fun. You want to be able to live out absurd fantasies of being able to leap into the air and run as fast as a car. However, when things are optimised like Crysis Remastered, there’s no escapism to be found, just pure frustration.

I knew things were going to be bad when the game had issues getting through the first three minutes of gameplay, but I had no idea just how bad things could actually get.

I encountered my first crash while trying to load up the video settings for the game. Now, my PC is a little under-powered when you compare it to the mighty GPUs we’ve seen announced in the last couple of weeks, but it’s still capable of running most games on high or ultra settings. I faced multiple other crashes throughout the game, and the frame rate never managed to steady itself at an acceptable level.

You can’t so much as turn a corner without the game punishing you for it by quartering your frame rate. That’s not really how any game should play in 2020, especially not when it’s a remaster.

There’s not a huge amount more to say about it at the moment. Sure, it’s pretty. And sure, the gameplay is fun. But that’s all worthless if it doesn’t run properly. Until Crysis Remastered gets a massive and proper overhaul, you should just consider picking up the original version instead and downloading some mods.

‘Crysis Remastered’ is out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.