Crysis Remastered Reviews

Crysis Remastered feels fantastic and runs well on the Steam Deck with a few tweaks!

The only redeeming quality of this remaster is that it might convince you to play the original instead.

I quite enjoyed the time I spent with Crysis Remastered. The game does hold up well to this day however the performance issues and the frustrating AI really hindered my enjoyment.

Honestly, it’s difficult to recommend Crysis Remastered. Its premise and design remain impressive to this day, but poor optimisation makes it difficult for players to enjoy the new graphical additions. If you already own a copy of Crysis, you aren’t going to miss out on much here.

Nearly thirteen years ago, Crytek released a first-person shooter that forever changed the potential for gaming performance. Whether or not your machine could run Crysis made it the de facto standard for GPU and PC stress testing, something that has fallen out of vogue as people switch to Time Spy and Cinebench. As we’ve learned many times this console generation, what’s old is new once more as companies like Saber Interactive dive into the back catalogs of popular titles from the last couple of console generations. Their latest entry takes aim at Crysis with a Remastered release that doesn’t quite hit the mark on PlayStation 4.

Full disclosure: Prior to this remaster, I’d only played Crysis 2 and Crysis 3, both of which I consider among the best first-person shooters from last generation. Crysis Remastered, then, gave me the opportunity to experience the beginning of it all. Unfortunately, Crytek‘s latest didn’t even manage to live up to the lowest expectations.

Back in 2007, Crysis was the video game that overheated computers and melted motherboards. A single player, FPS classic that developed quite the reputation for its dedication to graphical fidelity. It was also the game that solidified the CryEngine as a powerhouse of a tool in video game development and pushed the boundaries for what gaming could achieve. 13 years later and this beloved game has gotten a facelift, so how does Crysis Remastered stack up against such a legendary legacy?

If you have fond memories of Crysis and wish to play it again but with better visuals on the format of your choice, you’ll probably get some enjoyment out of Crysis Remastered. Well, unless your favourite thing about it was the multiplayer – that’s been ripped out. It isn’t a bad game by any means, and its budget price is appreciated, but it’s no longer the graphical powerhouse that it was. Even worse, it appears the aspect that really needed remastering was its gameplay, and it doesn’t seem to have been touched at all.

I do not doubt that anyone who loved the original Crysis to bits would be able to overlook the flaws to be able to take some nostalgia on the go. With everything else that is out on the Nintendo Switch, this isn't going to break the mold as it did back in 2007.

I can’t help but think of that saying that talks about how time is a flat circle, and everything that’s happened or will ever happen is bound to repeat itself. I mean, how can I not be reminded of that? Time and time again, disappointing Switch port after disappointing Switch port, I find myself having been broken down, staring into the deep abyss of the mirror. Lost in an empty gaze and swearing off the next piece of inevitable dross that will land on Nintendo’s latest handheld. I was left particularly disturbed after reviewing The Outer Worlds.

Crysis Remastered is an amazing technical achievement to have it run on the Nintendo Switch, but at what cost? On the surface, in handheld mode, it suffers from framerate issues and stability; in docked mode, things get better and make the gameplay tolerable. Unfortunately, it’s the technical issues that hurt the game the most.

“Sure, but can it run Crysis?” We’ve been using the same dumb phrase for the past thirteen years, ever since Crytek’s hardware-melting opus first debuted on computers. Crysis was a shocking title for its time, as it featured graphics and physics that were way too advanced for 99% of all computers out in the wild. It was a true testament of performance, a game that very few machines could run, let alone render in maximum specs. It eventually got ported for consoles, at the cost of bein...

Once upon a time, it was impossible to run Crysis without melting your PC. Sure, you could play it on PS3 or Xbox 360, but hardware limitations handicapped the experience. Many of those limitations crop up again on Switch, but developer Saber Interactive has mostly managed to get it to work. What worked about the original release like the open environments, Nanosuit and deep weapon customization are all back and work near flawlessly. Running around the Lingshan Islands remains fun, though the final third of the game returns to mar the experience. From a technical perspective, Crysis Remastered looks fantastic when taking in the sights, but that presentation is ultimately marred by consistent and noticeable framerate hiccups and technical issues. Crysis Remastered manages to outshine the PS3 and Xbox 360 console versions and stands as a solid return to the Crysis franchise. It just feels like too much was sacrificed to get such a demanding game running on the Switch.

The idea of playing Crysis: Remastered on Nintendo Switch is a novel thing, but does it still hold up after 13 years?

Thirteen years after it originally set about melting the PC of anyone who dared to try to play it, Crysis arrives on Nintendo Switch in a port that's more impressive than anyone could perhaps have realistically expected. Performance for the most part here is slick and smooth – albeit with a few dips and stutters here and there – while new lighting and global illumination techniques make this a better-looking version than any other console port to date. The addition of gyro controls is just the cherry on top of an excellent job on the part of Saber Interactive. The gameplay here has aged surprisingly well, too, and rampaging across the sandbox of Lingshan taking out human and alien foes with your nano suit technology is just as much fun now as it was way back in 2007. Crysis is easily one very best shooters currently available on Switch.