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Crysis 2, although great, was certainly not the GPU-flaming benchmark beast that its predecessor was. In fact "dumbed-down console port" was certainly not an unheard phrase in the more disgruntled corners of the PC gaming community. This time though, it sounds like things are going to be different.
Speaking in a Gamecom Q&A, Crytek boss Cevat Yerli has addressed the giant but beautifully textured elephant in the corner of the room. When discussing the biggest challenges in making Crysis 3, Yerli freely riffed "There are brutal expectations around the PC version of Crysis 3. So this time we promise to melt down PCs, right?".
He then followed up with briefly worrying talk of the need to compromise when making a multiformat game, before pulling it back with what's hopefully a hint that Crytek are taking a "Screw it, let's just go big" attitude this time around:
"Amidst the development of late-cycle current-generation consoles, PCs are so far ahead now, so making Crysis 3 look benchmark quality on PC and at the same time looking fantastic on consoles is going to be that challenge that we didn't have on Crysis 2, because PCs and consoles were closer"
"There is unfortunately always in a multi-platform development that kind of compromise that we have to take, but at the same time we are trying not to take it, so we try to make sure that the PC version looks fantastic, plays fantastic. This time we’re trying to say, ‘Okay, let’s not compromise the PC but let’s try to push the consoles so make the PC version happen"
Slightly ambiguous in terms of how far exactly Crytek is going to go to beef up the PC version, but it certainly sounds like a massive improvement over Crysis 2's "console as target platform" development. More like "We're making this for the PC, and pushing the consoles to catch up as far as they can".
Here's hoping, anyway. Because anything that pushes all the hardware as far as it can go is surely good for everyone.
