It goes without saying that this is a bold statement indeed, but after seeing what Crytek were capable of with the first Crysis game on PC that blew everyone away, who’s to bet against them in saying that they won’t be able to achieve their goal?

Crytek’s Director of Creative Development Rasmus Højengaard made the statement in a recent interview with GamerZines. As well as aiming for the best looking game ever made, he revealed that Crytek are also looking to ‘push’ the technology as much as possible. It may seem a bit optimistic after mixed opinions about Crysis 2 which arrived on console, but there’s no doubt that the first gameplay trailer released for Crysis 3 is nothing short of mouthwatering.

The visuals are looking first class and dare we say it puts Modern Warfare 3 to shame in a direct comparison of graphics quality. The game will utilize the new CryEngine 3 and along with The last of Us, it looks like we have two upcoming games (on PS3 anyway) that will seriously push the boundaries on what the PS3 can still produce, eight years on since its launch back in 2006.

Watch the announcement trailer below for yourself and tell us if you think Crysis 3 is on the right track in becoming ‘the best looking game ever’. If you disagree with Crytek, what game do you think currently owns this title? There’s no word on if this is PC graphics we’re seeing here, or console. Perhaps Crytek will shed some light on this in their next reveal for the game.

This seems to have come out of nowhere, but it looks certain now that we’re just days away from a Crysis 3 announcement. To bring you up to speed, the rumors first started to appear when images were found on the Origin store. These images revealed the box art for the console and PC versions of the game and can be seen at the saved image here.

Following that, another image has been uncovered by Eurogamer and speculation from the images has begun to suggest that the game may be set in either New York or London. Given the global attention that this leak has now received, it has prompted Crytek’s CEO Cevat Yerli to seemingly confirm the existance of Crysis 3.

In a cryptic Tweet, he has said that ‘the best kept secret in shooters cannot be contained it seems’. He also told his followers to stay tuned for an announcement on April 16. We’re not sure about you, but it doesn’t get any more concrete than that and how often do we see a CEO of a company react to a AAA game leak like that? Sony wouldn’t certainly do anything similar.

So with Crysis 3 on the way, how do you feel about a third game in the franchise? There were mixed feelings over Crysis 2, although the game does have a decent score on Metacritic, with the PC version managing an 86 compared to the console versions on 84 (Xbox 360) and 85 (PS3) respectively.

Another factor worth mentioning is that it also means that Crysis 3 will become a current gen game. It looks to be a 2012 if not 2013 release game, which immediately rules out the possibility of the game being a next-gen console game. Is this disappointing to you, or are you just happy to see another Crysis 3 game in the works so soon after Crysis 2? Personally, we would have liked to see this running on brand new hardware, but there’s always Crysis 4 in another couple of years time.

The Crysis franchise is famed for its stunning graphics, so it looks like Crytek will once again have their work cut out to maximize the potential of the Xbox 360 and PS3 to make Crysis 3 look even better than Crysis 2. Will they be able to pull it off though?

This year gamers were already able to experience some of what the Crysis gameplay first brought to gamers in 2007 on the consoles, with the release of Crysis 2. For those that missed out the first time around, you will now be able to purchase the game through a download on either the PlayStation 3 for £15.99 or on the Xbox 360 for 1600 MS points, quite the bargain considering it is a fully regenerated game.

The trailer which can be viewed below demonstrates just how much work has gone into making the game suitable for today’s consoles. The graphics are no worse than what you would expect to see from a new game from debris in the air to the lighting and the gameplay seems almost exact to that from Crysis 2. Crytek’s CryEngine 3 is whats responsible for the revamp, the same engine used in the making of the sequel.

When we first brought you the news confirming the price and the date of the game it appeared as though we weren’t to see any multiplayer mode. Though the price for the game seems fairly reasonable, the fact that there is no online play makes it more like you’re paying for what you get, which is essentially a campaign.

Check out the trailer below and see for yourself just how stunning the game is. Does the lack of multiplayer put you off? Will you be getting Crysis regardless?

EA has revealed that the porting process seems to be going very well, so much so that a release date has been set – apparently EA will be launching the game on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network on October 4 – that’s not long at all!

I’m not a PC gamer, therefore I will probably buy this game to see what all the fuss was about, however there is one thing putting me off, its price. It will cost $20 which isn’t too expensive – but there is no multiplayer, so gamers will only have a campaign to play, we think this will put people off.

Gamers are beginning to get spoiled for choice when it comes to shooters, the Battlefield 3 beta kicks off this week (tomorrow for people with early access), also the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive PC beta kicks off in October and the Modern Warfare 3 release is looming – we think a lot of people will opt to save $20 and put it towards one of this year’s bigger titles, will you?

If for some reason you missed out on Crysis when it arrived four years ago we have embedded a trailer which gives you a glimpse of what to expect. IGN scored it 9.4 out of 10, so we think its safe to say that it won’t disappoint.

To be honest with you this has shocked us a little as we think scores of between 7 and 8 out of 10 are by no means bad for a debut title, therefore we think Kaos Studios done a pretty good job, however there is no hiding the fact that Crytek should take Homefront to all new heights.

Details are scarce at the moment, however Crytek tend to stick with its own engines for its releases, therefore it would be fair to say that Homefront 2 (or whatever the next game is called) will either use the same game engine as Crysis 2, CryEngine3, or perhaps the seemingly inevitable CryEngine4.

THQ’s Danny Bilson has this to say on the matter “Selecting Crytek to take Homefront forward underscores our strategy of working with the industry’s best talent” and added “Homefront’s unique setting and storyline captivated gamers the world over. With Crytek’s industry leading technology and legendary experience in the FPS genre, we’re supremely confident that the next Homefront will deliver that AAA-quality experience that players demand” – this to us sounds like in terms of the storyline THQ was happy with Homefront, but in terms of general gameplay (and perhaps multiplayer) there is huge room for improvement – could this mean that Crytek’s target is to make Homefront 2 a serious Call of Duty / Battlefield competitor? It certainly seems this way.

Currently THQ has not revealed any information as to why Kaos Studios were snubbed for the next title (see update), however Crytek’s President, Cevat Yerli, did say that combining Homefront with Crytek’s creativity, quality and production values should deliver a blockbuster game – with games such as Far Cry, Crysis and Crysis 2 behind them you can’t help but agree.

You can see the official information regarding this news over at THQ.com, it clearly states that it will be coming to consoles and PC in 2014 – could this mean that it will be next-gen? We sure hope so!

Are you shocked to hear that Crytek has been chosen? Let us know in the comments section.

Among the improvements for the console version are stereoscopic 3D support, fine-tuned combat, optimized Nanosuit controls and new effects and lighting. It will be available as a download for both consoles, costing 1600 MS Points on the Xbox 360 and £15.99 on the PlayStation 3.

The developers behind the game, Crytek, say they are extremely proud of what they were able to achieve with Crysis, claiming the game had set a benchmark for FPS quality. Now they believe by bringing the game to consoles as a download, they are ‘setting a new standard for quality in downloadable gaming.’

According to CVG the possibility of the game coming to consoles has been teased since July, when the release of Crysis on the Xbox 360 was approved by South Korea’s Game Rating Board. Soon after, it was suggested that the game would also be making its way onto the PS3 by the US Ratings report.

The trailer, which can be viewed below, acts as confirmation that Crysis will in fact be officially coming to consoles, meaning those who have been waiting patiently for this moment can rest assured. The footage is reported to be from Microsoft’s console version of the game, though it is thought that both versions will not differ too much.

Check out the footage for yourself below and let us know what you think of the quality. Will you be getting Crysis on either of these consoles?

The double XP promotion started roughly 9 hours ago and will end on Monday 11th at 11am (BST), this equates to roughly 3am PST and 6am ET (Monday). Just in case you were wondering this is a completely unrestricted double xp weekend, which means that you can rack up XP no-matter what game mode or map you are playing on.

Crytek also suggest that the double XP weekend has been launched to celebrate the release of the PS3 update for Crysis 2, you can see full details regarding patch 1.04 here, don’t get too excited because most of the changes fix very slight bugs in the game. Despite the lack of exciting changes we are sure that PS3 gamers welcomed the patch, however some people suggest that organizing squads/parties could be smoother, whilst others say that match balancing is way off. What aspects of the game would you like to see improved? Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

Although the double XP weekend won’t completely erase the PSN downtime from your memory it does at least give PS3 gamers something exciting for a few days, to our knowledge the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game will not be receiving a similar promotion any time soon, so think yourself lucky PS3 owners!

PC gamers would have loved to have access to double XP this weekend as they recently received a patch which gave them DirectX 11 visuals and another patch which gave them enhanced textures, double xp weekend would have been a great excuse to drool over the game’s graphics for the weekend.

We would like to hear from you if you are planning to make the most out of the double XP offering, if so, how many hours will you be playing the game before the cut off point? Let us know in the comments section below.

You can download the DX11 patch for Crysis 2 here, it is 545.9 MB in size so shouldn’t take too long to grab, once installed you should see more realistic shadows (thanks to variable penumbra), displacement Mapping and also DX11 brings improved tessellation support (you can find out why this is so important here). On the whole Crytek say that you should witness a more “outstanding visual experience” and if you check out our previous post you can see how much better Crysis 2 looks with DX11. Below we have embedded an image which shows exactly what this patch brings.

Even if you do not have a DX11 compliant PC don’t worry too much as the high res texture pack supports both DirectX 9 and Direct 11 versions of Crysis 2, you do require a a 64-bit operating system and 768MB of memory on your graphics card, if you meet these requirements you can download this patch here, it is quite large (1,695.1 MB). Once installed Crytek say that Crysis 2 will have “higher resolution textures for many critical assets”.

You can find out extremely detailed information regarding the DirectX 11 patch via this PDF file, this features lots of information regarding all of the new features which DX11 brings along with lots of screenshots, at the end of this post we have embedded an image which shows DX9 vs DX11, seeing it a higher-resolution would do it much more justice, however our site layout only allows for a 600px width.

Currently there has not been too many PC games which have launched with DirectX 11 support, however with Crysis 2 now adding support and Battlefield 3 coming with DX11 support out-of-the-box we think that other developers will be keen to follow suit with their games, this is a great thing for PC games and will undoubtedly play a big part in next-gen consoles pushing boundaries even further.

Have you installed the DX11 patch? If so, are you happy with the improved visuals it brings?

The screenshots that we found were hosted on PlayerInside.it, we converted the text from this Italian website and it is clear that a little has been lost in translation, however it talks about the fact that it was disappointing that Crytek did not give Crysis 2 DirectX 11 support out-of-the-box and they also spoke about how the original game had set a very high benchmark in terms of visuals for the sequel to follow. Despite the fact that Crysis 2 is currently built on DirectX 9 lots of critics heavily complimented the game’s graphics, so we weren’t quite sure what improvements the DirectX 11 patch would bring.

As you may be aware DirectX 11 is far more advanced than Direct X 9, apparently Crysis 2 takes advantage of parallax occlusion mapping and hardware tessellation to improve things visually, also DX11 is far more capable in terms of motion blur, depth of field, particle effects, shadows and water. We have embedded a screen below to show you what this all results in.

The screen above is certainly one to drawl over and we are particularly impressed by its life-like lighting effects, you can see the other five screenshots via this link, click on the thumbnails for larger versions.

Currently we do not know when the DirectX 11 patch for Crysis 2 will arrive, however the fact that these screens have emerged online suggests that it may not be too far away, we will have to keep you posted as we hear more on the situation.

If you search Crysis 2 DX11 on YouTube you will see lots of impressive in-game footage showing just how much better the game looks with DX11 visuals. We have embedded a video below which compares some Crysis 2 screens with and without DX11 switched on, here you notice that terrain and surfaces look much more detailed when DirectX 11′s tessellation feature is turned on, also at one point in the video we see metallic surfaces showing reflections when SSR is turned on, finally when SSAO is turned on colors look more vibrant and there appears to be much more depth created by shading and lighting.

Will you be taking full advantage of DirectX 11 when Crytek release the patch for Crysis 2?

According to a recent article by Christophor Rick over on the gamersdailynews.com website, the Decimation Map Pack DLC provides gamers with five brand new maps and 2 new weapons. The new maps include Chasm, Apartments, Prism, Plaza and 5th Avenue.

Meanwhile, the two new weapons include the Smoke Grenade, which comes in handy when covering your retreat in an emergency situation or sneaking past enemy defenses, and the FY71 Assault Rifle, which is perfect for battling over a long distance or tearing through a line of enemies.

The Crysis 2 Decimation Map Pack DLC is available to download now for both the Xbox 360 and the PC. North American PlayStation 3 owners can expect the DLC to arrive on June 28th, while European gamers have to wait until June 29th before they can get hold of the downloadable content.

Have you been waiting to hear about when the Decimation Map Pack DLC was arriving for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3?