Crysis 2 has been on store shelves for about a week, and PC enthusiasts are already pulling it apart. Over the weekend, a forum thread doing the rounds claimed that the sequel’s textures are half the size of those in the original Crysis, and some players are holding it up as proof that Crytek scaled back the PC version. We have not been able to independently verify the poster’s method, including exactly how the textures were measured, so treat the conclusion as a fan claim rather than settled fact. We have not seen any response from Crytek.
Why PC Players Are Watching Crysis 2 Closely
The reason the thread has struck a nerve is easy to understand. The first Crysis launched as a PC exclusive in 2007 and quickly became the benchmark that every new graphics card was measured against, to the point that whether a machine could run it became a running joke. Crysis 2, released on March 22 in North America and March 25 in Europe, is a different kind of project. It runs on Crytek’s CryEngine 3, moves the action from a tropical island to a ruined New York, and ships simultaneously on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as well as PC.
That multiplatform approach has worried PC players for months, and the launch version has not entirely calmed them down. Crysis 2 shipped without DirectX 11 support, and its graphics menu offers only a handful of overall presets rather than the granular options PC fans are used to, leaving the more determined tinkering with console commands and configuration files instead. A build of the game that leaked online in February had already sparked complaints about flat, washed out surfaces, though some players in discussions of the leaked build cautioned that it might not include the final high resolution textures.
Texture Size Is Only Part Of The Picture
It is worth keeping a few caveats in mind. Texture size alone does not decide how good a game looks. Lighting, shading, post processing and art direction all play a huge role, and Crysis 2 leans heavily on its lighting engine. Smaller textures may also reflect a deliberate tradeoff in a game built to run on consoles with far less memory than a modern gaming PC, since the Xbox 360 makes do with 512MB of total memory. Sharing assets across versions is common practice for multiplatform releases.
None of that is likely to satisfy players who bought high end graphics cards expecting Crysis 2 to push them as hard as the original did. For many in the PC community, the original game’s reputation set a bar that the sequel was always going to be judged against, fairly or not.
Whether Crytek responds to the texture debate, or adds more advanced PC options, remains to be seen. Have you noticed a difference between the two games? Tell us what you think in the comments.