Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli at the Gun Store in Las Vegas during the January 2007 Consumer Electronics Show
Longtime readers of Level Up may remember that during the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we hit the Gun Store with several Electronic Arts and Crytek
employees; among them, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli, to squeeze off a few
rounds on the shooting range. But it wasn't all shotgun blasts and loud
whoops; we also got some quality time with Yerli himself, in the
Microsoft booth, to discuss his company's first-person shooter for
Windows, Crysis.
Crytek made its bones with the massively scaled, go-anywhere, lush island setting of Far Cry, which was published by Ubisoft.
Amidst rumblings of a tense relationship between the two, Crytek and
Ubisoft parted ways, allowing EA to swoop and pick up ze Germans'
stunningly gorgeous forthcoming first-person shooter, Crysis. (At this
rate, True Cryme is all but inevitable.) We've been salivating over
Crysis ever since we saw it last summer, and we can only hope that EA's
recent media tour means that the game's ship date isn't far away. Back
in January, however, we discussed how Crytek is balancing Crysis around
the reconfigurable super-powered suit that your character wears; the
influence of classic platformers on the game's level design; and why
Yerli believes that Crysis will become a favorite of the pro gaming
scene. Read on.
Looking at Crysis here, what kind of system is it running on: Vista, DX10, what?
It's a high-end gamer rig--with essentially the only difference being it runs on a G80, GeForce 8800,
and running on Vista right now. So full DX10 specifications. And the
demo that we're seeing here, from the gameplay content, essentially is
that we're showing our core gameplay: the suit play, where you can
change the speed, strength and armor, which allows you a wider range of
opportunities to outsmart any AI challenge
in a more variety. For example, speed allows quicker sprinting and
longer jumps. With strength you can jump higher and also pick up
enemies. We can see here on the energy bar, it's being consumed all the
time, and that's sort of your suit power, suit energy. And when you
change between speed-strength-armor, you have to be careful that your
energy bar is still available, so you can actually gain the benefit of
it. And in armor mode, you essentially become a walking tank, so it's
like you can absorb more damage and you heal faster because it's
putting in a healing mode.
In terms of the suit, what determines your ability to switch among the three abilities? Is it energy?
You
have an energy bar, as a bar which you--which consumes while it
charges. And anytime, for example, you can just use it and if it
depletes the energy bar, then the suit does malfunction for a couple of
seconds so that the suit charges again. So it's actually just an energy
bar and you can change it at any moment and any given situation. And
that's the nice thing about it; it's not like an RPG
where you have a one-way street to increase your strength or speed or
armor. In this case it's more like a crossroad. I can change my
abilities whenever I want, for any given situation, to adapt to survive
the challenge.
With the player having that kind of flexibility, how do you design the levels and the encounters to challenge them?
