By all accounts Crysis is one of the most talked about PC first person shooters of all time. Few titles even come close to matching the graphical fidelity pumped out by CryEngine2, and let be honest here, this is still our go to game whenever we test out our upgraded rigs. Unfortunately developer Crytek perceived the PC exclusive title as sales dud with piracy projections as high as 20:1, and announced that it was abandoning PC only titles in favor of multiplatform development. Many feared this will lead to a dumbing down of the franchise, but it seems as though Crytek is working hard not only to produce a quality sequel, but also to design one of the most powerful multiplatform engines of all time.

Showcased for the first time at the Game Developers Conference Crytek demonstrated its real time development engine that simultaneously allows developers to make changes to a PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 version of a game. If CryEngine3 lives up to its potential, it could dramatically reduce development time – and cost. Crytek has also been working hard to integrate external tools such as Photoshop into the development environment to manipulate existing textures, and seamlessly inject them into a dynamic game world.

Many perceived the loss of Crytek as an exclusive PC developer to be a blow to our beloved platform, but if they help to design a tool that makes multiplatform releases this easy, we could well see a huge influx of new titles in the future that might have otherwise been console only. Would you agree?

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