Crysis 2 + Crysis 3 Remastered PC Deep Dive - Every Enhancement Detailed + Tested!

Alex Battaglia is your guide to all of the changes, enhancements and refinements made to the PC version of Crysis 2 and Crysis 3 Remastered. Real-time global illumination, ray tracing, remastered textures, improved effects - everything! Crytek and Saber Interactive deliver a comprehensive, modernised upgrade to a pair of excellent first-person shooters.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:01 Crysis 2 Remastered - New global Illumination
00:05:09 Crysis 2 Remastered - New ray traced reflections
00:08:36 Crysis 2 Remastered - New textures/comparison to Maldo 4.0
00:11:16 Crysis 2 Remastered - Weapons/animations
00:12:42 Crysis 2 Remastered - New post-processing/added lighting
00:14:13 Crysis 3 Remastered - Overview
00:15:41 Crysis 3 Remastered - New ray traced reflections
00:18:14 Crysis 3 Remastered - Other changes & upgrades
00:20:17 Performance and Recommendations
00:25:28 Conclusion
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[@Harry101UK]

30fps on a 3090 in Crysis 3? The madlads did it. They made a game that modern PC's can't run again!

[@redclaw72666]

Yeah same with consoles with ray tracing lol it's no surprise, it's pretty obvious lmaooooo

[@mrpiratefox4497]

Thats bad optimization for you

[@Echoplex25]

I think that's more bad optimization. These days Crysis doesn't really look impressive anymore, especially when games like RDR2 exists

[@Carlisho]

@@Echoplex25 rdr2 doesnt look that good tbh it has great animations but that about it.

[@Mr_G_s_Route_66]

@@Carlisho No, Red Dead Redemption 2 looks good, it had sucky animations but everything else looks good.

[@nodonn99999]

Could this actually be Alex’s last Crysis video? No, don’t be silly.

[@ShadowMKII]

Indeed. :D

[@Amfibios]

Crysis 4 incoming

[@mitchboland9591]

I forgot how gorgeous Crysis 3 is. Imagine how amazing a Crysis 4 could be.

[@coladapo3]

If they do let’s hope it’s exclusive to next Gen consoles and pc

[@itachix3460]

ryse is beautiful the crytek problem and only focus on graphics

[@CHIEF_420]

🤞

[@castel5003]

⚠️ If - only from Crytec please ⚠️ .. and then .. Make it right - right from the Start. Please. ❤️

[@MT_Real_]

Best people who made crysis left Crytek and only they know how cryengine works because Its hard to make a game with this engine

[@Ziltoid_Knows]

I fully blame you Alex for the fact that I can no longer see the inside of event without noticing that it's glowing in the dark like the Moon.

[@pasullica]

Also for being honest to tell the truth that basically Crysis 3 is not remastered at all, but enhanced with raytracing .

[@KingOfComedyXD]

glowing in the dark you say?

[@MetalJody1990]

Both of them look absolutely incredible. Can't wait to play them at 4K 120 fps in year 2031!

[@geralt1779]

You got me in the first half not gonna lie

[@einherz]

4k 120 will in 22

[@ut2k4wikichici]

I can't wait to buy a 9090ti used in 2041 for 9000 dollars

[@jonny-b4954]

@@ut2k4wikichici Shit that's only 5 generations away. 10 years. ;) 2031 more like.Ha

[@ut2k4wikichici]

@@jonny-b4954 nah amd ezpzm8

[@vintatsh]

I wish there was a new Crysis game. Would be interesting to see how much they can push graphics now with the current gen consoles and graphics cards. Also wouldn’t hurt to have another linear FPS, which is basically a dead genre now.

[@Scytian1]

I think there was Crysis 4 in games list that leaked from Nvidia, so there is a chance.

[@SgtZaqq]

No need to make it traditionally linear. Crysis 1 was a semi-open world game which had a linear mission structure but every mission took place in a big open location.

[@vintatsh]

@@secoTheSonicFan That and the shift towards BR. I’ve always found linear games to be much better at storytelling. The developers can give you a more tailored experience that way and graphics can be pushed harder too.

[@AceticTWO]

@@SgtZaqq Yeah you're right but he means that there's no side missions or any other unnecessary filler shit. Just straight forward killing to progress in the game, because there's only one thing to progress on.

[@AceticTWO]

@@SgtZaqq Tho Crysis 2 is the better game imo

[@Beastw1ck]

30fps vegetation in Crysis 3 always really bothered me. Really glad they fixed that.

[@Shieftain]

lol I didn't even know the vegetation was locked at 30fps until this video as I played it way back when I was using a 660ti, which ran the game at 30fps average at 1080p max settings. 30fps was tolerable enough for me at the time even when using a mouse and keyboard setup.

[@amjadpanhwar3320]

@@Shieftain they new most people will only able run it on max at 30 fps, that is why they made that choice..

[@ormancadam6453]

I think he is kidding.

[@dimaz3]

Now the whole game runs at 30 fps.

[@TokeBoisen]

Reviewers: "I don't really see much of a difference between Crysis 2 and the new remaster on PC" Digital Foundry: Literally everything has been changed.

[@arricado]

Yeah that's the sad reality, it feels like some reviewers just go off of their memory.

[@omarcomming722]

@@arricado Not the entire truth tbh, if it takes an extremely detailed comparison to make out all the improvements while the performance suffers heavily, I don't think that qualifies as a big success

[@DeToxCommunity]

@@omarcomming722 It's more that people care more about consistency and having things "feel" correct than they do about something actually being correct. Crysis 2 still looks great, the art direction made the most of the technology and, with the DX11 patch anyway, you really gotta study it for the illusion to break. Naturally, when you get a remaster of that game, your brain will go "this still looks correct, I can't see much difference", even if it's pretty drastically improved. It's a testament to the original's art direction. The stylish color grading and IBL solution still look great imo. Not physically correct, but the scene still looks "complete", so to speak.

[@arricado]

@@omarcomming722 I don't think that's the entire truth either. Crysis 2 is quite radically different, but I assume you meant Crysis 3 in this case. But the big contributing factor for lower fps there are planar reflections, as Alex pointed out. The thing is, they are only enabled on very high settings. You can look at it as a future proof optional reflection method :)

[@gwen5715]

No normal person will notice much a difference. If you have to put 2 versions side by side and play "Spot the Difference," then the difference is minor. But all Digital Foundry videos over-exaggerate microscopic differences

[@Azerai]

Gotta hand it to Saber, while the "downgrades" in the original Crysis remastered were a let down to me, they seem to have done a nice job updating and modernizing the following two entries

[@carny15]

Why put actual downgrades in quotations marks? The first Crysis remaster is a damn shame. 2nd and 3rd however look a lot better.

[@Orangeflea1]

@@carny15 I just played the first remaster again and I just genuinely don't understand how anyone can say it isn't an upgrade on almost all fronts. The foliage still doesn't quite respond to gunfire at the full framerate, but that's a minor issue imo, and the graphical upgrades, which are significant, are more than worth that single gripe.

[@subsonic5]

@@Orangeflea1 That would be forgetting the fact that many textures and 3D models are those from the 360/PS3 version, plus missing texture effects.

[@Orangeflea1]

That may be, but different =\= lower quality. I’ve made several sets of comparison screenshots between the original pc release and the remaster, and the textures that are different generally don’t look worse, just somewhat different. The Remaster looks significantly better in almost every shot, and at least somewhat better in the others (mostly interior scenes that have seen few changes). The lighting is more detailed and more accurate, the view distances and foliage quality are better, the skyboxes are better, the water is better, many of the textures actually do look better, the particle effects are better, and I generally does look like a next gen game, IMO. I don’t really know what you mean by texture effects. If you’re talking about POM, it was reimplemented shortly after release, and looks as good as and often somewhat better than it did in the original.

[@harbingerdawn]

@@Orangeflea1 Aside from multiple areas where the visuals are objectively worse (which Alex has gone over), the game is also a buggy mess with a spate of control deficiencies and broken features. I bought it recently and had to refund it after just 30 minutes of play due to all the issues it has, many of which I hadn't expected or heard about before, and the relative lack of improvement in visual quality over a modded version of the 2007 release (at least up to the point I quit at, I didn't get to see any interiors, which I'm sure look way better in the new one).

[@rumbazumba3189]

Props to you guys for including maldo's mod, it's an amazing piece of work and needs to be applauded.

[@bioshock6935]

But i still say some of maldos textures still looks better than the remaster not every thing just things like foliage they seem to be more detail and the brick walls and concrete floor but still this remaster is dam good especially how the first crysis remastered was a big disappointment. I was hoping it would be more realistic in the foliage and lighting but instead it look more cartoonish with over bright saturated color's

[@rumbazumba3189]

@@bioshock6935 yes maldo's was better in some aspects, which is funny if you think about it, 1 guy with limited technology 7 years ago made an amazing mod like this and they can't even top some of his accomplishments

[@bioshock6935]

@@rumbazumba3189 would look even more amazing if it was able to mix the two together while keeping the new rtx and svogi to match everything together

[@rumbazumba3189]

@@bioshock6935 that would be a remaster in a perfect world where the devs actually care about giving 100% effort into remastering, but no in our world modders give 100% effort instead

[@bioshock6935]

@@rumbazumba3189 Modders probably have all the time in the world and not restricted to deadlines and for them it's a hobby and not doing it for money unlike the game company's . But with most mods come with compatibility issues and breaks the game even the maldo mod has issues but i get where your coming from as not all remasters are always good but we are lucky on this game for a change

[@kernspalt-kartoffel]

That visual performance of "auf wiedersehen" at the end was great alex, as was the whole video !

[@jacobsoper4708]

Because Saber prioritized frequently appearing textures to get best bang for their budget buck, I think that it's possible Maldo's more scattergun approach redid some props that weren't touched by Saber. So there is potential for modders to carefully touch up some of the infrequently appearing textures Saber placed out of scope -- like bags of chips in the vending machines, for example. I'm really happy you showed Maldo's mod and put it in context against the remaster. Because people do often make glib remarks about how "mods look better" but that really isn't true in this case. Maldo did good work. But Maldo was one person. He touched a much smaller subset of textures. And he had to work within C2's tech limitations, and the somewhat garish artistic conventions of the time.

[@xpgx1]

100% agree. You nailed it, in my opinion. Especially the last sentence made me chuckle because it conveys the exact feeling I get when I think back to _that time_ in gaming. Thx =)

[@jessterman21]

Agreed, so happy for the MaLDo mention and comparison - lots of other things (bugs, tess errors) were fixed along with replacing terrible textures in the final version of the mod. And some really amazing POM surfaces were added, too. Glad this remaster was given a similar amount of attention from Saber/Crytek.

[@MikeYeung]

Q

[@DeaDPooL-XforceX]

Hopefully Monolith remaster F.E.A.R.-1&2 and _Fear Files_ expansion. (Forget fear 3)

[@theoroinvictus]

I would kill for a rerelease of FEAR with a lick of modern graphics paint

[@NothingHereForYou]

Bro fear 1 is great fear 2 is poo and fear 3 I've played the most. Fear 3 is high up on my list of turn off your brain youtube time games and I always think of fear 3 when I go to Sam's Club because of that one mission.

[@Your_Paramour]

FEAR 2 should be left in the dumpster where it belongs but a remaster of the original game would be amazing

[@rifath8152]

A remaster have a very high chance of fucking up the original game's atmosphere, and F.E.A.R. was all about dark atmospheric places.

[@davidbeyerle6996]

Agreed. Fear 3 is just absolute trash.

[@HenryTownsmyth]

Great analysis Alex! The end had me chuckling!

[@EricMalette]

Your work is always so much appreciated. This video is exactly what I needed.

[@Davidium84]

I absolutely love your in-depth analysis of graphics in new and upcoming games and really try to find out whats path traced/ray traced and what other technologies are involved in the presentation! Fantastic work you do (yoda?) and great video!

[@foulplay99]

Been looking forward to this video, I thought I was going mad when I couldn't tell that much difference from Crysis 3 original and remastered on my PC. Also glad I can happily set RT on low or medium. Will be great to play through these games again.

[@johnsmith-ck4qt]

This two turned out to be great. Great job with this vid, Alex. RT reflections are much more noticable in C2R, due to the city setting and its materials. SVOGI looks great like in the C1R and does so much for the image. Many games even nowdays doesn't have a lighting system this good and suffer from the same old light leaking/occlusion problems. Crytek outdid everyone with their tech once again.

[@CrisURace]

I absolutely love these videos! So detailed and explaining everything! I'm a pixel peeper myself, coming from photography..so yea i love this.

[@cypher7031]

Spectacular video. Great comparisons, 10/10!

[@mahavakyas002]

the BGM in Crysis 3 hit the feels.. nostalgia.. "Remember me..." - Prophet

[@Xyos212]

Great video, just wish you highlighted some of the brick textures in-game that use tessellation/POM. Some of the best brick textures in gaming!

[@NiceGuyShaders]

I was wondering why they didn't mention that too🤔

[@kelownatechkid]

Yeah, was hoping for that lol

[@PursuedByAMemory]

What a fantastic video. Great job Alex!

[@XTG3PQR]

I love this channel. So many tiny details explained clearly.

[@JN-hg5wn]

Awesome as ever Mr Bataglia - million thanks buddy 👍🏻 Cant wait to replay Crysis 2 on my CX + 2060S. So this will be so good. Loved the second game and of course the third.- witch I allready played to many times. Crysis 2 it is. Damn I cant wait to get back to it!

[@iamgates7679]

Great video Alex. I forgot how good Crysis 2 actually looked even in 2011. Wild!

[@svartholstjornuson6215]

Quite a contentious topic these remasters have been. Much could be said, but it is what it is, and at the end of the day they have been updated. Thank you for covering them as always, Alex.

[@ApxuBbI]

Under trailers there are bunch of comments about games looks same, but when you do compare them and actually point out changes, this looks really good.

[@DMELZA]

Getting it just for the shotgun animation fix. I literally stopped using that weapon in the original because of it.

[@allenwang2674]

and i have no idea before watching a DF review that it is actually the animation's 30fps lock, i always thought it is shotgun explosion physics too demanding for my gpu haha

[@rmsrmsrmsrms]

Does Crysis 3 have 60fps animations already? Or have they been added in this time as well?

[@jacobsoper4708]

@@rmsrmsrmsrms Crysis 3 had mostly 60fps weapon animations, except for the revolver, IIRC.

[@Sonyrocks1Of]

Can I ask you something for crysis 2 did you not find the ads sensitivity to erratic and the aim acceleration to annoying

[@DMELZA]

@@Sonyrocks1Of Havent got 2/3 remaster yet, but the first game remaster has 'Advanced sensitivity' option for the mouse where you can use 'RAW input' and adjust ADS sensitivity seperately. Aiming feels slow in the original's yes.

[@trollhunter8842]

It's great that all of these old games are getting remastered like Dead Space. I would love to see the Quake trilogy get remastered too.

[@spartasama3214]

Dead Space is getting a remake.

[@yorkipudd1728]

Good stuff. Cheers Alex!

[@rowanunderwood]

Wowee, excellent content Alex! Thanks!

[@solachesis451]

You know when you have an image in your head of what a 10 year old game used to look like, then you see it and it looks so much worse? I swear crysis 2 is the only game where my brains fictional enhancing of graphics, matches what they actually were like

[@shth34d57]

It is so interesting to see how times have changed. What once was lauded as forward-thinking and future-proofing visuals (to the point modern pc's could not run the game on anything but lower settings) is now a source of complaint and "unoptimized" for many. Striking a balance between visuals and performance seems much more important to the average gamer these days.

[@dennisjungbauer4467]

Yeah, standards and mindsets changed. Going back 15 years people were used to PC Games being heavy and hardware being outdated very quickly from what I heard, also the audience was smaller (in count) and therefore more 'niche'. Now PC gaming or gaming in general has much more of a mass appeal and a lot more casual gamers I suppose, that's already one reason for decisions to make most people happy. Then other technological advancements like High-refresh-rate (and high resolution) monitors and them being much more common the last years raised standards and the need for developers to support this properly too. Even consoles now mostly target 60fps and can do 120fps in some cases too. But IMO that's good, people can focus more on experiencing and enjoying the game and needing to worry less about how it runs and enthusiasts still will fiddle around with settings and find ways to spend time with performance investigations (like I do^^).

[@sushimshah2896]

This! I want more wow looking games which brutalize my setup on ultra/max settings but still giving me 30+ fps on medium (with reduced res/scaling as an option) & not looking like trash. This way I can enjoy them once again when I upgrade my setup later, but I guess not everyone has such a mindset. The only game which I refused to continue playing on my laptop was TW3, mostly because it's a huge time-sink & I know that when I eventually upgrade I'd want to play it all over again (on an UW😍) so I saved that time now.

[@xBINARYGODx]

wrong, people leveled those claims at the time - they are not new, if anything, they are crusty and vaguely inaccurate.

[@KillahMate]

People like to complain about new releases being 'downgraded' and about 'lazy devs', but in reality I think we've reached an average level of visual quality in games that's high enough that we just don't _need_ to aim for some imaginary future anymore. Games no longer have blurry textures or huge polygons, light and shadows usually look good even if there's no ray tracing, and antialiasing is becoming almost perfect. Four out of five gamers play on a 1080p or higher screen. Games _look good_ now. So it's time to make games _work_ good now, instead of later.

[@sushimshah2896]

@@KillahMate that's kinda correct given how most recent games (even non-AAA) look at medium quality and are decent/good looking. But the other side is that until you have seen what the next iteration or revolution in graphics looks like, it's hard to judge. Tech keeps on improving & we might be blown away again

[@detmer87]

Great to see you added the Maldo mod to the comparison. I still regard this to be one of the very best mods for a game!

[@DaPunkNdFunk]

Love you Alex, excellent video! 😍

[@Rhedox1]

Great video. I don't think the Crysis 3 Remaster is worth it. It basically completely destroy performance for very few visual differences.

[@markss367]

There is a easy fix for it

[@kailatiolais3569]

Not if you have the hardware to run it.

[@DC3Refom]

Well tbh for the remaster at 4k Dlss quality max setting a rtx 3080 shouldn't be struggling and for the upgrade of crysis 2 and especially 3 which is barely improved , fyi MEEE has way better RT and runs alot better are they still using dx11 for this remaster ? Being a pc gamer myself I have no issues with game a being demanding but there's got be a big enough technical or visual return

[@helloguy8934]

Turn off planar reflections.

[@xuepingsong5329]

@@DC3Refom what the heck is mee?

[@Maddmargarita]

Never thought these games needed a remaster as they already look better than a lot of games do today.

[@chalpua8802]

Its good for console gamers, for PC its kinda not needed.

[@LN.2233]

They don't look better than AAA games of today anymore with the exception of Crysis 3.

[@mikem2253]

@@chalpua8802 Agreed. The console upgrade is night and day.

[@Maddmargarita]

@@LN.2233 I didn't say they did.

[@LN.2233]

@@Maddmargarita then what games are you talking about? Indies? Because that's an unfair comparison when Crysis was AAA

[@jasonsmart4916]

Another tight video nice guys👍

[@alenko4763]

I LOVE the background music you chose for this video (Crysis 2 & 3 OST). The music is really nice in both games, hans zimmer for Crysis 2 like wtf

[@DANNYonPC]

I hope this remaster funds a crysis 4.

[@cypher7031]

Already has

[@dairemc]

I'm glad that more people will play crisis 3 now. Very underrated game!

[@DimitriosChannel]

Usually I'm too lazy to comment but I have to say you guys have great content. Keep up the good work.

[@BlackjackCZ]

Excellent video!

[@ivanjay6675]

I definitely noticed the antialiasing in C3... thats the main thing I didn't like about the original... many jaggies... quality all together smooth... although some scenes fps drops to like 40 but mostly it's been a smooth 60 on my 3090

[@alaskanhybridgaming]

I always preferred to super-sample to 5k on my 1440p monitor rather than use the games AA. A huge performance hit but damn does it look better.

[@CargoShorts7]

Soooo basically Crysis at max settings with rt on still brings modern GPUs to their knees lol

[@fraggsta]

Well my 3080 Ti can run it maxed out at 120 FPS which is the maximum framerate the game allows..

[@DeaDPooL-XforceX]

Nah they start smoking and melting ask (NEW WORLD).

[@DroneCorpse]

@@DeaDPooL-XforceX cringe.

[@DC3Refom]

@@fraggsta what resolution

[@fraggsta]

@@DC3Refom 1440p. I could test it at 4k if you're interested.

[@greenbow7888]

17:48 that is such an improvement. The hand and grenade are exceptional in the remastered. Just gotts to wait for it to download now.

[@50H3i1]

2 of the most alex things to be in a DF video . Ray tracing and crysis

[@b1thearchitect401]

Man it's pretty insane how well these games hold up visually, even the old versions still look downright modern on max settings on PC. The general consensus is that Crysis 2 & 3 are downgraded weaker sequels to fit on consoles, but IMO they aged extremely well visually and in terms of design. Even the wide/linear design of the gameplay is downright refreshing in the day and age where we were burned out on both hyper linearity and giant bloated open worlds. It's just enough freedom and tactical options to not feel restrictive, while still providing hand crafted scenarios and cinematic pacing. Wish Crytek would come back to making forward thinking single player games!

[@b1thearchitect401]

Particularly Crysis 2's campaign is actually extremely well done minus a couple annoying quick time events, and by far the best campaign in the trilogy IMO, far surpassing the original in terms of pacing, variety and length. Crysis one was 2-3 hrs of wide open tactical shooter and 2-4 hours of linear alien wack a mole with some turret/vehicle stuff in between. Crysis 3 is gorgeous and has the best core gameplay of the trilogy but it feels short and rushed unfortunately

[@b1thearchitect401]

Overall very underrated trilogy and I'd love to see Crytek return to the Far Cry/Crysis style of boundary pushing single player FPS

[@saricubra2867]

It's the level design and art direction more than the graphics themselves

[@pgr3290]

Sometimes I question the value of trying to make everything look more 'realistic' in videogames. More accurate lighting and colours and objects! Well yes. I'm not sure it actually looks more enjoyable though. The real world is often grey, drab and muted. Videogames about fighting invading aliens in New York as a superhuman hero thanks to Nanosuit technology don't have to be.

[@Raivo_K]

This might be the era we are living on. Like in the 2000's every game had to have some sort of yellow "piss" filter added on top for some reason and 2010's had very vibrant games. Ofcourse there were exceptions to those. Namely the first Far Cry that came out in 2004 was very coloful and vibrant where most games back then were either dark corridor shooters or ones with yellow filter. What i really liked in that game was a color grading setting. I remember "Paradise" being very colrful while "Realistic" was muted. This allowed the played to choose their own style.

[@simonrockstream]

There are just as many if not more "non realistic" games as there are "realistic ones" and even the realistic ones almost always have their own artstyle.

[@tahsin28]

Do realism everything, just increase vibrancy abit. Done

[@richardtucker5938]

You can still have more advanced lighting and then choose to do post processing to apply an artistic twist, they are not mutually exclusive.

[@JorisKeijser]

It's about being able to make games look real, not making everything look real. It's just something we have yet to achieve, to be used in certain scenarios.

[@thsmetallica]

Eres un máquina tio, vaya currazo video.

[@kelownatechkid]

Alex nailed it again!

[@Theedgecrusher93]

I’m really enjoying Crysis 2 so far. I’m playing with a RTX 3090 at 1440p and the game looks and plays amazing!

[@Resifreak90]

FPS? :)

[@jotunheim5302]

@@Resifreak90 DLSS To THA MoOn

[@GetOffMyDick00]

@@jotunheim5302 DLSS is well implemented here tho why mock it lol? It made crysis 3 jump from 37fps to 60 on quality mode 🗿🗿

[@jotunheim5302]

@@GetOffMyDick00 Wasn't "mocking" lol got a 3090 and I love DLSS.

[@BryanEnsign]

The crysis series was way ahead of it's time making lighting tech that did not exist at the time that does now using clever tricks to hide what they still made work. I think it's fantastic that they are updating this so a whole new generation can enjoyed it without having to buy, at the time was a 7800gt which many could not afford, let along running them in SLI. Seeing the same situation now with top 30xx hardware is dissapointing from a optimization stand point. Now the barrier to entry is much lower to achieve but still seems to suffer the same reception. Sad to see warhead always left out of all the series bundles. Great video.

[@Alex-px2ju]

Great review, I really couldn't appreciate the difference of shadowing until I saw your Cyberpunk and crysis videos, keep on the good work. Am I the only one willing to see metro 2033 or last light rtx on?

[@TheCoolerFury]

The comparison at 26:04 is amazing, holy hell!

[@brewski535]

It's just incredible, crysis 2 looks especially great!

[@dimaz3]

Just waiting for those silly original looks better comments. Slap a tint filter like blue or orange and make everything unrealistically contrasty and half the people thinks it looks better.

[@807D14M0ND5]

Are half of the people silly or do they enjoy a different look?

[@MrRhysReviews]

5:02 God that music track STILL gives me chills... Replaying the Trilogy on my PS5, I forgot how great the Soundtrack for Crysis 2 is (probably because I only ever hear the Main Theme, which is also good but nowhere near the rest of the OST imo 🤷‍♂️)

[@NothingHereForYou]

Pretty sure Hans Zimmer is behind the music

[@MrRhysReviews]

@@NothingHereForYou Pretty sure he just did the Main Theme, someone else did the rest of the music (including that track)

[@MrRhysReviews]

@@NothingHereForYou From Wikipedia "composed by Borislav Slavov and Tilman Sillescu with the help of Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe."

[@socratese5]

Thinking about getting this, how’s it look on the ps5?

[@NothingHereForYou]

@@socratese5 To be honest it's mixed for me with 2. Alot of the style got sucked out when they decided to make it look more realistic. Some of the more breathtaking bits in 2 just seem flat now. On the flip side the crushing of the blacks was annoying in the og2. If you never played it go ahead., But if you can get a hold of the of one on PC with the same specs I'd do that.

[@muveemanone2067]

Gr8 video!🤘

[@RollinShultz]

Thanks for this review. I play all three of these games once a year so it is worth it to me to upgrade for the visuals. I picked a nice bundle that includes the Hunt Showdown games which I never played.

[@fab_81]

Crysis 2 annihilated the 2011 release, it's the one with major changes between the trilogy.

[@SP95]

Now I want Crysis 2 Remastered Maldo Remastered Edition

[@piterinho11]

Wow, that's a loot of work done here, great material ! Now waiting for Crysis 3 on consoles ;) !!

[@TRONiX404]

Great vid thanks! One of very few legit game review channels. Let's get into cvars editing.

[@damsen978]

Why didn't they add real-time raytraced lighting and shadows? That would make the game more future-proof for benchmarks (as well as making it look better supposedly).

[@victorn1291]

Did you watch the video? He explains why

[@damsen978]

@@victorn1291 What? I watched it full and it doesn't. Can you share me the timestamp?

[@victorn1291]

@@damsen978 Sure :) Crysis 2 @ 1:03 and Crysis 3 @ 14:40 The way I understand it is, and feel free to correct me, Crysis 2 uses a mix of software and hardware raytracing for lighting, or 'global illumination', as well as hardware raytracing for reflections, whereas Crysis 3 uses Raytracing for reflections only because, A) it already looks great and B) The lighting was crafted by artists and rebuilding the whole lighting system would have been too much to overhaul.

[@damsen978]

@@victorn1291 Damn, true. It flew over my head then. And what about the first Crysis? Couldn't have they added it in full?

[@TyrannoWright]

​@@damsen978You're not looking on the right places then. Everything that use to use cubemaps now reflect in real time. Car windows, water bottles, water, so on and so forth.

[@brewski535]

This is a great showcase of ray-tracing. The games look so much more coherent.

[@rubinraj3365]

Crysis 2 got the best remaster imo. It looks so much better now.

[@DC3Refom]

I'm going to have to disagree with you ME Ehanced edition is , you have GI , reflections infinite bounce lighting , etc runs alot better too , dlss quality 4k , rt max settings way over 60fps at all times with a rtx 3080 these remasters with subpar RT dlss having to be in performance mode to even get 60fps on the same hardware is laughable

[@xentiment6581]

Its just SVOGI. Ray tracing covers only transparencies.

[@ryanprentice]

Great video! I had never paid attention to the Crysis series until watching Digital Foundry videos and how you all keep saying how amazing Crysis is. I want to finally try the games after all these years.

[@NothingHereForYou]

Well lower you expectations some. 1 is the best but over all they're fine games.

[@Saturn2888]

I'd love to see a deep drive into the graphical and lighting changes of Baldur's Gate 3 patch 5 and 6. It's pretty incredible what's changed, but I'm not sure I'm understanding all the changes.

[@keflas3842]

Finally a developer who knows how to utilize ray tracing

[@AthosJosue]

I have a 2080S and with your recommendation the game run at like 50-55, pretty bad, especially for a 10 years old game and using dlss performance.

[@dingdong6593]

Alex, what monitor or TV do you use for these type of videos?

[@DigitalFoundry]

A rather OK, but kinda mediocre Samsung NU 8000, 55 inch version.

[@OldLuGaming]

Very nice Video - as always! Thanks for the comparison and the detailed explanation of all enhancements. Crysis 2 got much more enhancements than Crysis 3, but that was expected. Crysis 3 still looks very good today and so the enhancements are nice additions for newer Hardware. I'm playing on i9 10850k, RTX 3090, 32GB of RAM in 3440x1440 on Windows 11 Pro and got around 100+FPS with DLSS Balanced and all Settings maxed out. Note: DLSS Quality is still bugged at this Resolution like in Crysis 1 Remastered, so i have to use "Balanced". It still looks great and sharp, so i don't care.

[@mikem2253]

Great in-depth review Alex. I don’t have a gaming PC because of the GPU market but it looks great for those who have good hardware.

[@TurokRevolution]

The new lightning and textures are a great improvement on the original Crysis 2, but what makes me like them even more is that they don't change the overall astetic of the game (unlike Crysis 1 Remastered). One thing I did encounter in C2 Remastered is that the game has a massive stuttering issue when played on an HDD, this is off course improved by installing it on an SSD. Still, I don't think it's good to make it a must to have it installed on an SSD, to even have it be enjoyable, considering that I have plenty just as great looking games on my HDD that don't have this issue. As for Crysis 3: At first I was a bit dissapointed that the Remaster is literally just the same game just with RT, FOV slider and DLSS added in, but thanks to the side by side comparisons I appreciate the remaster more. In my experience, Crysis 2 Remastered is actually much heaver on the performance as far as I have played them. While Crysis 3 Remastered has about the same performance as the original, Crysis 2 Remastered doesn't just run worse than the original (which was expected) but also more than Crysis 3 Remastered (which may be because there are way more reflective survases in C2 than in C3) One thing I dislike about Crysis 2 Remastered is that, just like in Crysis 1 Remastered, your shadow disappears when activating cloak, which wasn't the case in any of the original games (exception is in Crysis 2 when using Stealth Enhancement). At first I thought this was a conscious desicion because it's in both C1 and C2 Remastered, but then in C3 Remastered, your shadow is still visible even when cloaked. This just creates an inconsistency across all games. But I'm also probably the only one who cares about that.

[@SimonVaIe]

The shadow not disappearing was one thing that always annoyed me in the originals, and I was glad it finally disappeared in c1 remastered. Didn't know it's not in C3 remastered -.-

[@rumbazumba3189]

@@SimonVaIe there should be a shadow based on physics

[@SimonVaIe]

@@rumbazumba3189 seems my link got deleted. Here a quote from an entry on nanosuits on a crisis fandom wiki page: "When Cloak Mode is activated, the Nanosuit alters its outer surface through the use of a crystalline generation, capable of fully absorbing or bending incoming wave spectrums such as visible light, radiowaves (Radar), Infrared (Thermal Imaging), and possibly microwaves or others, to render itself completely invisible to the human eye and most surveillance equipment." Fully absorbing the light would make it appear black afaik, since that is how the most light absorbing materials we have (and also black holes) appear, so skip that. Now take into consideration that we see almost no distortion of what's behind a nanosuit when it's in cloak mode. When bending the light, this means the light coming towards your eyes gets bend around the suit, but the path needs to be corrected afterwards (or you'd see distortion, probably just a rainbow mess). Which would result in no shadow. A different idea would be to think of the suit as a display, showing a video feed of what is behind it. While this method would result in a shadow, it would also break if more than one person is looking at the suit because one display can't account for different perspectives. This method is therefore not what the suit is using. Maybe you can find an official source which describes a different method, but from observing how the suits cloak mode operates the only sensible consequence I can think of is: If you can physics invisibility, you inadvertently physics turning the shadow off.

[@rumbazumba3189]

@@SimonVaIethere's no feasible way to describe how the suit goes into cloak that works with our knowledge of physics, so the best way is to call it alien tech and say it's a display that has magical properties lol Or it just turns into an infinite mirror so it looks transparent, but in my book as long as there is "some" distortion there should be a shadow

[@SimonVaIe]

@@rumbazumba3189 well yes, as long as there is some distortion there should be a shadow. But with how little distortion there is, the shadow would be just as slight - noticeable on a very simply formed and coloured plane, not on a more complex one as we usually have. No shadow is close enough, while in the og games there was no difference in shadow brightness between cloaked and non cloaked at all.

[@jercodesthings]

Video popped up on my home page just in time for the Steam release. KZbin knows me so well

[@fatalmokrane]

Really good remaster

[@alarak2159]

PC.. now here's the platform we give a damn about. Thanks Alex!!

[@user-qg7oq6qw5c]

Thanks god you are minority.

[@kylelochner5686]

@@user-qg7oq6qw5c More active steam users than xbox and playstation. That's without looking at epic store.

[@alarak2159]

@@user-qg7oq6qw5c Oh I quite agree, thank god.

[@alarak2159]

@@secoTheSonicFan sorry, what’s the argument? There is ‘literally’ none.

[@kylelochner5686]

@@secoTheSonicFan so there are more pc gamers in general but what you're saying is, pc gamers are the minority because they play more popular games regulary. That doesn't make much sense. Lets put it this way. I played control, the game was great but there wasn't much replayability, but on the other hand I can play skyrim and can sink hours into the game. I can add mods then then I can make a whole new experience and play it again. Therefore control wouldn't be an active game anymore, it's finished Uninstalled and now skyrim is an active game. That's why some games are more active than others because esports and open ended rpgs offer more hours. Who is going to play a demanding game if most are one and done games? Hell even new world you can play for hours. That doesn't prove pc gamers are the minority. The numbers are there. Have you watched Santiago Santiagos channel? There's people asking how 1030s play on crysis trilogy remastered. People with low end hardware want to know how it plays and how much better the remastered look compared to the original so I don't get your point?

[@StarFissure]

2:42 That kind of material can actually leak that much light in real life when hit with direct sun.

[@selohcin]

@@InnerFury666 That IS plastic. There's no way that's metal.

[@astrogazer1818]

Enjoyed your review. I Just finished the play thru of Crysis 2, C3 remast, on xbox 1. In C2, the in game detail on fallen objects, papers, pictures on the walls were not that good on my 4k 75inch display, they were more like 0.5k, 1k, maybe 2k. Say at beginning when you jump out the door onto the roof before the big courtyard and just look at roof debris near body, look at the blocks were just pixelated and flat with no good detail. The fallen bricks were just flat and drawn in. I think c2 was just updated to run with xbox 1 and they added xbox 1 Achievements to work better (I like achievements). Also C2 had very long load screens between scenes. I still enjoyed the series and storyline, so, I still enjoyed the game. But, Graphics for c2 on xbox1 were so, so if you play it on 4k display. C3 was a lot better but detail of fallen papers and name tags could of been better for 4k. With only a few glitches the game ran good. I even enjoyed the after credits movie again. (I also liked the Asteroids type arcade game in c2 credits.) All in all, I am glad they remastered it for next gen. I enjoy these games and now can go back and play them again. I will say I played C1 remastered on PC and enjoyed and feel they did a good job. They even added gamepad support for c1 on the PC. But, no steam PC achievements for Crysis Remastered, which was a disappointment. Updated - xbox just updated 9gigs and it seems crysis 2 colors were improved, did not test the other parts.

[@amjadpanhwar3320]

26:07 on tv screen thats it,i am sold

[@KillahMate]

_Very_ surprised that they opted for planar reflections here... So the implication is that ray traced water would have been more expensive? Is Cryengine unusually efficient with planar reflections or something? Odd.

[@brewski535]

I suggest reading this forum thread over on unreal engine's website called: "Is raytracing less “expensive” than planar reflections?" I'll try and sum up what they said: Planar reflections are ideal for flat surfaces like a water plane. They are pretty expensive as they essentially render the whole scene again from a different POV. However, they should still be more efficient than RT in most case if it's just a single plane you are reflecting. So a large flat body of water would probably be best suited to planar. I guess tracing rays that far into the distance would be too expensive.

[@KillahMate]

@@brewski535 Thanks!

[@rapeisalwaysthewomansfault946]

WHEN ARE WE GETTING CRYSIS 4!? I know crytek read the comments and has heard our demands, so when is it actually going to happen?

[@Antares-dw9iv]

I'd image these remaster are partially being released to test the water and gauge interest in a possible sequel, provided these sell well I'd expect to see Crysis 4 sometime in the not too distant future.

[@rapeisalwaysthewomansfault946]

@@Antares-dw9iv this is exactly what I think to be honest. 1) It’s good marketing, informing the public of their product and having them take interest in it. 2) it’s an easy cash grab and 3) remasters are necessary because bromides don’t like old games with outdated mechanics and graphics even in the HD era so a remaster in necessary in order to sell and get the name of your game out there.

[@gwen5715]

Crysis 3 did not sell well. Crytek does not care about pleasing an internet community. They do npt believe Crysis4 is worth the expenses

[@Social8Hypnosis]

The music takes me back.

[@tahsin28]

I once used New York Memories as a presentation background music 😂

[@user-qe7bt9dz1l]

How are you not gonna mention how it’ll run on non RTX cards like GTX? Sure it’s old but on the GPU shortages, it’s understandable that some of us still own these!

[@transtechgirl8786]

They definitely learnt a lot from Crysis Remastered, it also helps that Crysis 2 and 3 are on more modern versions of the engine. I'll definitely be doing a play through of all 3 games.

[@viniciusmedeiros9822]

I'm usually against remasters but holy... I loved the way those games looked back in 2011 and 2013, seeing them now makes me question everything I liked back then haha and this freaking soundtrack!! So effing good! After reviews confirm all of this I think I'll pick it up!

[@yousefeno]

Why are you against remasters?

[@tahsin28]

Why are you against remasters? (2) Don't you want the younger generation to experience stuff that made our childhood awesome? Without remasters they only have some Sony exclusives, some Ubi titles, few EA n MS titles and everything else fontnight-ish junk.

[@CaptToilet]

Would be awesome if a small snippet was thrown in advising what one would need for 120hz + gameplay. I know 60fps is the bread and butter for 90% of everyone out there but still would be nice to have 5-10 seconds devoted to the hardware needed.

[@Mustafa_9628]

Return of the king

[@hakis86]

When using RDNA1 instead of RNDA2, you might as well have used an Nvidia card without HW RT as well, like the 1080. Of course, you might not have any RDNA2 cards to test.... I have RDNA2 and really would love to see how it perfoms! Can anybody test RDNA2 with RT, or direct me to someone who has done that in these games? Thanks! Might buy this if it traces ok :)

[@brewski535]

It would also give us an idea of how the consoles would have fared if they supported RT in this game. Obviously it would be a 30fps affair, maybe that wouldn't even have been possible, but I'm still curious...

[@ThePhantomnaut]

With the remasters, will we see the venerable Crysis 3 DF train and Psycho benchmarks return?

[@TommyM3]

On my good old AM3+ System with FX 8350 and RX570 8gb, especially Crysis 3 remastered is a big improvement and i'm glad to bought it! The CPU usage from the original is so terrible, that it was really hard to play for me, especially in the first fight scenes on the ship. Independent from the settings i have in the original frameratedrops from arround 80 to 23fps in the same location and also horrible frametime stuttering in the grass areas. The remaster, i play on ultra settings (shading & shadows on high) and it's absolutely smoth and for me finally perfect playable🙏. On the ship at the beginning, in the hall with the yellow reactorcore, i have 23fps in the original, when im looking in the Reactor, or in it's direction. In the remaster i have 70fps in the same scene! Avg my System accelerate the game between 65 and 45 fps on the ship and it feels absolutely smooth and stutterfree. Great! Autdoors it also runs way better than the original. I have between 35 and 45 fps and it feels also much smoother than the original and looks better at the same time.

[@NothingHereForYou]

I liked that blue tint in 2. Gave it some personality then just going for realism

[@selohcin]

I am SO GLAD they finally reoriented the direction the guns point outward. Having the weapons pointed slightly to the left rather than straight ahead drove me up the wall.

[@alsopsarchive5384]

I just wish they did more to update the actual feel of the gunplay. Playing 2 feels really sluggish even after fiddling with the sensitivity. The AI also still abysmal and makes it nearly impossible to play stealth.

[@trblemayker5157]

Git gud

[@Daigon95]

Still easy to kick ass at max difficulty. The 3rd game got brutal at times. imo

[@alsopsarchive5384]

@@trblemayker5157 I mean, it’s still piss easy on the harder difficulties, but might as well have just removed the stealth stuff completely because it’s absolute garbage.

[@Ccodebits]

Do you prefer the typical video game look or more accurate realistic look more?

[@MrRodrigues520]

17:14 The only thing mission from the remaster is shadow on the gun, it really takes you out of the enviroment. Also, does the new version have an FOV slider?

[@orijimi]

But did they rein in the tesselation and invisible water rendering?

[@Dsntmtter2ME]

Ah yes, the good old tessellated rocks under the water and out of view to sandbag AMD performance. Good times, powered by Nvidia.

[@kclamer]

To me crysis 2 remastered looks very soft and reflections are everywhere, even walls. It just looks unnecessarily unrealistic that a painted wall shows a reflection of a building.

[@selohcin]

Glossy paint DOES show reflections, though. I've worked with plenty of it in industrial zones.

[@blackcaesar8387]

I wish you guys had done something like this for mass effect legendary edition for pc.I still don't know what improvements Bioware made over popular mods.

[@spenceranderson4563]

"halos of darkness" great band name ;)