Crysis Warhead Ships Sept. 16, Crysis Wars Revealed

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Crysis Warhead (PC) and its multiplayer mode Crysis Wars will ship to North American retailers on September 16 and head to European stores on September 12, publisher Electronic Arts announced today.

The second entry in Crytek's sci-fi shooter series, Warhead provides a new take on the events of the PC original and carries a $29.95 price tag. The standalone game is said to be Crytek's last PC exclusive due to issues with piracy and sales numbers.

"Fans of Crysis are going to enjoy more of the open-ended gameplay, cutting-edge visuals and huge, epic battles from the first game, while also finally finding out what kind of havoc Psycho was wreaking on the other side of the island," said Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli.

In addition to new singleplayer content, Warhead will pack an expanded multiplayer mode dubbed Crysis Wars. At present, Crysis Wars packs 3 modes, with Crytek forming a support team that EA claims is "dedicated to meeting the needs of the Crysis Wars community."

Included in Crysis Wars is the new TeamInstantAction mode along with the InstantAction and PowerStruggle modes from the original Crysis. A total of 21 maps ship with the game--6 of which are new for TeamInstantAction and InstantAction, while PowerStruggle gets 1 new map.

"We designed Warhead to be more accessible for gamers new to the Crysis franchise," explained Yerli. "It is a game with a story that can stand on its own, it has been optimized to run better on a wider range of PCs, and we are introducing Crysis Wars, a tailor-made experience for multiplayer gamers within the Crysis universe--all at a great value."

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 13, 2008 7:39 AM

    Pirated Sept 15. Poor sales blamed on piracy Sept 17.

    • reply
      August 13, 2008 7:44 AM

      No doubt. I think people just get tired of buying a game for $60, then getting an expansion with maybe two hours extra game play for $30, that probably should have been included in the first place.

      • reply
        August 13, 2008 8:01 AM

        Only thing I see that "should have been included" the first time is the TDM.

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        August 13, 2008 8:27 AM

        Wasn't the original game $40? Or maybe $50, but I know it wasn't $60.

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          August 13, 2008 8:50 AM

          Found it for 40 at Frys, so I guess it was 50 everywhere else.

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            August 13, 2008 9:36 AM

            Yeah, it was 35-40 many places right off the bat, 50 MSRP. Apparently a lot of people haven't actually gone to a store to buy PC games in a long time. They pretty much never cost $60 unless you're talking limited editions.

    • reply
      August 13, 2008 9:01 AM

      IMO, Reason first game didn't sell better was because not many people had a PC to run it.

      Reason Warhead won't sell very well is because the people that played the first won't want 'more of the same', and the others who didn't play the first wont buy it because of the bad press that the first got for not working on 'standard' PCs. Also, people will pirate it just to see if it works on their PC as advertised. And once they do that, they won't bother buying it. People don't want to spend money on something that might not run on their PC.

      Obviously Warhead will be bought by some (me included because I don't mind 'more of the same'), but I predict that bad sales will again be blamed on piracy.

      All of this is just my opinion :)

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        August 13, 2008 12:04 PM

        There are lots of reasons it didn't sell a billion copies. Piracy is the bad reason. The other reasons were choices by the developer about the kind of game they wanted to make and the audience they wanted to make it for. They are aware of those choices and don't complain about them. They have a right to complain about piracy hurting the number of sales they could have gotten from the group of people they aimed the game at, though.

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        August 13, 2008 3:59 PM

        Really? I've heard that people that could actually play Crysis enjoyed the hell out of the first levels, in which case 'more of the same' is not a bad thing. Hell, if you're willing to shell out hundreds on equipment then $30 on the off chance that you might enjoy having more scenarios to play around with should be easy enough to justify.

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