Crytek has released a wealth of fixes and new tools for Crysis Wars, the multiplayer portion of its graphics-intensive PC first-person shooter Crysis Warhead.

The patch adds enhanced DirectX 9 support, resolves some memory leaks, and bring mod support. As for the Mod Tools SDK, that's got everything the name implies. There are also some new dedicated server files, in both Linux and Windows form:

• Crysis Wars v1.4 Patch
• Crysis Wars Mod Tools (Part 1 of 2)
• Crysis Wars Mod Tools (Part 2 of 2)
• Crysis Wars Dedicated Server 1.4 (Linux)
• Crysis Wars Dedicated Server 1.4 (Windows)

The first Crysis Warhead patch has been released, updating the game with new 64-bit executable files for Vista and XP.

Grab the patch now on FileShack. Check out the full notes below:... Read more

Now available on FileShack is the DRM deauthorization tool for Crysis Warhead.

The paltry 1.04 MB download allows owners of the Crytek-developed PC shooter to deactivate their installation of the game, freeing up one of its five activation slots.

As with the Spore deauthorization tool, launching a de-authorized install will prompt a re-authorization, and Vista users are advised to turn off UAC (User Account Control).

Thanks to spaceyme and acare84 for the heads up.

Crysis Warhead developer Crytek recently assured fans in a community update that a patch for the standalone shooter is nearing completion.

"Crysis Warhead will receive a patch in the new year," said the team in a statement. "It's almost finished thanks to some hard work from the Warhead team, so that's something to look forward to."

The company also noted that a new editor and SDK will be the next priority.

"The Editor and SDK are being worked on and will be available for release in the new year. We currently don't know when this will be, but good progress is being made and we're hoping it will be sooner rather than later."

The third patch for Crytek's Crysis Wars is now available on FileShack, bringing two new maps to the game and fixing the loading of custom assets in downloaded maps.

Along with the patch, the developer announced that the PC multiplayer shooter will be free-to-play for 10 days, from December 19 through December 29. Crysis Wars is the multiplayer half of Crysis Warhead, and normally requires a copy of Warhead to play.

As with the last free weekend, wanna-be players can grab the four-part Crysis Wars trial from FileShack, and must register at mycrysis.com to generate an access key.

After downloading the trial, players will only need to apply the patch released today, as it contains all the fixes, upgrades and additions of the other two patches.

Crytek has released a patch for Crysis Wars, the multiplayer component of its latest shooter Crysis Warhead (PC). Included are a number of bug fixes and even more balance tweaks to make the game more competitive.

The patch, the second since release, weighs 104 MB and is available now on FileShack.

For a full list of changes, look below... Read more

The free weekend for Crytek's multiplayer sci-fi shooter Crysis Wars kicks off today, allowing PC gamers to play online for free from now until Sunday night.

To play, simply grab the Crysis Wars executable from FileShack. While you're waiting for all 5GB to download, hit MyCrysis to register for the free key that enables online play.

Within the 5GB Crysis Wars download, you'll find:

• Three diverse multiplayer modes including InstantAction, TeamInstantAction and PowerStruggle
• 21 maps ranging from large battlefields to smaller, more intimate battlegrounds with a diverse array of settings ranging from beaches to graveyards
• All weapons and vehicles released within the Crysis Universe

Available from FileShack now are the Crysis Warhead files you'll need to play the Crysis Wars during the upcoming free multiplayer preview weekend.

In order to play Crysis Wars during the October 10 - 12 trial period, you'll also need to sign up at mycrysis.com to generate a game key. Once you have the key, you can start playing the game over LAN right away, and at 1PM Central on Friday you can go online.

Crysis War is the multiplayer component of the recently released Crysis Warhead (PC), and includes the following

• Three diverse multiplayer modes including InstantAction, TeamInstantAction and PowerStruggle
• 21 maps ranging from large battlefields to smaller, more intimate battlegrounds with a diverse array of settings ranging from beaches to graveyards
• All weapons and vehicles released within the Crysis Universe

Publisher Electronic Arts and developer Crytek have announced that gamers will be able to play Crysis Wars (PC) for free between Friday, October 10 and Sunday, October 12. Included in the recent release of Crysis Warhead (PC), Wars represents the newly-debuted multiplayer component of the open-island sci-fi shooting series.

Registration begins Monday, October 6 at MyCrysis.com and will provide users with a unique registration key. Though online play will only be available from October 10-12, players will be able to experience Crysis Wars via LAN across the week of October 6.

"We have been extremely pleased with the reception we have received from gamers and press for Crysis Warhead," said Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli.

Team Fortress 2 developer Valve has repeatedly noted the sales boosts that free weekends can bring for multiplayer-focused titles such as... Read more

When Crysis Warhead released on September 16, it lacked the SDK--the tools needed to make modifications or new levels for Crytek's PC first-person shooter semi-sequel. That issue will soon be rectified, Crytek has announced.

"As most of you will already be aware we have not included our Sandbox Editor or MOD SDK with the disc for Crysis Warhead or Crysis Wars," reads a post from Crytek community manager "Eddy" on the Crymod forums.

"We wanted to make sure that people received the best game play experience in both single and multiplayer, so as such we decided to focus all of our energy and attention in that direction originally," added Eddy.

"We are now working on the Editor and SDK solution for Warhead," continues the post. "We are definitely aware that the community is eager to get this software, and we will provide it as soon as it is complete and available."

EA Games president Frank Gibeau promised to revamp and further loosen the controversial DRM requirements in recent releases Spore (PC) and Crysis Warhead (PC). His statement was not without a few backhanded comments in the direction of the very vocal anti-DRM community.

"We're extremely pleased with the reception Spore has received from critics and consumers but we're disappointed by the misunderstanding surrounding the use of DRM software," Gibeau wrote in the statement on MTV Multiplayer. He also announced that Spore would soon gain the ability to be authorized on five computers instead of three.

Gibeau reminded Multiplayer that the coming deactivation capability is still in the works. It was separately announced today that Crytek's EA-published Crysis Warhead would get the same deactivation program.

"We assumed that consumers understand piracy is a huge problem... Read more

A common theme began to emerge over the course of my conversation with Crytek producer Bernd Diemer: this company has learned a lot since the release of Crysis.

Crysis Warhead, the result of Crytek's accumulated knowledge, will be released on Tuesday, and already the game is receiving high marks from critics.

In our lengthy interview, Diemer went over the changes made to the Crysis formula in Warhead, whether Crysis itself will be patched to bring it up to speed, the importance of the new Crysis-branded PC, and the future of the Crysis franchise. Read more

Bernd Diemer: We want to cover [high-end graphics], but in Crysis, looking back, the focus was a bit off. Because we from the beginning focused on the highest range, and then over the development we scaled it back. So what we did here was focus on the mid-range, on the High setting. Not Medium, but High. We're Crytek, so it's not Medium, it's High. [laughs] Read on..

As the September 16 release of Crytek's sci-fi shooter Crysis Warhead (PC) approaches, Valve and Crytek today announced that both Warhead and the original Crysis will soon be sold through Valve's digital distribution client Steam.

Said to go up for pre-order this weekend, Crysis and Crysis Warhead are slated to hit Steam by mid September. No price points were provided. Faylor's Take: Opening up Crysis and Crysis Warhead to the Steam audience is a smart move for Crytek, especially given the low overheads of digital distribution.

However, don't get too excited about the idea of Crysis publisher EA bringing its major games to Steam. As with Valve's own The Orange Box, Crysis and Crysis Warhead are published through the EA Partners program. Going by the announcement's wording, the Steam debut of Crysis seems to be more of a Valve and Crytek, not EA, thing.

Electronic Arts has released a set of new screenshots from Crytek's stand-alone shooter Crysis Warhead (PC), showing off a section of the icy area. The game will be split between jungle and ice areas, though the majority of events will be set in warmer territory. The company also passed along the official specs of the Crysis Warhead PC, also known as the Ultra Optimized PC by Ultra PC. The game was developed using a PC with the same specs, with a target of 30 FPS on "Gamer" settings. The computer will sell for $699, and include the following hardware:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66 GHz 3M CPU
• NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT 512MB GPU
• G31 mATX Motherboard
• 2 GB RAM... Read more

Following up on word that publisher Electronic Arts was readying a line of Crysis-ready PCs, more details, including pricing and system specifications, have surfaced.

Priced at $699, the one and only Crysis Warhead PC was made with the involvement of EA, game developer Crytek, hardware maker Nvidia, and system builder UltraPC. It will launch alongside Crysis Warhead on September 16, and pack the following:

• CPU: Intel Core Duo e7300 (@2.66GHz)
• Video card: Nvidia 9800GT
• RAM: 2GB

The system actually represents the internal benchmark Crytek Budapest used when developing the stand-alone Crysis expansion, and is said to run Warhead with High settings at an average of 30 frames per second. "For us as a team, that was really valuable," franchise producer Bernd Diemer told Chris Remo. "We... Read more

While some argue that piracy can increase game sales by letting players take a "try before you buy" approach, Crytek business manager Harald Seeley isn't one of them.

Based on downloads of the last Crysis patch, he argues, there were "a lot more active [Crysis] players than there were unit sales."

And since those pirates are still playing the game months after release, Seeley reasons that "then they were a sale that didn't happen but probably would have had it not been possible to obtain the game illegally."

Crytek, the studio that created the hardware intensive Far Cry and Crysis games exclusively for PC, has repeatedly stated that the upcoming Crysis Warhead will be its last PC-only game due to the abundant piracy of PC games.

But just because Crytek is no longer developing PC exclusives, that doesn't mean the company will abandon the platform. "We want to continue to provide our... Read more

With Crytek's open-world sci-fi shooter Crysis Warhead (PC) due out September 16, publisher Electronic Arts' online store has pulled back the curtain on the standalone expansion's minimum system requirements.

The specifications are nearly identical to the minimum requirements of the original Crysis, with the only significant difference being a 3GB jump in required HDD space. However, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli has repeatedly noted that the game-powering CryENGINE 2 has been "optimized to run better on a wider range of PCs."

• CPU
  Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz (3.2 GHz for Vista), Intel Core 2.0 GHz (2.2 GHz for Vista), AMD Athlon 2800+ (3200+ for Vista) or better
• RAM
  1GB (1.5GB on Windows Vista)
• Video Card
  NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Radeon X800 Pro for Vista) or better
• VRAM
  256MB of Graphics Memory... Read more

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... Read more

Several new screenshots of Crytek's next sci-fi shooter Crysis Warhead have popped up over at PC Games, offering more examples of the game's fire and explosion effects.

Described as a expansion pack by publisher EA during a conference call yesterday, Crysis Warhead and its alternative take on the events of the original Crysis will arrive on PC this fall for $29.99. To learn more, hit up our E3 preview.

Publisher Electronic Arts is planning to sell a line of PCs that will be branded and marketed as machines that can handle Crytek's beefy PC shooter Crysis.

The computers will come in several configurations, and will be released alongside Crytek's upcoming stand-alone expansion Crysis Warhead, according to some blogger.

While Crytek has mainly blamed Crysis' modest sales on PC piracy, many have pointed to the game's demanding system requirements as another culprit. Crytek has been working to optimize the engine and increase framerates for the Warhead expansion.

Crysis Warhead is scheduled for a September release.