Will Crysis run on consoles? I guess we'll find out soon

The first-person shooter Crysis comes to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next month ... but will it run on consoles?

Crysis the PC game was released in 2007 and had such colossal system requirements that you'd be hard pressed to find a PC that would run it, let alone run it well. At the time Crytek's business model seemed to be that it was going to make games that wouldn't run on PC for a few years and hope that people would be happy. Crysis was an awesome game - in terms of graphics, story line, non-linearity, meaty fire power, awesome AI - but it was hard to get it to run at an acceptable frame rate (hence the "Can it run Crysis?" meme). As a result piracy rates were enormous (people justified this  - rightly or wrongly - by saying they were "testing the game" and sales were not as good as expected.

Well, Crysis is coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360 this October. It is described as a "modified and enhanced" version and features the single-player campaign from the original game. It will also feature "all new lighting", "all new effects" and "all new Nanosuit controls" as well as full stereoscopic 3D support.

Here's what Cervat Yerli, CEO of Crytek, has to say:

"We are extremely proud of what we were able to accomplish with Crysis. We set out to create a next-generation FPS and delivered a PC experience that became a benchmark for quality - and still is for many gamers even four years later. By bringing the single-player campaign to console, we believe we are again setting a new standard for quality in downloadable gaming."

Crysis will be available as a download and cost 1600 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live and £15.99/$19.99 on PlayStation Network.

Check out the trailer here.

I spend A LOT of time playing Crysis. A LOT! I knew the single-player campaign maps like the back of my hand and had played pretty much every multi-player map ever made many times over. The secret to the long-term playability of Crysis was the fact that the game play wasn't linear. Yes, there were points you had to get to and things you had to do, but how you got to those points and how you accomplished the mission was, on the whole, left to you. Fast forward to 2011 and Crysis 2. This game was OK. The story was OK and the game play OK, but OK is the best I could say about it. As expected, the graphics were awesome, but this in my mind didn't make up for the fact that Crysis 2 felt far more linear than the original game did and that the guns on offer weren't anywhere near as impressive and just didn't feel right.

All this leads me to worry that Crysis on the console won't be like Crysis on the PC was (open game play) but more like Crysis 2 on the console ... linear and 'consolified" to the extreme. My fear is that Crysis on the console will be nothing like Crysis on the PC because if Crytek could do that, then why did Crysis 2 - even the PC version - feel so much like a console game?

Unless I'm proved wrong, I'm going to be wary of this release and feel that it's more Crysis by name than nature.