Speaking at the outset of this year's Leipzig Games Convention, Crytek boss Cevat Yerli revealed that the developer's graphical tour de force, Crysis, cost an estimated $22 million to create. Yerli has previously lamented the effect piracy has had on the title, but reiterated that it's still recouped the development costs, saying, "If it wasn't profitable I wouldn't be able to stand here."

Best known for their stunning visuals, Crytek's game engines are also guilty of bringing even the mightiest of gaming PCs to their knees. While the upcoming, heavily-optimized Crysis: Warhead promises a significant performance increase even on mid-range systems, Crytek is already cooking up its next GPU melter, which Yerli says should be ready by 2012. That's when he anticipates GPU tech making the next major leap in its evolution; until then, he expects fellow developers to focus more on what they already have to work with, by means of stylized graphics and hardware accelerated physics.

Source – Crysis cost 22 million to make, IGN
Source – Crytek: New engine in 2012, IGN

We are all interested in the future. Indeed, as the great Criswell so astutely observed, "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives." And it wouldn't be much of a life if it wasn't spent playing the latest video games, no doubt powered by trillions of tetraflops and a giggle-inducing number of gigabytes. Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli has seen this future (it's where he bought his Crysis-capable computer), and has concluded that the next generation of consoles -- as in the Xbox 720 and the PlayStation 4 -- could arrive in 2011 or 2012.

Discussing "The Future of Gaming Graphics" at Leipzig's GC Developer Conference, Yerli estimated that Microsoft and Sony's next offerings would arrive "in three to four years' time, although there are good reasons why it should be 2010 already...but we'll see." Crytek, which most recently worked on Crysis Warhead, has also pinned 2012 as the debut year for its next in-house engine and follow-up to last year's impressive CryEngine2.

Regardless of timing, we're pleased to see that not everybody thinks the current cavalcade of consoles is our last.

Those of you whose computers e-cowered in fear at the system requirements for Crysis will get another chance to enter the game's world when Crysis Warhead lands in Europe on Sept. 12 and Sept. 16 in North America. More than just a side story to Crytek's excellent game, Warhead purports to actually be a touch less system-intensive than its burly predecessor.

Special side note for those of you who love bargains as much as throwing bad guys into oceans with your cyber-muscles: You can pre-order the game right now in the EA Store for $24.99, a five-dollar savings for you, the consumer.

Are you still consoling your PC every night, saying its inability to play Crysis is okay? All the while, you know you're lying to both yourself and your poor rig, just wishing you could sneak out and buy a better machine and feel the sweet embrace of Crytek's excellent game. Well, there's no need to tell the PC you're "just going for a jog" anymore.

The supposedly less hardware-intensive Crysis Warhead is ready to show you what it's made of and will supposedly run quite well on a €600 rig. It may not be as stunning as Crysis, but it won't require a second job to keep happy either. Check out the first screens below and a new trailer after the break.

It's always a little ... awkward explaining to guests that the "modern art" in our living rooms are actually PCs melted by playing Crysis on its highest settings. Thankfully, Crytek has heard our whimpering and is working to make Cysis: Warhead play more nicely with mid-range gaming rigs.

Voodoo Extreme was kind enough to translate an article on German gaming site PCGamers.de which states that the PC-exclusive Crysis folllow-up is being designed to run at a locked 30fps on a roughly $600 system. Now, compare that to the original game, which was sluggish even on a PC costing three times that much and ... you have happier PC gamers. If Crytek's programmers can actually pull off such a formidable feat, we sense a stalling in the PC upgrade market come the game's release.

Crytek is known for cramming high-end graphics into titles that are just as capable to give your PC a hernia as they are to entertain. However, with the Crysis developer now done with PC exclusives, the company has adopted a new strategy, one that apparently includes the PSP.

A new job posting on the developer's official website notes that the company is currently seeking a PSP programmer with multiplatform experience to work out of its Budapest office, suggesting that Crytek's next project following the recently announced Crysis Warhead will target Sony's handheld. Of course, nothing is known about the developer's PSP agenda or whether that includes plans to somehow squeeze its CryEngine technology into a more bite-sized format. That leaves us wondering if we'll someday be playing Crysis on the go, or if Crytek has something entirely different up its high-def sleeves.

EA and Crytek have officially announced the development of Crysis Warhead, "a parallel story" to hardware-taxing tropical shooter, Crysis. Built by Crytek's Budapest studio atop an optimized version of the CryEngine 2 technology, Crysis Warhead sees players squeezing into the nanosuit of Sergeant Sykes, affectionately dubbed "Psycho," and learning that "life on the other side of the island is even more intense and explosive than they ever could have imagined." Given all the eyeball-melting events in Crysis, we reckon they're capable of imagining quite a bit.

Crytek president and CEO, Cevat Yerli, found the original game's reception by gamers and the media to be quite pleasing, but noted to the studio's intention to raise the ol' bar. "With Warhead, we are focusing on refining our storytelling and game performance, while also delivering more of the visually stunning graphics and immersive, free-roaming gameplay everyone loved in Crysis," he said. Expect more weapons, more vehicles and more multiplayer content when Crysis Warhead nukes lesser computers this Fall.

Developer Crytek recently gave fans of its FPS Crysis some bad news, confirming that it had not only abandoned work on a dedicated Linux server for the game, but that the shooter's forthcoming 1.3 update "almost certainly" won't be released.

Beyond stating that "there is a good reason," Crytek has offered little in the way of an explanation for its decision to abandon the expected updates, adding only that "...we hope you understand when you hear more about the reasons why in the very, very near future." The developer broke the news as part of a series of updates concerning its plans for Crysis, though considering the mood left in the wake of this latest offering, we're left wondering what exactly Crytek has planned for an encore ... killing kittens perhaps?

[Via Big Download]

Crysis developer and PC gaming evangelist Crytek may soon fly the flag of multiplatform solidarity, as company president Cevat Yerli revealed in a recent interview that the studio will no longer create games exclusively for the PC due to poor sales and game piracy that he says is "encompassing Crysis."

The comments were made as part of an interview with Croatian magazine PC Play, during which Yerli stated that "I believe that's the core problem of PC gaming, piracy ... It was a big lesson for us and I believe we won't have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future." He added that while the company will continue to create games for the PC, these titles will not be released solely for that platform.

Of course, this brings into question not only the oft-rumored PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 ports of Crysis, but also the game's planned trilogy of sequels. While Yerli wasn't asked as to the fate of subsequent games in the Crysis canon, he did comment that bringing Crysis "as we have seen" to consoles would be "impossible," and that the game would have to be "largely changed" to be brought to either the PlayStation 3 of Xbox 360. We continue to dream of playing the game from the comfort of our couch, though Yerli's remarks that the company's focus "is not linked to bring Crysis to consoles" has a single high-def tear running down our cheek.

[Via Team Xbox]

The good folks over at Trademork have noticed a March 3 USPTO posting by Crytek for "Crysis Warhead," which could either refer to a sequel to the best-selling PC game, one of those rumored console ports or a scary new experimental explosive (or possibly a long-overdue remake of an Amiga classic. Or a strange new candy. Or ...)

The recent filing isn't Crytek's first hint at extension of the brand -- the company has also filed for trademark protection of "Crysis Wars" and "World in Crysis." Whatever the inevitable sequel/spin-off/port/expansion ends up being called, we just hope they cap the system requirements now. That way, we may actually have a computer that can actually run the game in its most beautiful detail when it eventually comes out.

A glib response from a Crytek representative may have revealed that Crysis is coming to the Xbox 360. The rep reportedly told Primotech that the Xbox 360 version was being shown behind close doors to "prospective publishers" at last month's Game Developers Conference.

This is far from a confirmation; the Crytek rep may have misspoken. Furthermore, we'd be surprised if Crysis PC publisher Electronic Arts didn't have the foresight to secure rights to the console game as well. We do know that Crytek planned on showing off a console version of CryEngine 2 (which runs Crysis), and although the assets were likely Crysis, perhaps the prospective publishers were just looking for a game engine.

PSW got one thing right, and that's our collective: Huh? The UK magazine would have us believe that Crytek's "hard-worked" code monkeys have confirmed -- "in many interviews" -- that Crysis is coming to PS3 later this year. Not true. But we can count this latest report as another adherent of the 'Crysis 1.5' theory, which here evolves into rumor of a hybrid-port that combines aspects of the original PC Crysis and its sequel into "almost 50% new game." Assuming that a Crysis-brand product will eventually land on PS3 (what else is the console version of CryEngine 2 good for?), we'd be curious to know how much of the alleged 'newness' would translate into better gameplay. Are we really talking Crysis 1.5 -- or just Crysis Lite? (Remember, Far Cry's leap to console had plenty of 'new,' just not any better.)

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Crytek recently whipped up a tech demonstration for their haughty, hardware punishing software, CryENGINE2, to show off at GDC. Mimicking an unforgettable ad for the Sony Bravia, the demo turned quite a few heads -- but how did the visuals of the ball-droppin' doppelganger compare to the original advertisement? Never one to miss an opportunity for a video comparison, Gametrailers whipped up the above video. What do you think -- are video games nearing photorealism? Or were your discerning, pixel-counting eyes not fooled?

In yesterday's investor call, Electronic Arts confirmed that sales of Crysis have gone platinum, meaning that over 1 million units had been sold since its launch. That figure marks a drastic improvement over earlier indications that consumer interest in the game was, well, in crisis.

At this month's GDC, developer CryTek will be showing off a console version of CryEngine 2, although a console version of Crysis itself has not been announced. Of course, EA could pull a "surprise" announcement -- dun dun dun!

[Via inCrysis; thanks to everyone who sent this in!]