The original Crysis, despite being three years old, is still one of the best looking PC games. Having a system that ran the game well was a badge of pride when the game launched. The game's allure was enough to merit shelling out major green for upgrades in order to view the bleeding edge graphics. The sequel is coming to both the PC and consoles, however, which is more than enough to worry fans of the original, which was highly optimized for PC gaming.

Crysis zipped you into a high-tech Nanosuit, gave you a gun, and dropped you into a massive jungle island swarming with angry militant North Koreans and even angrier alien invaders. Just about everything in the game could be damaged, destroyed, or blown up to varying degrees. It made for one hell of a gaming experience.

Crytek explored the events of the first game from a different perspective with a parallel storyline in Crysis Warhead, another PC-exclusive that launched a year after the original. While it featured much of the same action-heavy sci-fi shooter gameplay with a more linear flow and some tweaks to optimize the engine, Warhead was another fun and bloody romp through the jungle.

Crytek has far more ambitious plans for the proper sequel it's been working on for the past several years. Not only will Crysis 2 be the first entry in the series to be released on both PC and consoles, it takes the fight for humanity's survival to a whole new and very different battleground—one that hits a lot closer to home.

Big trouble in the Big Apple

The fact EA chose to unveil the world premiere of Crysis 2 to a throng of journalists at a swanky shindig at the Tribeca Grand in the heart of New York City is no coincidence. [Editors note: Ars Technica does not accept either travel costs or accomodations from any company. We always pay our own way.] Taking place several years after the original game, Crysis 2 brings the conflict against the alien invaders from the dense tropical jungles of the Philippines to the decimated urban jungle of the Big Apple. It's a move that’s designed to change the pace and give players a stronger emotional connection to the catastrophic events that unfold in the game.

"The New York [City] location allows us to elevate the location, in a sense, so that it's more emotionally relevant for us," Crytek CEO and President Cevat Yerli explained to the gaming press packed into the sizeable theater. "New York is symbolic for the pride of mankind." Having hordes of violent aliens thrashing the hell of out NYC is bound to elicit some strong response in many players. After all, instead of trees, shrubs, and foreign military installations, it's a bustling civilization in an iconic city once teeming with life and happiness that's being crushed.

The teaser trailer we were first shown dialed into the tremendous impact the events in Crysis 2 have on the local populace. It opens with a close-up shot of thousands of tattered pictures of missing loved ones and evacuation posters plastered down the side of buildings along an abandoned street. It's a stirring scene that conjures up mental images of the walls covered with taped photos and posters of missing people in the aftermath of 9/11. However, in this case, the tragedy is only beginning to unfold. The camera pans back to reveal a muscled solder in the new Nanosuit picking up a torn fragment of paper.

A somber, ominous rendition of “New York, New York” plays in the background as a squadron of US Special Forces choppers fly overhead, ducking low between the immense buildings. You can see the fear on the soldiers’ faces as they look down a passing dark alley and spot a swarm of glowing eyes just before their helicopters are blown out of the sky by a deluge of gunfire. Crashing into buildings and thundering to the ground in scraps of burning, twisted metal, the choppers and their crew are beset upon by aliens and torn to pieces. One wounded soldiers pulls the pin on a grenade to take his own life just as he's about to be ripped apart. With the resulting explosion in the background, the camera switches back to the Nanosuit-wearing warrior clenching a fist. If the sequence doesn't inspire players to kick some alien ass, then I'm not sure what would.

That's some nice devastation you got there

Yerli and his team have dubbed their approach for the visual style for Crysis 2 "catastrophic beauty." They wanted to portray the city as something that players will feel connected to and want to save, even though portions of it are crumbing in fiery ruin from the alien assault. This is a stylized, futuristic version of New York, yet the towering buildings and streets below are both captivating and authentic to the look and feel of the city.

A one-on-one interview with Crytek's Senior Art Director Frank Kitson later in the evening shed more light on the "catastrophic beauty" visual approach to Crysis 2 and how this vision will play out on multiple platforms. "We're trying to do it with a degree of respect," he said about the NYC setting being ground zero for the next chapter in the series’ armed alien showdown. "It's an homage to a great city. It’s not just us going in and trashing the city for the sake of it. When you see the whole thing, you’ll see how, even tarnished and slightly torn up, New York City is still beautiful and elegant."

Transposing the eye-popping visuals found in the Crysis PC titles over to the lower-powered graphics processors on consoles for Crysis 2 is no easy feat. In fact, Kitson described it as a "herculean effort." He came on board with Crytek during the tail end of development on the original game and says he stepped into this project with a clear view of making the console experience as deep as the one found on PCs. Despite the challenges, Kitson says he’s yet to be let down, and the team has indeed managed to make one of the most dynamic and beautiful lighting systems on the PC work well on consoles.

All of the Crysis 2 footage we saw during the event, including the live hands-off gameplay demonstration, was running on Xbox 360. Even with an eye attuned to the marvels of high-powered PC gaming, seeing it up and running on a console and looking as sexy as it did was impressive. Since 2007, when first game made its debut, Yerli dreamed of bringing Crysis’ emergent, sandbox-style experience fueled by the diverse abilities of the Nanosuit to the console market. Crytek has spent years working to build the technology capable of making that happen. The result, CryEngine3, makes it possible and also brings a lot of new razzle-dazzle to the table.