In 1999 Crytek was working on a first-person shooter titled Engalus, which took place in a shadowed cyberpunk world and emphasized story and some role-playing elements, according to the online portfolio of the project's former lead designer discovered by Superannuation.

Brian J. Audette wrote that he was initially hired by Crytek to be the level designer for Engalus, but was promoted to lead designer after five months. According to Audette, he and his team built a tech demo that "would ultimately contribute" to a development deal with Ubisoft. The demo was shown privately at E3 in 2000 and publicly by technology company Nvidia at the European Computer Trade Show, but after that the game appears to have been dropped.

Documents on Audette's website include a file of the demo as well as a story synopsis and the game's entire script. The summary details a story focused on a "top-notch assassin for the human Homeworld's government" who has been sent to a research station in a remote region controlled by "radical upstarts." The assassin finds an ancient alien artifact called the Engalus in a story the document describes as "Half-Life meets Metal Gear Solid."

The page also contains a mod for 2000 action RPG Deus Ex that Audette created himself using elements from Engalus including designs and dialogue.

"Since I never got the chance to at Crytek I decided on my own to implement some of the game play that we had planned for Engalus using Deus Ex," he wrote. "The result is a mod that encompasses much of the second act of the Engalus storyline complete with original dialog, textures, unique levels, and extensive event scripting."