Crysis Remastered Trilogy is one hell of a jam-packed experience. It contains all three of the legendary first-person shooters with the original being ground-breaking in its ultra-realistic graphics. Crysis was such a benchmark for graphics that when Crysis Remastered came out last year, the devs dubbed its highest graphic mode ‘Can it run Crysis’ giving a very heavy nod to the question every gamer was asking about PCs back when the original came out in 2007. Other than the sharp graphics, the excitement behind this trilogy of games came from the armour the protagonist in each release wore. Called Nanosuits, these advanced protective suits embued the player with the ability to cloak themselves with invisibility, strengthened armour, and to jump extraordinary heights.

In the first game of the series, you play as one of a Nanosuited American tactical team whose name and identity changes slightly throughout the three games. The action happens on a fictional island off the Philippines where you battle against North Korean soldiers. I won’t delve too much into the original Crysis as we reviewed the title when it was released as a stand-alone remaster back in September of 2020. All you have to know story-wise to understand the second and third Crysis instalments is that the island is also overrun with aliens called the Ceph, who are an ongoing antagonist throughout the series.

Crysis 2 could nearly win a Simpson’s Award for being a piece of pop culture entertainment that predicted the future. The sequel takes place in New York in 2023 and the world is being overrun by a deadly virus. Crysis 3 shows the aftermath of this virus in 2047 and depicts a post-apocalyptic world with massive nods to the original Crysis by including characters from the first instalments.

In each game, you are given missions via the comms in your Nanosuit where you pretty much have to either retrieve something, travel through a particular area, or find someone. These orders are given by a range of people, but they have one thing in common – keeping you alive and the world safe. In these missions you have the option, via the “Tactical Options” feature on your suit, to see a number of ways you can complete these missions. For instance, you can engage your invisibility cloak and sneak your way through. This cloak runs out of energy though, so you’ll have to find cover whilst your energy regenerates throughout your sneaking process. You can also go in with all guns blazing and turn on a shield in your suit that doubles your armour strength. This also runs on energy and once you are out in the open amongst the enemy forces, it’s hard to stay hidden. You can also throw things at enemies to startle them, or throw explosive canisters at them and shoot at the same time, making for some deadly fireworks.

After playing all the games back to back, these little gameplay improvements were the most satisfying when entering into a new part of the trilogy. That and the gorgeous world of 2023 and 2047 New York. The jump in graphic restoration from the original Crysis to its successors is very easily seen, with the graphics in Crysis 2 looking sharper than remasters of other classic games from 2011 such as Skyrim and Saints Row: The Third. Whilst Skyrim was all about world-building and lore and Saints Row runs on the philosophy of bigger is better, Crysis is all about the weapons and looking damn fine whilst firing them.

In terms of graphics in Crysis 3, they stack up against titles released in that year such as The Last of Us. On that note, Crysis 3 did make me think of TLOU due to its post-apocalyptic themes and settings of weed-infested abandoned cars and boarded up graffitied establishments. Though, unlike TLOU, Crysis’ story isn’t what you stay around for. In regards to plot, the original Crysis is the most fascinating, whilst 2 and 3 seem to lean heavily into elements of the first and try hard to extend these themes. An engaging and riveting storyline isn’t what Crysis delivers, but hey, that’s not what the series is known for. It would be like if the hot person you were seeing who isn’t the greatest at conversation suddenly wanted to have a philosophical discussion with you about the meaning of life – it would feel forced and weird. Therefore, Crysis knows what it is and sticks with it and for that, you’ve got to give the series credit.

You’re able to carry with you two primary weapons and also five grenades. The latter though is hard to have direct access to and I always struggled to equip my selection of explosives. This may seem like a small thing to bring up, but Crysis is extremely fast-paced and if you don’t know how to easily access your main projectiles then you’re gonna have a bad time. Another gripe I had with the series was that I encountered a number of bugs throughout. One in the original Crysis meant that I couldn’t progress any further, even after reloading and replaying the same mission about three times. This made me rage quit, something that I rarely do. When I started on the franchise’s second instalment, I found a few minor buggy moments but nothing anywhere near as serious as the original.

The games can also have issues with saying goodbye. I felt at times Crysis Remastered Trilogy overstayed its welcome with missions continuing beyond what I thought were natural stopping points. I get it, goodbyes suck, but when you’ve been playing a game for hours and you feel that the storyline is becoming as thin as cheap toilet paper, you kind of need to call it. Despite the above inconveniences though, as a whole I enjoyed my time being a powerful underdog who is responsible for keeping the world safe from the bad guys.