Gamers, rejoice! Thy God hath bestowed His merciful hand upon thy humble heads, and yes, thou shall be able to play Crysis this fall!

That’s right, your prayers have been listened: after an eternity of waiting, numerous delays and jaw-dropping videos depicting CryENGINE 2’s outstanding performances, EA has finally launched the Crysis official site, available at ea.com/crysis. BTW, you should all get the wallpaper and beware of the more detailed in-game movies…

But besides the novelty brought by the site’s launch, there’s one aspect we should all praise: Crysis is now scheduled for this autumn! (It’s about time, Blizzard would say…) If you’ll take a look at the “Features” section of the site, you’ll notice that in the upper left corner of the screen there’s a hint concerning the ship date, which is… you guessed it, “fall 2007”!

That doesn’t necessarily remove the doubts that are still hovering over the highly-anticipated game (I’ve seen Crytek’s developers saying that Crysis will come out in “early 2007”…), but it’s still the first credible sign (since it’s on the official site…) that Crysis is approaching the finish line. What more do you need when you have even the pre-orders section ready…

Speaking of pre-orders, Amazon is already offering the game indicating that the launch date is September 11! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this, but there you have it: the game will have a price of $49,99 and eager customers who pre-order it will also get a redemption code and instructions for downloading the unlockable “NK Amphibious APC”- a vehicle kept secret until now in all Crysis previews. EBGames and GameStop are also pointing to the fact that Crysis will land on stores' shelves as early as September 11, while Game.co.uk “postpones” the European debut all the way until September 14 (could this potential launch date be related to the September 9/11 attacks?...just asking...)

The official site also offers more details about the gameplay. Apparently, what we’ve seen by now in the numerous videos posted across the Web is just the tip of the iceberg: we’ll have earthquakes, landslides, breaking ice and even tornados, but the jaw-dropping part should be the “emergent gameplay”, where players’ actions affect future in-game outcomes, making each single-player session unique (a non-linear approach also used in games like Splinter Cell Double Agent or STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl).

According to EBGames, the NK Amphibious APC assault vehicle is “an 8 wheeled amphibious armored personnel carrier. Capable of seating 6 plus the driver and firing anti-armor rounds as well as armor piercing missiles, this vehicle is equally at home fighting on land or on water. Top speed of 40 mph on land.” Those who pre-order online at EBGames also get a bonus DVD containing trailers, screenshots and high resolution renders from the game, plus a poster. Not to mention that at Amazon you can get both Crysis and Bioshock, two of the most anticipated FPS games for PC in 2007, for only $99.98…

Although it has been announced as a PC exclusive, next-gen consoles are not yet out of the question since EA’s Crysis site mentions at the “Platforms” section only…erm…”platform”?!... A post on the Crysis forums suggests that an Xbox 360 controller could be used, because Crysis will be launched under the “Games for Windows” umbrella, and we could even hope for a modding that should allow us to pawn aliens with a Wii Nun chuck, but be advised to take the news with a grain of salt… Other than that, nothing certain, except for the hiring of a PS3 programmer at Crytek, that actually deepens the platform mystery…

As for a hypothetic PC demo version, things get even juicier: NVIDIA’s Content Relations Vice President, Roy Taylor, speaking to Bit-Tech, said that: “The alpha is done and the beta demo is not a million miles off – it’s definitely coming though. The game is in really great shape and there are a number of things that work extremely well.

Everything you’ve seen in the videos is real, and there is a whole bunch more stuff still to come that you’ve not seen yet. Let me just say that it’s a really exciting title and I wish I could say more!”

OK, now the fun part we’re all interested in: how exactly is the game going to behave on different PC configurations and, most important, what are Crysis’ minimum requirements? We’ve all seen the beautifully rendered realistic landscapes filled with soft shadows, ray-tracing and volumetric clouds, we’re all aware of the motion blur, the huge maps and the destructible environment, but how’s that going to impact on a PC’s performance?

As much as I’d like to offer you a clear answer to these questions, I only have a translation from this German Crysis site, where Cevat Yerli, Crytek co-founder and CEO, speaks about the ultra-high settings rather than the minimum requirements. He states that an Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo and an Nvidia 8800 GTS video card, plus at least 2 GB of system RAM would suffice to run the game at full details with every high-quality feature mentioned earlier activated. To be honest, I find this kinda scary, since he said that an 8800 GTS “would be well, while an 8800 GTX would be perfect”… Put this in the context of Intel helping Crytek optimize their game for quad-core processors (for more realistic AI ‘n’ stuff) and you’ll get a decent picture of what a decent PC should look like for a real Crysis…

But wait, there's more... According to Crysis Art Director, Michael Khaimzon, "a single 7800GTX will run the game quite well on fairly high settings"... Jack Mamais of Crytek said in an exclusive Crysis-Online interview that his X1900XT runs the game very well at reasonably high settings (still unoptmized). Crysis will dynamically utilize all processing threads available.

There is also more information on the aforementioned site about the aliens, the so-called “Action Bubbles” and the fights inside the huge alien ship- features that Crytek decided to hide from the public until now. Be gentle concerning the translation...

"The Aliens are blind and can orient itself only with infrared. That gives you cool camouflage possibilities. For example, if you stand not far away from a fire or you throttle your body warmth with your Nanosuit. That the Aliens prefers the ice as weapon uses, we already know. If such a rail hits you, you have to move your mouse fast. But generally, you can survive a cooling attack only in the Suit. The Koreans who are without this suit on the way get killed by the rails instantly.

The energy of the nanosuit must be well divided. If you are hit, the energy for the defensive drops, but it regenerates in from time to time, so that it is finally full. With the strength function you have to watch out. It decreases, if you jump. If you jump from a building roof on a Korean, you need hardly additional energy to kill your enemy. Also the camouflage obeys its own laws. It works better if you do not move and stand completely quietly there. The speed function decreases the energy too, but if you normaly run, it regenerates again.

The so called 'Action Bubbles' are all over in the game. You can accept ABs and run into the battle or you select the way of the slightest resistance. Every Action Bubble is nearly as big as a stand alone level. If you decide for a combat with the Koreans, then it's possible that they request reinforcement from Action Bubbles in the near of you. Here you should be very careful and consider how you proceed. In addition, they are a good chance for you. You can divert the Koreans from there original way, in order to attack more effcient.

For the last level in weightlessness you will need over two and a half hours. If you do not use the boots here, which hold you at the bottom, only one shot can move you across the whole space, because the recoil is so high. Rotations around your own axle are possible , which can be controlled with the keys Q and E. The spaceship is very extensive, and you need some time, to find your way through it."

Yes, there have been rumors about minimum requirements, but until official announcements are made, I cannot say that you should start saving money or envision the death of your piggybank… However, word is out that you'll need (I repeat, this is just rumors) at least an Athlon 64 3000+/Intel 2.8ghz CPU, an Nvidia 6200 or ATI X1300 - Shader Model 2.0, 768MB of RAM on Windows XP or 1GB on Windows Vista, around 6GB of hard-drive space and an Internet connection of at least 256k.

To sweeten things up, I kept some previously unknown details about Crysis (other than those already mentioned) for the conclusion. According to Crysis director Eric Lagel, there will be a multiplayer mode called Power Struggle (besides the usual Instant Action and Team Action) which will only be available for teams of players, where “each team's goal is to destroy the fortified enemy base. In order to achieve this, players will have to earn access to extremely powerful weapons (i.e. the XM102 rocket launcher or the EM70 EMP rifle). That is enabled by the capture of specialized factories, where players can buy weapons, equipment and vehicles to support their team effort.”

The nanosuit’s capabilities come in handy in both single and multiplayer, since “It can match every player's play-style. In team play, it really translates into some interesting possibilities, for example some players activate speed mode and draw attention away from cloaked teammates who can then unleash a surprise attack.”

Lagel also talked about the use of alien weapons in the multiplayer sessions (which is a certain fact but details are scarce), and about CryENGINE 2’s capabilities to render realistic and destructible environments during online play (the environment can be used as a weapon or as a defense). Modding will also play an important part in Crysis eco-system: “The final SDK will be available at the release of Crysis and together with the fully functional Sandbox2 Editor, we have very powerful tools for the modders out there.”

From Cevat Yerli comes this interesting story about the main character:

“Your character is Jake Dunn. The name derives from Jacob. Jacob in mythology is a name which derives from he who neutralizes the evil from the sky. Dunn wants to be the doer – The guy who gets things done. We played from the word D-O-N-E. We said, that’s not a name. We derived the name Jake Dunn as a very average John Doe kind of name, but with a little more meaning. Jake Dunn is a soldier who has inherently a sacred wound. His wife has died in a certain event which all makes sense in the grand storyline.”