Crysis 4 FPS Crytek

It's an inevitable question faced by successful trilogies: What's next after Volume 3? When the magic and mythos incepted by designers and artists and storytellers fulfills its intended purpose, is it better to go on or move on? Developer Crytek has reached this impasse with Crysis.

The future-military sci-fi series was originally conceived as a trilogy when it debuted in 2007. And while it's since become a major player for publisher EA as a multi-platform first-person shooter, that trilogy concludes this February, the 19th, with the release of Crysis 3. According to Crytek producer Michael Elliot Read, however, it's not time to close the book just yet.

Read spoke with Dusty Cartridge recently about the making of Crysis 3 and its place within the FPS landscape, and eventually discussion drifted into life for the series after next month's trilogy culmination. He seems to believe there's plenty. Not only did Read assert the great potential for a Crysis 4, he's proud of the way Crytek has cradled the franchise across five separate iterations (its three main games and two expansions) and alluded to possibility of expanding it beyond the FPS genre.

"You know, I think at this point I don’t want to give anything away. But I think the Crysis franchise itself has life left in it. Whether it’s in a different game type format, whether it’s expanding upon this, it’s hard to say. That’s going to be up to the designers at the end of the day.

"But I think we’ve built… Crysis was always intended to be a trilogy and I think that over that time we’ve built a really cool universe. We haven’t really gone in and said 'Hey let’s put Nano suits and clown suits and stuff and completely violate and sell our IP.' We’ve done a fairly good job at maintaining that, so I think in terms of the universe, we have a lot more life left in that to go back and try some unique stuff. Whether it’s FPS or not I have no idea, but there’s definitely a future in the franchise."

We need only look at Crysis 3 to agree. Not just literally at screenshots and trailers, obviously -- we could do that for hours thanks to the stunning CryEngine 3 -- but at the level of transformation undertaken with its new enemies, new weapons, and a drastically redesigned New York City setting. Crytek is keeping its core gameplay philosophy of multifaceted, custom-approach combat intact, while at the same time reaching for new and exciting depths that we at Game Rant have high hopes for. (Also: no clown suits.)

It's hard to say how or when the same approach would be applied to a Crysis 4 -- Crytek is among the ever-burgeoning list of companies shifting towards the free-to-play model -- but the series, and its Frankfurt-based developer, would certainly stay on our radar, whichever genre its nanosuited protagonists decide to prey in.

What are your hopes and ideas for the Crysis franchise beyond Crysis 3?

Crysis 3 releases on February 19, 2013 for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

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Follow Brian on Twitter @Brian_Sipple.

Source: Dusty Cartridge [via CVG]