Over the last week, Electronic Arts has shifted their first-person shooter marketing efforts and attention away from Battlefield 3 and the upcoming Medal of Honor: Warfighter, and placed it on their high-tech, futuristic threequel, Crysis 3.
Prophet is back and is ready to take on Ceph forces in what some witnesses are describing as the best-looking console game to date. We're not sure how DICE feels about those claims after developing the Frostbite 2 engine for EA, but we do know that Crysis 3 (and the new CryENGINE) will be competing on the same platforms.
In chatting with CVG at the Crysis 3 preview event, Crytek's Director of Creative Development Rasmus Hoejengaard spoke about his expectations and desires for next-gen consoles, perhaps taking a bit of a jab at the Wii U and its tablet controller - an attribute that industry analyst Michael Pachter said could result in Nintendo "Dreamcasting" themselves with the hardware.
"The worst thing that can happen is they make something that's very complex for developers, regardless of how awesome it might theoretically be... So getting hardware that allows you to quickly get prototypes up and running, and any kind of scalability they can offer will be great as well, as long as everyone has that scalability and not just a select few."
In chatting with Destructoid, Hoejengaard was asked specifically about Crysis 3 development on the Nintendo platform where he confirmed (with laughter) that there are no plans for Crysis 3 on the Wii U.
"Not a fat chance. (laughs)... I don't think so. I don't think it's going to be possible. Right now the launch platforms are PC, the Xbox and the PS3, and I don't think it's in the cards to do a Wii U version."
This does not mean that Crysis 3 won't be coming to the Wii U. Even it were launching on Nintendo's new platform next year, Hoejengaard couldn't say so this week because that announcement will be saved for EA and Nintendo's E3 keynote presentations in June. What we do know is that Crytek Studios’ CEO Cevat Yerli went on record last summer, explaining that Crytek will deeply support the Wii U (and the Xbox 360 Kinect).
"Crytek’s support for Wii U is definitely going to happen… We aren’t showing it but we are pretty much running it already"
So, don't be surprised if a Wii U and Kinect announcement for Crysis 3 are made this summer. If EA is backing the Wii U big time and if rumors about it featuring Origin as its digital service are true, of course Electronic Arts is going to release Crysis 3 on another platform that can support it. There's money to be made. They'd be smart to to release the whole trilogy as one package for Nintendo players.
Crysis 3 is slated for a Q2 2013 release for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
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Sources: CVG, Destructoid