Crysis Co-op is an incredible mod that brings co-op multiplayer to the original Crysis game. The Crysis series is one that I’ve always loved, and it’s great to hear that the original can now be played with friends. In fact, Crysis Co-op just received its biggest and most complete update in history, making it an almost complete feature when it launches later this year.
Proof of Concept
With the last release of Crysis Co-op, even the mod developers, Fudsine and Razor-fin, admit that it was more of a proof of concept than a working mod. I believe the pair had used more brute force tactics in order to get most areas of Crysis working with multiple players, which, as you can imagine, leads to a number of issues in edge cases, and in general when people play the game. Since that release, the team has gone back to the drawing board, thought about their approach to the mod, and rebuilt it from the ground up, creating the most technically ambitious and complex Crysis mod out there.
Features Galore!
In a recent blog post, published on the twelfth anniversary of Crysis, the team behind Crysis Co-op gave fans an insight into mod. Within the post the developers explain that Crysis Co-op will launch will full support for the Crysis campaign, meaning the entire game can be played through in multiplayer. In addition to this core campaign, widely adored by the Crysis community, the team has done what the modding community believed was impossible, they’ve enabled co-op support for the Crysis Warhead campaign as well.
Apparently it was incredibly difficult to get the Crysis Warhead levels to work just in Crysis Wars, but adding in multiplayer as well was a completely different ball game. A bulk of the work on Warhead involved replicating the behaviour and mechanics of special alien types found only in Warhead, Shield Troopers, Bombers, and even the Train for example. At this point in time the developers have yet to request approval from Crytek, the developers of the Crysis series, to release the Crysis Warhead campaign. I imagine that Crytek has opened Crysis up for modders to create with, but Warhead, being a later release, is still a grey area for the modding community given that it’s a fan made expansion.
As I already mentioned, with this full release of Crysis Co-op, the developers have avoided using brute force tactics to get things to work in multiplayer, opting instead to spend the time finding the root cause of each issue, and fixing it. This is far more time-consuming, but it also ensures a far more stable build, helping to avoid the crashes that plague mods for other games because any issues with compatibility have been dealt with as deeply as possible. As a result, at most players will only need to make minor changes in order to play through a level with a full party of players.
The full release of Crysis Co-op is the first to feature cooperative multiplayer rule sets. This means that a defibrillator is now enabled for players to revive each other with, and it forms part of their standard equipment loadout. If all players die, then the level ends and everyone has to restart, just like in a co-op mode implemented by developers in their games today. The developers say that there is an option to disable this defibrillator, should players want to try out a more hardcore game experience.
Run time dataset changing forms part of Crysis Co-op, letting players activate configuration for the games whenever they want. This allows weapons, vehicles, and AI to be properly balanced, and a Compatibility Mode includes improved particle effects, sounds, and scripts for each title.
Legal Copies
A huge issue that hit the Crysis Co-op mod in 2014 was the shutdown of GameSpy servers. Since then, the developers have been working on integrating the mod with Steam, giving players the chance to use the Steam master server and avoid the necessity for exact server IPs for everyone wishing to play together. However, using Steam now means that anyone playing with the Crysis-Co-op mod needs to have a legitimate copy of Crysis, which not all of the mod users did from the sound of things. Whilst this might put some users off of using the mod, the developers have taken tis step to ensure ease for multiplayer, and have a better chance at getting approval from Crytek to release the Crysis Warhead campaign.
Fudsine and Razor-Fin are now targeting a December 2019 release date for the mod, though they have made it very clear that this could change. The pair dedicate most of their free time to creating this mod, and it’s a brilliant thing to see in the gaming community as a whole. Hopefully the mode launches before Christmas this year, and Crysis fans can get together over the holidays to play together everywhere.
