Crysis 3 set in "sandbox" urban rainforest, screenshots show nano bow vs. alien robot

Crysis 3

Crysis 3 will be set within New York city in 2047. It's been overrun by nature and encased within an enormous "nanodome" constructed by the corrupt Cell corporation, who've decided to start conquering bits of planet Earth by building giant domes around them. I've read the press release several times now. That really does seem to be their plan.

Never mind that. Prophet is back. He's managed to sneak into New York's "Liberty Dome" to hunt down Cell, but the alien Ceph (in their sleeker, Crysis 2 forms) are still present in large numbers. It looks like we'll be fighting both across the large, sandbox rainforest that's grown up around the ruins of the big apple. Crysis 3 is due out spring 2013.

The liberty dome will contain "seven distinct and treacherous environments," according to Crytek, though they don't mention what they'll be like. At a guess I'd say jungle world, lava world, water world, desert world, alien world, not-quite-destroyed city world and ... nano world?

Prophet will go to war with an "enhanced Nanosuit" and some "devastating alien tech." More importantly, he'll also have a bow. There's mention of additional attachments in multiplayer that'll likely be available in the single player campaign, too. It'd be surprising if there weren't different types of ammo as well. It'd be nice to see some Thief-style devices, like noisemaker arrows, and a few less subtle explosive variants. We'll have to wait for Crytek to show more to see what that bow can really do.

A bunch of pre-order options have already been announced. They're due to show up on Origin at some point. There are three options. The Stalker pack gives you the game, early access to the semi-automatic Jackal shotgun with a few exclusive bonus attachments, like a silencer and a new weapon skin. The Overkill pack grants you early access to the Typhoon assault weapon in multiplayer and the Predator pack unlocks the Feline submachine gun and exclusive skin.

Release is a long way off, but we don't have to wait at all to see the first screenshots. They're as pretty as you'd hope from a CryEngine 3 game being handled by Crytek. Click to nanogrow them.

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.