CES 2007: Microsoft says Crysis will be Vista's Halo

Las Vegas (NV) - The original Xbox had Halo. The Xbox 360 has Gears of War. And soon, according to Microsoft, Windows Vista will have Crysis.

Crysis, the upcoming science-fiction first person shooter PC game, turned heads at E3 2006 last May and again at CES this week. In fact, the buzz is so good around soon-to-be released title that Microsoft officials have pegged Crysis as the must-have PC game that will help drive adoption of Windows Vista. "Crysis is going to be the big one for Vista," said Kevin Unangst, director of global marketing for Microsoft's Games for Windows division. "This is the game that will really show off the improvements in the OS for games."

Created by German game developer Crytek of Far Cry fame, Crysis takes place in the near future and focuses on U.S. Delta Force soldiers sent to a remote island in the South China Sea to investigate a mysterious meteorite crash. The Delta Force team soon discovers that North Korean soldiers are also investigating the crash, and that the meteorite is actually an alien ship. The game will share Far Cry's open-ended environment and sharp FPS gameplay.

Crysis will be one of the first PC games to use Vista's DirectX 10 framework, which will allow graphical enhancements such as real-time ambient colors, soft shadows, and advanced particles. The game will support DirectX 9, however Microsoft and Electronic Arts, the game's publisher, said that the performance on Vista will be superior, showing a greater level of detail. Crysis will also support Shader Model 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 for DirectX 10. In addition, the game will com in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and will also be multi-threaded for hyper-threading systems. Crysis uses the new CryEngine2, which is the successor to Far Cry's CryEngine.

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