Crysis Warhead Q&A Feature

Crysis Warhead's 'Psycho' shouts orders at us in army speak (his mouth so close to our face that we can smell the Scotch egg on his breath from lunch) as we try to get to grips with the next instalment in Crytek's FPS series. While all this is going on, we multitask an interview with EA's Associate Producer on the project, Ben O'Donnell, about what the game has in store.

TVG: What sort of tweaks are there to the gameplay for Crysis Warhead?

So there are things like the automatic ammo pick-ups; we've actually got it defaulted so that when you get into a vehicle it's automatically a third person view. We're just trying to make it as accessible to every kind of player as possible, but obviously you can still go into first-person mode and if you play the game in Delta you have to pick-up ammo. It's another little difference in difficulty levels.

TVG: Okay, so in the higher difficulties you still have to harvest the ammo? Because in Crysis you had to harvest ammo manually across all difficulty levels.

Yeah, I think it's everything up to Delta.

TVG: Can you tell us a little bit about Psycho's parallel storyline to the first game?

It happens in exactly the same timeframe as Crysis and from the moment he leaves you in Harbour - which you never really know why; it's never really explained in the story - then he turns up on the ship at the end with this bloody big alien, and this tells the story of that. It's hinted at towards the end, in the final cut-scene, about what he's been up to and what's happened, but it's never explained, so we thought that would be a nice way of expanding the story. As a character he's a lot more vocal and a lot more high impact in the way that he goes about things, so we've tried to bring that across in the gameplay and how the levels are designed as well.

TVG: How's that been done? Because Psycho's been touted as a more aggressive character than Nomad, so will that effect things like the balancing of the nanosuit or weapon customisation, for example?

We had to try and keep some consistency in the actual nanosuit because you're obviously part of the same squad at exactly the same time; it would be odd if you had all of these different abilities. Basically, what we've tried to do is give him the tools he needs to play that way. You're now able to use claymores; there are a lot more explosives; the new weapons are in that vein. This is one of the new vehicles here [an Armoured Scout Vehicle (ASV)] with these massive, mounted mini-guns; there are 50 calibre guns that you get on another one of these. Each of the weapons you get is very much more high impact, enabling you to build these 'big bang' moments.

TVG: That's certainly noticeable in this demo. It seems to lean towards action rather than optional stealth gameplay...

We don't want people to think that they can't play the game in stealth. If someone has a certain play style, that's great, and the game's been balanced so that you can play any way you want. The fact is that there are a lot of events happening around you like the air support, or the bombing runs and things like that. So there's a lot more eye candy for players, but they can play the game however they want really. But with the main character being this much more high impact guy, they've given you the tools that you need if you want to play like some kind of nutter and play the hell out of everything.

TVG: Would you say the level we're seeing is quite typical of Crysis Warhead, or is it a bit more vehicle heavy than other levels in the game?

This section in particular is halfway through this level. Up until this point, to get to where you started in the vehicle at the beginning [of the demo], you'd have had to go through a big valley section of jungle and that would have been much more appropriate to play in stealth mode. Obviously it doesn't make for as good a demo if you're having people sneaking through the woods for half an hour, which is why we've chosen to show this because it's a lot more high impact. But, as a whole, the game is more along these lines...

TVG: But you've still got options available to you?

Absolutely, yeah. That's Crytek's thing; to allow the player to play the game exactly as they want and in certain parts of Crysis that weren't like that, that's exactly what we've tried not to do in this game. Like with vehicles here, for instance, you're given the opportunity to get out, walk around, and get into other vehicles.

TVG: What sort of game length will Crysis offer? Because this is obviously a standalone game rather than an expansion pack.

It's genuinely really hard to give a gameplay length for a game like this because it depends on peoples' style. If someone's going to sneak through it, it might take them several hours longer than if someone didn't. Put it this way: Crysis was 11 levels.

TVG: Yeah, we found Crysis to be about 20 hours, which may be a bit on the high side (what with our penchant for stealth), but it was certainly longer than your average FPS.

Crysis Warhead is about 7 levels.

TVG: That's certainly more content than your average expansion pack. But what kind of price will Crysis Warhead be at retail?

This will be going out at $29 in the US (we're guessing £19.99 in the UK). It's going to be going out at expansion pack price, but giving you a standalone experience. You don't need the first game; you don't even need to know anything about Crysis - it teaches you what you need to know. People who are wary of buying Crysis could maybe buy this and see what they think, and then try Crysis if they want to.

TVG would like to thank Ben O'Donnell, EA's Associate Producer on Crysis Warhead, for taking the time to speak with us about the game, which is due out on PC this autumn.