Calling it ‘4’ would ”imply the story just moves on,” but it doesn’t. The studio is looking into something ”much more radical and new” for the future of the franchise; no pre-production yet.
Following the same cycle as from 2 to 3, the fourth instalment would have already been in the pre-production phase, but Crytek want to take their time and think carefully.
Crytek’s Cevat Yerli admits Crysis 3 ”is the end of the story of Crysis, but it doesn’t mean it’s the end of the franchise.”
“Prophet started the journey in Crysis 1 with Psycho and Jester and the others. We’re bringing those buddies together in Crysis 3 to finish up the story and effectively make sense of the trilogy. We are finalising the story arc of Prophet and concluding in a dramatic way,” he explained.
“But we are excited about the DNA of Crysis and of the franchise. There can be literally tonnes of titles out there within the franchise. Unlike Far Cry, this time around we feel very flexible about Crysis.”
The studio is yet to decide matters like what platforms it would support, although the next Xbox and PlayStation platforms a more than likely given the timeframe - and PC of course.
“I wouldn’t name it Crysis 4 at this stage because it would be misleading,” he said. “We want to finalise Prophet’s story and Crysis 4 would imply the story just moves on.”
Yerli added: “Normally in this time right now we would already have pre-production going on, but because we want to make this something much more radical and new we are looking at it as a bit more of a long term thing. It’s too early to talk about it for these reasons.” Crytek has vowed to make ‘F2P titles only’ after Crysis 3 and Homefront 2.
”There’s a transformation period for the industry. I believe F2P is our inevitable future. I believe there are F2P titles out there that can be story-telling, co-operative with your friends and competitive with your friends. It’s all possible. The business model is independent from the way you design games. It’s a very important thing. People always make these things dependent, but it’s actually completely independent,” explained the studio boss.
“We do have a plan for a F2P version of Crysis, but how this looks and when this will be done, whether this is the next one or the next next one, is to be decided. But we have a very clear picture of how this will look in a transitional period where retail and free-to-play can coexist for one title.”
Crysis 3 releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in February 2013.
