Crysis is a first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows and released in November 2007.

The game is based in a future where a massive, ancient alien-built structure has been discovered buried inside a mountain in the fictional Lingshan Islands, near the coast of the east Philippines.

[5] The single-player campaign has the player assume the role of U.S. Army Delta Force soldier Jake Dunn, referred to in-game by his callsign, Nomad.

Nomad is armed with various futuristic weapons and equipment, most notably a "Nanosuit" which was inspired by the real-life military concept of Future Force Warrior.

One of four modes can be selected: Armor deflects damage and recharges the suit's energy faster; Strength allows stronger hand-to-hand combat, the ability to throw objects and enemies with deadly force, higher jumps, steadier aiming and reduced weapon recoil; Speed increases running and swimming speed, as well as other forms of motion such as reloading weapons; and Cloak, which renders Nomad almost completely invisible and suppresses movement noise.

[8] The suit's integral facemask has its own HUD, displaying typical data including a tactical map, health, current energy levels, and weapons information.

A particularly useful utility is the binocular function, which allows the player to zoom in and electronically tag enemies and vehicles from afar, thereby tracking their movement on the tactical display.

The player can engage enemies in a variety of ways; using stealth or aggression, bullets or non-lethal tranquilizers, ranged rifles or short-range weaponry, and so on.

All vehicles, including Humvees, pickup trucks, even tanks, have a turbo mode that can be activated via the Shift key (by default).

The aircraft selection is limited to the North Korean attack helicopter and a fictional American VTOL (each of which can transport six passengers and two crew).

Crytek also included an amphibious armored personnel carrier, its wheeled version that can travel on water and land, although this vehicle was only available for those who pre-ordered the game.

[11][12] Weapons and vehicles can be found throughout the map, but generally must be bought by using "Prestige Points," which are earned by killing enemies or capturing buildings.

One must earn Prestige Points, attained by killing enemies and taking over Bunkers, Power Stations, and Factories, to buy weapons and vehicles, including any of the aforementioned superweapons.

[15] The game begins on August 7, 2020, when North Korean forces led by General Ri-Chan Kyong take control of the Lingshan Islands.

A week later, United States Army Delta Force's Raptor Team is dispatched to the islands, with the core mission of evacuating them and securing any valuable information that they have.

In the jungle, Nomad finds another hostage named Badowski dead with ice shards in his back as the KPA battle an alien machine nearby.

Nomad makes his way to Dr. Rosenthal's research complex, where he has found a rare fossilized artifact predating humanity by two million years.

The ship drags the Constitution beneath the surface and vaporizes, creating a massive vortex that engulfs and destroys the entire carrier fleet.

[19] Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at Nvidia (at the time), has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code (equivalent to nearly three thousand pages), 1 GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders.

[24] However, on many sites it was provided a day early, and an oversight allowed people to grab the file directly off an EA server earlier than intended.

Shortly after the demo's release some enthusiasts found that, by manipulating the configuration files, most of the "very high" graphics settings (normally reserved for DX10) could be activated under DX9.

[30] It showed brand new features for consoles including all new lighting, new effects and new Nanosuit controls, fine-tuned combat and full stereoscopic 3D support.

"[32] However, unlike the original, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game lack the online multiplayer component as well as the second to last Campaign mission titled "Ascension".

For this reason, come July 1, Crytek announced that except for the Switch, they would be postponing the release of Crysis Remastered for all platforms "by a few weeks" to improve its visual quality in an attempt to meet the users' expectations.

[55] X-Play gave it a 3 out of 5 on its "Holiday Buyer's Guide" special episode, praising the graphics and physics, but criticized the steep hardware requirements as well as stating that the game is overhyped with average gameplay.

[60] GamePro honored Crysis with a score of 4.75 out of 5, saying it was "a great step forward for PC gaming", but criticized the steep hardware requirements.

[16] A retrospective review for bit-tech.net in June 2010 criticized the game for failing to deliver on its pre-release promise, saying that the art direction was "boring and monotonous", that the nanosuit was underwhelming and that the plot could be summarized as "Rescue these people who look to be being held captive by Koreans.

"[62] According to The simExchange, the NPD Group reported that Crysis moved 86,633 retail units in the first two weeks of its release in North America,[63] but while it beat their expectations, the sales were considered disappointing overall.

[64] Two months later, on Electronic Arts' earnings conference of the quarter, it was reported that Crysis had reached the 1 million units mark, and that it had exceeded their expectations.

(a questioning of whether personal computer systems with the best-possible hardware could run the game at its maximum quality and resolution settings) to become an Internet meme.