Praise was directed at the weapon selection and customization, menus, level design, visuals and multiplayer, while it was criticized for its story, length, and outdated mechanics in comparison to its predecessors.

Players take control of Prophet as he progresses through New York City to defeat the Ceph, a technologically advanced alien race.

When encountering enemies, players can defeat them by using guns or a compound bow, utilizing explosives like grenades and C4, or by performing a melee attack.

Players are given more freedom, and can choose a gameplay style based on direct confrontation, or a more discreet and stealthy approach, in order to deal with enemies and to complete their objectives.

The hunters also have access to a Thermite Arrow tip, and the CELL have various explosives and weapons that change depending on class selected.

The New York City Liberty Dome is a veritable urban rainforest teeming with overgrown trees, dense swamplands, and raging rivers.

However, shortly afterwards CELL Corporation, now attempting global domination of land and technology, disables Prophet in Siberia and captures all the Nanosuit soldiers, skinning them of their suits to recover the Ceph genetics stored in them.

He is saved by a resistance force, led by Claire Fontanelli and Karl Ernst Rasch, as Prophet is the only Nanosuit holder left who can stop CELL.

Psycho, who was saved by Claire after being skinned, explains to Prophet that during his absence, CELL used Ceph technology to generate unlimited energy, and gained a monopoly over the world's power supply.

They plan to send the powerful Ceph warrior caste to invade Earth through the wormhole and terraform it at the expense of all local life's extinction.

Upon being told that his lack of a Nanosuit saved him from Karl's control earlier, Psycho, now going by his real name, Michael, finds another VTOL to take Prophet to the Ceph.

Recalling Archangel's power, Prophet wakes up and hacks into the satellite, and uses it to destroy the warship, collapsing the wormhole and preventing Ceph warrior caste from invading Earth.

As the neural blocks are removed from the Nanosuit, the suit's outer layer is changed to reform Prophet's former physical body, resurrecting him.

[23] To do this, the company introduced a concept called "Nanodome", a dome set up by CELL to isolate New York City, which had fallen to ruins over the years.

[22] The decision was made to create this environment as the team wanted to stay away from typical urban war field shown in other games of the same genre.

[6][24] Instead of having a rainforest in the abandoned wasteland, the Nanodome is used to fix the shape of the forest, and Crytek hoped that it would define the atmosphere and the narrative of the game.

[31] So if we want to make sure you experience a massive Michael Bay moment, then it's no good to place you in the middle of a big grass field then crossing your fingers and hoping that you will see it.

On the other hand, if we want to empower you in the sense of control in that you can plan things out and execute them and get a great feeling of success afterwards, then it's not cool to put you in a sewage pipe, because there's not a lot of variety there.

[32] Crytek referred to the game's map as "action bubbles", which do not necessarily fix players in a small place but allows them to move around freely.

[22] One of the major goals in developing Crysis 3 was to "push graphics",[36] as the company considered that they can effectively assist and drive gameplay and create immersion for the player.

[48] In March 2012, Crytek teased an "absolutely fantastic" project and announced that a full reveal of the game would be held in April 2012.

[51] Filmmaker Albert Hughes was commissioned to produce The 7 Wonders of Crysis 3, a series of six short stylized videos, each of which features a different aspect of the game.

[53] A public multiplayer beta containing two maps ("Museum" and "Airport") and two game modes ("Crash Site" and "Hunter") was available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 console platforms, as well as for the PC through Origin.

[75] Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot also praised the mix of the decayed urban environment and the rainforest, saying that it made the game striking to look at.

[3] Bertz considered the game's world had successfully captured a balance between the settings of its predecessors, and that the larger levels allowed players to deploy strategy before performing attacks.

Harmon thought that several emotional segments of the game failed to deliver, as well as criticizing the forgettable storyline and plot twists.

[75] Veloria, however, criticized the game's narrative; he added that it was uninspiring due to the lack of character development and interesting dialogue.

[76] Jose Otero of 1Up.com thought the game was fun despite its lack of original ideas stating: "If you go in understanding that Crysis 3 delivers blockbuster entertainment and multiplayer that iterates on Call of Duty's perks system, you'll be fine.

"[70] Evan Lahti of PC Gamer commented that the game did not surprise players, and that the title presented a feeling of Crysis 2: Episode 2 instead of a proper sequel.

[13] During its debut release week and the next,[82] Crysis 3 was the best-selling retail game in the UK closely followed by Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.