The online service shutdown page on EA’s website states that the decision was made to shut down these servers because less than 1% of peak online players across all EA titles were playing these games, and that it was no longer feasible for the company to continue supporting these games.

It is worth noting that, since the games part of these shutdowns are primarily single-player titles, they will still be perfectly playable for most players. Features like leaderboards or multiplayer game modes, however, will no longer be available. Games part of this wave of server shutdowns are also still available to purchase owing to their breadth of single-player content.

Once upon a time, Crysis was the cutting edge of gaming. A PC game with graphics so advanced, that getting to run the title at all was a mark of recognition for your rig. Of course, gaming tech and graphics have advanced long since, and Crysis’ allure has worn off (more so in light of the sequels that followed, both of which were deemed disappointing), but the game has its fair share of fans still.

If you are one of them, or if you have never played any of the three games, there’s some good news: you can now, on Xbox One. All three Crysis games are now playable on the console via its backward compatibility program, as Microsoft’s Larry Hryb aka Major Nelson confirmed on Twitter. Of course, the Xbox One can run all three of them properly (in fact, they’ll even be enhanced compared to the Xbox 360 versions of the originals)—running Crysis is, sadly, no longer a badge of honor like it once was.

Xbox has been getting a lot of classic games added to its backward compatibility list of late, with Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 both being added to the library recently. Microsoft’s initiative to to achieve library continuity is laudable.

https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/1052227951922561024?s=21

Nvidia’s recent GeForce GTX 750 Ti is most famously being marketed as being able to run Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall better than the Xbox One, but there’s a lot more to its power than just that.

The GPU, which has 2 GB GDDR5 RAM, 640 CUDA cores and a base clock speed of 1020 Mhz, is also capable of running Battlefield 4 better than the PS4. It can effectively run the game at a solid 60 frames per second at 900p resolution. The PS4 is capable of the same resolution, but the frame rate is less than solid.

How about Crysis 3, one of the most graphically heavy PC games currently available? The GTX 750 Ti apparently runs it at 30 FPS with a 1080p resolution on High settings and 2x anti-aliasing. Also, for those wondering just how much better Titanfall runs, you can achieve a 1080p resolution at 60 FPS with 2xAA on the beta. We’ll have to wait for the full game’s release but this is already miles ahead of what the Xbox One is capable of.

What are your thoughts on the graphics card? Let us know in the comments.

We recently spoke to Jake Fenske, Line Producer at CounterPunch Studios about Faceware, work-flows and even the amount of effort it took to model the Psycho from Crysis 3. CPS specializes in facial animation, and has produced it for many other top games such as Max Payne 3, Red Dead Redemption and more, using Faceware and their own technology in the process.

Ravi Sinha: Can you explain the entire process by which you used Faceware for Crysis 3? What were the advantages it presented versus traditional means of scanning and animating?

Jake Fenske: We animated 48 minutes of facial animation for in-game cinematics for Crysis 3. We use Faceware for all of our facial animation as it allows us to efficiently translate a captured performance from an actor to our proprietary facial rigs. Using Faceware is much more efficient and cuts our resourcing needs significantly.

The process for using Faceware is simple and requires only a few steps. First, the performance of an actor must be captured on video. Then our team uses the Faceware Analyzer to track the movement of the pixel data of the video. This data is exported into controller data that can be transferred to the facial rig. The Faceware Retargeter takes the data created by the Analyzer and transfers it to the facial rig with our animators establishing specific poses and controlling the process. When the data has been retargeted to the character you end up with a good level of animation data. This allows our team to focus more time on perfecting animation data to achieve the high quality animation that we achieved on Crysis 3.

Ravi Sinha: What other tools and technologies were brought in for the facial development in Crysis 3 aside from Faceware? How well did the various processes gel together?

Jake Fenske: We have a proprietary rigging process that allows us to create high quality facial rigs (a set of interconnected “bones” used to animate a 3D modeling mesh) for not only features but for gaming budgets as well. We have worked with Faceware often and our rigging technology has been developed alongside the development of Faceware.

Ravi Sinha: How many man hours did it take altogether to scan Pyscho’s face? How much faster was that than traditional methods? How many man hours did it take to animate his face? How much faster was that?

Jake Fenske: Typically the process of capturing the performance, rigging the characters, and animating can take several months but we perform each task diligently to cut the schedule and meet strict delivery dates. Although there is no way of getting around the true development time to achieve the true characteristics that make up each character. Our goals are to capture every nuance of a character’s face and performance.

Ravi Sinha: Roughly speaking how many polygons went it to building Pyshco’s face? More details on this will be appreciated.

Jake Fenske:  After an actor is scanned to create the character, the density of the mesh (the surface representation used to draw the character) is extremely high. Psycho’s scanned mesh was around 50,000 polygons. Unfortunately this is too high for a current generation game engine so the character must be retopologized to create a usable head model. Psycho’s game ready head was approximately 3,500 polygons, which is much less costly in the game.

Ravi Sinha: Was the pipeline overtly complex with all these technologies used in conjunction? How did you manage it all?

Jake Fenske:  We utilized the same pipeline we developed for other games that we have worked on in the past including GTA IV, Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3. We spend the majority of development time in the beginning establishing the look development and art direction for each character. This includes several levels of animation testing and building expressions and pose libraries to achieve a lifelike performance. Once we’ve achieved all of these benchmarks the process is standard for delivering up to hundreds of minutes of animation in a relatively short amount of time. Generally it cuts about 50% of the time it would take to hand animate.

Ravi Sinha: Crysis 3 features arguably the most realistic facial animations we’ve ever seen. But how well does that fit into the larger scheme of things, when you have massive photo-realistic levels, explosions and massive aliens vying for the player’s attention, and for the hardware’s processing power?

Jake Fenske:  Now more than ever developers are trying to push the quality levels of all aspects of their games. Fewer characters have helmets or obstructive elements. There are also more cameras being set to extreme close ups to show off the quality that the game has achieved. This is the same for facial performance. In order for a player to be immersed in the game the facial quality has to be believable because, let’s face it, people want to imagine and fantasize that they are those players. Bad facial animation will take the player right out of the experience.

Ravi Sinha: It’s understandable if specific numbers can’t be given, but there must’ve been a sizable amount of resources allocated to the facial animation process, right?

Jake Fenske:  In our experience, the budgets are actually quite limited. Because of this we have developed solutions that make the process much more efficient to keep the costs down basing our margins on volume.

Ravi Sinha: Talking about how all these tools were used in conjunction – and also about how the consoles somewhat limited the graphical potential of Crysis 3 – what do you see next gen consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One providing in terms of visual fidelity?

Jake Fenske:  We are starting to develop technologies built around realtime applications. We are also starting to have discussions with Stereoscopic companies to project out where we think the gaming industry is going. We think one day people will be playing with holograms.

Ravi Sinha: As you must be aware, Xbox One will have 8GB of DDR3 RAM and the PS4 will have 8 GB of DDR5 RAM. Does the PS4 gives any advantage over the new Xbox in the way you guys will approach facial capture for next generation of games?

Jake Fenske:  Anytime there is an increase in the hardware there will be an improvement in the level of facial quality that can be achieved. We will be able to use higher resolution models, rigs and textures. This only increases the believability in the facial animation and the deformation quality our facial rigs. Whether the PS4 has an advantage over the Xbox One is yet to be seen on our end but both are a significant upgrade from the current generation.

Ravi Sinha: Do you see a time when realistic facial animation will be as easy and fast to develop as high-profile games (as most developers praise the PS4 for being able to do)?

Jake Fenske: No matter how much technology advances, there is still no answer for the emotion a human being brings to a character. The fidelity will increase and so will the need for people who can bring life and emotion to a character.

Ravi Sinha: Concerning all the realistic modeling of artificial characters in video games, do you see a time when the Uncanny Valley might pop up in gaming?

Jake Fenske: One of the key factors with the Uncanny Valley implies that the visuals are disturbing enough to take you out of the visual experience. No one who has played Crysis 3 mentions the Uncanny Valley, which says that players are able to be fully immersed in the experienced. The concept we have been working toward the last few years (from GTA IV to Crysis 3) was to cross over to the other side of the uncanny valley and bring real life to a character. We are currently building photo real models for feature films using the same approach. We believe that gaming has already solved that problem with games like Crysis 3.

Ravi Sinha: Given all the time and effort put into such realistic facial animation, has the team ever considered just going straight into movie production?

Jake Fenske: We are currently in production building photo real characters and digital doubles for several features set to release over the next two years. These characters all employ the same technology that was used in Crysis 3. As an example, please feel free to check out Ek Tha Tiger, a record setting feature film released in India last year.

Special thanks to Eric Schumacher from Neology Concepts for setting the interview up.

The Lost Island DLC pack features four new maps, two new game modes and a couple of new weapons. The trailer showcase each of the four maps, Crossing, Creek, Coastline and Ascent and some of the new weapons. The Lost Island is the first DLC pack for Crysis 3 since its release back in mid-February of 2013.

Crytek has promised that they have big plans for Crysis 3 post-launch in regards to game content. Expect more downloadable content to be announced sometime in the near future.

Let us know if you have purchased The Lost Island multiplayer DLC pack for Crysis 3 in the comments below.

Stay tuned on GamingBolt for more updates and our E3 coverage.

Crytek officially announced the first downloadable multiplayer content pack for Crysis 3 earlier today titled The Lost Island. The multiplayer will go back to its roots in terms of location and will take place on an island aka original Crysis style.

The Lost Island content pack includes four brand new beautiful maps, new weapons and two new multiplayer game-modes Possession and Frenzy. The Lost Island DLC will cost 1200 Microsoft Points via Xbox Live Arcade and $14.99 for  PlayStation 3 and PC and will be available for purchase on June 4th.

Take a look at these beautiful screenshots:

Crysis 3 originally came out in February of this year, this is the game’s first major downloadable content pack. Crytek previously said that they have big plans for Crysis 3’s post-launch and it looks like they weren’t joking about it.

Let us know if you’ll be buying The Lost Island multiplayer pack on June 4th in the comments below.

Check back on GamingBolt for more updates.

Whether that’s served as an impetus for their current decision or not remains to be seen, but recently, Crytek has announced on its Facebook page that it has a special announcement for tomorrow.

“Stay tuned for a special Crysis 3 announcement tomorrow. In the words of Nomad: ‘We’re going back.'”

And quite frankly at this point, that could mean just about anything.

Crysis 3 saw a more apocalyptic setting for the first person shooter and a return of the hardware-melting graphics that the franchise had become known for with the use of CryEngine 3. At last indication by the NPD, it sold only 205,000 units when launching in February, which EA confirmed to be below sale expectations.

One of the biggest new additions, as evidenced in the gameplay trailer released from the event which looked at the next generation engine, was the facial animation Infinity Ward had employed. Despite animation lead Zack Volker being rather dodgy on what exactly make a new engine “new”, the facial animation was of a standard never before seen in a Call of Duty game.

The new engine tried to take advantage of the fact that the curvature of an object would remain constant, even as it came closer or further to the player. A similar method was seen more than a decade ago with Shiny Entertainment’s Messiah, wherein character models and environments would increase or decrease in the number of polygons being showcased depending on how near or far you got from them. This was technically supposed to help increase the efficiency of the engine, as polygons that weren’t displayed were not rendered and resources could be spent on making what was being displayed look even better.

Not that it worked in Messiah’s case but we digress.

Nowadays, the market for facial animation in video games has diversified greatly. One look at Crysis 3’s facial animation will tell you that developers aren’t playing around, using a combination of both licensed and propriety technologies and workflows to achieve the most realistic animation possible. So how well does Activision’s new engine measure up to what was shown at this year’s Game Developers Conference 2013?

Skip to 2:27 on the Xbox Reveal trailer to compare the current look of the animation to what was seen at GDC.

As stated in the comments, the GDC character trailer involved a majority of resources being devoted to lighting and animating a single head. Similar to what David Cage showcased at the PS4 Reveal event, this isn’t too difficult. But when you factor in a complete character model, other characters, environments, AI, particle effects, weather effects and a hundred other factors, it’s a given that you won’t get the exact same quality.

So it is a definite tantamount to the technology at hand that even if Activision’s engine couldn’t approach nearly the same quality shown in the GDC trailer, it’s still pretty decent in the larger scheme of things.

Does it look better than the crème of the crop in Crysis 3? Not really. But considering Infinity Ward’s approach of only including elements to increase immersion when it fits their definition of the gameplay experience, it makes sense. Right? Also, keep in mind that Ghosts is still, by all intents and purposes, a first generation title for the PS4 and Xbox One. Future games could significantly improve on what’s seen here.

Then again, Activision did recycle the same engine for years on end for the last generation of Call of Duty, only making an enhancement here and there when necessary. This resulted in Call of Duty titles that remarkably similar to each other with little improvements, to say nothing of the gameplay.

But we digress again.

What do you think about the facial animation processes in Call of Duty: Ghosts? Let us know in the comments below.

It looks Crysis 3 is about to get some fresh new multiplayer downloadable content in the near feature according to the image below that was posted on the official game’s twitter by Crytek.

One tweet teases an image of an unknown location that you can take a look at below:

Another tweet shows a picture of a new gun and asks fans a question:

It seems that the new DLC might be taking place in a tropical island along with a couple of new guns. Nothing has been leaked about the rumored DLC other than the achievements that have been previously spotted via Xbox Live.

The DLC Achievements include 250 points and a total of 10 individual achievements, and it’s obvious that the new DLC will feature multiplayer content.

Let us know if you’re excited to know what the new DLC is for Crysis 3 in the comments below.

Check back on GamingBolt for more updates regarding Crytek’s franchises.

First is the God of War series, produced by SCE Santa Monica. For Rs. 3499, gamers can pick up God of War Collection, which consists of the first and second game remastered in HD, God of War 3 and the recently released God of War: Ascension of the PlayStation 3.

Digital downloads on PC for games like Crysis 3, DmC: Devil May Cry and Dishonored are also the subject of discounts, as the retailer is offering a flat 40 percent off this week. That discount also extends to PlayStation Vita titles, as Resistance: Burning Skies, Smart As, PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale and FIFA Football are all available for 40 percent off.

Finally, Game4U is also presenting pre-owned PS3 games as combo offers, like Resistance 2 & Killzone 2, available for just Rs. 999. Head to Game4U for more details and to take advantage of these offers.