Crysis Wars: The Savior of Crytek

With Blizzard’s highly successful (not to mention ingenious) marketing scheme of including free game discs with all purchases of World of Warcraft, alongside Valve’s “Free Weekends,” many game companies are taking the power of the free trial-offer seriously.

From December 19th, Crysis Wars, the multiplayer component of Crytek’s Crysis series, will become available as a free, 10-day trial. Released in September, Crysis Wars came standard with the new installment in the saga, Crysis Warhead. Crytek’s developers now present it for free as a way of saying thank you to all those who have supported them — while also asking for continued support in the future.

This trial comes with the game’s latest patch (1.3), and also contains two new maps that were introduced earlier this week by their designers.

For Crytek to offer a full trial of their product shows confidence on their part. Having won IGN’s 2008 E3 “Best PC FPS Award,” Crysis Warhead is now major force in the next-generation of PC shooters. Though many fans felt dissatisfied with the original Crysis multiplayer, most now seem impressed with Crytek’s recent product. Instead of feeling like a shoddy add-on to the single player campaign, Crysis Wars acts almost as a seperate game; and one that has already been praised for its revision and improved features.

Pwning with Less-Laggy Graphics is Awesome!

Among other revisions, one stands out as being the key factor in this trial’s success: Crysis was notorious for being criticized for its high-end system requirements interfering with its content. Yet, Crysis Wars helps gamers to circumvent poor gameplay by allowing them to optimize graphics for their specific system. Disassembling the barrier that has kept so many lower-budget PC gamers from experiencing Crysis is an intelligent step, because it exponentially broadens Crytek’s demographics.

By the end of the free trial on December 28th, it’s safe to assume an increase in the number of fans of the Crysis series. How many more fans? Well, let’s just say “a lot.”