Crysis 3 Remastered

Crysis 3 Remastered is a 2021 remaster of Crytek’s 2013 first-person shooter Crysis 3, developed by Crytek with Saber Interactive and released October 15, 2021 for PC (initially via the Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch — standalone and as the closing chapter of the Crysis Remastered Trilogy. It reached Steam on November 17, 2022 after a year of Epic exclusivity, where it sits at “Very Positive” with 88% of roughly 1,550 user reviews recommending it. Like its Trilogy siblings, it’s a single-player-only package: the original’s Crytek UK multiplayer, including the asymmetric Hunter mode, was not carried over.

Its role in the Trilogy is a specific one: the best-looking campaign of the three, and also the shortest — which turned the value question that always followed Crysis 3 into the remaster’s defining review talking point, especially for anyone buying it outside the bundle.

Technical Specifications

Closing Out the Trilogy Project

Announced in mid-2021 alongside Crysis 2 Remastered as the back half of the Crysis Remastered Trilogy, this release arrived with expectations shaped by the project’s rough start — Crysis Remastered‘s 2020 launch had gone badly enough that Crytek led the sequels’ marketing with direct gameplay comparisons rather than promises. Reviewers consistently placed the two sequel remasters in a different class from the first: godisageek’s Trilogy review was typical, finding the first game’s remaster showing its age while the second and third displayed clearly sharper environments, better enemy models, and smoother animation work throughout.

What Actually Changed

The campaign itself — Prophet, the aged Psycho, the Alpha Ceph, and the rainforest-swallowed Liberty Dome — is structurally identical to 2013. The remaster’s work went into presentation and platform reach: higher-resolution textures, reworked lighting, modern upscaling support, and performance targets the original console versions never approached, with PS5 and Xbox Series hardware pushing resolution and framerate further through backward compatibility. The original’s DirectX 11 showcase status made this the least dramatic glow-up of the three — Crysis 3 was already the best-looking game of its generation’s final stretch, so the remaster’s job was more preservation than transformation, a point several reviews made while still ranking it the Trilogy’s visual peak.

The Switch Version

The most technically improbable member of the set drew some of its warmest coverage. Nintendo Life’s review called it a fantastic port running “super solid” in both docked and handheld modes, with only minor frame dips in the heaviest firefights — a genuinely unlikely outcome for a game whose original 2013 system requirements made contemporary PCs, in Engadget’s phrasing at the time, wince. For Switch owners, the Trilogy remains the only way the Crysis series has ever been playable on a Nintendo platform, and the third game holds up as the set’s showpiece there.

The Value Question

The recurring reservation across reviews wasn’t quality but quantity. Crysis 3 was already the trilogy’s shortest campaign at five to seven hours, and with multiplayer excised, the standalone $29.99 purchase covers that campaign and nothing else — Nintendo Life put it plainly, calling the solo release “a fairly slim package” that becomes much easier to recommend inside the Trilogy bundle. Community threads asking whether the remaster is “worth a playthrough” tend to land on the same answer: absolutely, and preferably as the finale of the three-game bundle rather than a solo pickup at full price, particularly given how regularly the Trilogy discounts below $20.

Reception

Reviews landed generally favorable within the modest pool remasters attract, with the visual fidelity, the bow-driven stealth sandbox, and the Switch port earning the most consistent praise. The criticisms were inherited ones: a short campaign, a story that leans on two prior games’ lore, and — new to this version — the absence of any multiplayer component from a game whose Hunter mode had been a genuine highlight in 2013. Steam’s user base has been notably warmer than launch critics, with the game’s long-tail rating climbing to 88% positive overall and recent reviews running even higher — a pattern consistent with the Trilogy’s final early-2022 patch wave leaving all three games in their best-ever state before support wrapped.

Where to Play It Today

Crysis 3 Remastered is available standalone or in the Crysis Remastered Trilogy on Steam, the Epic Games Store, GOG, PlayStation 4 (playable on PS5), Xbox One (playable on Series X|S), and Nintendo Switch, with Limited Run Games’ 2023 physical console editions still circulating on the secondary market. It’s the only convenient modern route to the campaign: the original 2013 release can no longer be bought outright on Steam and survives as a direct purchase only on the EA app. For most players, the honest recommendation is the Trilogy bundle on sale — three campaigns for less than the price of one, ending with the series’ best-looking entry.