Crysis Crisis Deepens

Either Crytek are quietly trying to cause no end of hell for EA, or the wrong Crysis demo got released and there are a whole lot of panicking, screaming, crying German developers right now.

First, the script for the entire game was discovered lurking in the demo files. Then a simple config file edit activated supposedly DirectX 10 and Vista-only graphical effects in DirectX 9 and XP. And now, someone faffing about with the bundled level editor has managed to dump a load of good stuff from later in the game into the demo map and make it playable. To find out how, what, who and wither, you’ll have to read on…

What’s in there? Guns. Lots of guns – the game’s entire repertoire (as well as an impressive selection of various explosives), it appears. Tanks, boats, assorted military vehicles and ridiculously powerful helicopters (which handle a little like Battlefield’s, and are hilarious overkill against the still popgun-armed Korean dudes). And one of the much-mooted aliens. If you want an early taste of what these flying tentacle laser-horrors are like to fight, and how the game’s human NPCs react to them, this’ll do it. Oops.

You want ‘demofunmap #5’ from here, the work of canny German modder siLe`. Extract the level.pak file and dump it into C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis SP Demo\Game\Levels\island. Either overwrite the exisiting level.pak in there, or rename it to something with a different extension (e.g. .old) if you don’t wanna have to reinstall the demo later.

Then, start a new game in the demo (yes, you’ll have to do the cutscene’n’parachtute drop hoopla again) – be warned that apparently it only works on the Normal difficultly setting – and keep playing until the bit where you find your mate all Predatored up in the trees. Start following the objective arrow, and you’ll soon find a table full of a goodies, and an angry alien in the skies. Just beyond the table is an enemy encampment, and a short run to the left of that is vehicle and many-gun heaven. Clearly, this may spoil some of the full game for you. But in the relatively open environment of the demo’s island map, it allows for mega-playtime. Be warned that approaching the centre of the map in a chopper triggers the final cutscene and ends the demo, though.

Thanks to Gestalt for pointing this out, and apologies for not noticing sooner.

Sponsored links by Taboola

More from the web

From this site

124 Comments

  1. 31/10/2007 at 17:05 Leelad says:

    Best demo ever then?

  2. 31/10/2007 at 17:18 Flibster says:

    It would certainly seem so, I think i’ll give this a miss for fear of spoilers tbh

  3. 31/10/2007 at 17:34 Man Raised By Puffins says:

    If I recall correctly, didn’t the Far Cry demo also have a load of stuff still in there? Although I don’t think it was quite as bad (or good, depending on which angle you’re looking at it from) as this veritable bounty.

    It’s a shame I can’t really play it in anything other than juddering UglyVisionTM on my rig.

  4. 31/10/2007 at 17:54 Bobsy says:

    Well now they have to put in a James Pond easter egg.

  5. 31/10/2007 at 17:59 Chris R says:

    This is how a demo SHOULD be… Great, now I can’t wait to get off work…. 5 more hours. Why must RPS tempt torture me so!!!

    I’ve already spent about 10 or so hours in the demo as it is…. now I can see myself spending 20+ hours with all these goodies. Wooo!

  6. 31/10/2007 at 18:07 Thiefsie says:

    Holy hell batman this is almost as bad a comedy of errors as the entire Hellgate debarcle… which strangely is getting no coverage here…

  7. 31/10/2007 at 18:17 Monkfish says:

    Must… resist… demofunmap #5…

  8. 31/10/2007 at 18:35 Andrew Mayer says:

    Oh Eastern Europe, won’t you ever learn?

  9. 31/10/2007 at 19:31 Cargo Cult says:

    I read somewhere that the original Far Cry engine had loads of hard-coded assumptions as to the presence of content and data – needing a good chunk of the game to run at all.

    Perhaps Crysis is vaguely similar in that respect?

    Or maybe it’s like Source, where one brief mention in an audio definitions file or whatever means the content is regarded as required, even if it’s never actually shown or played. I had fun* building MINERVA’s manifests and audio caches with that…

    Still, it explains why the Crysis demo is such a big-wobbly-fat-bastard huge download!

  10. 31/10/2007 at 19:41 Chis says:

    Can’t miss this. Will try it immediately. I’m gagging for some more Crysis. Well done Crytek for including Sandbox… hopefully we’ll see more stuff arrive before the game is released.

  11. 31/10/2007 at 19:47 Chris R says:

    Is there a way for some of your journalist types with contacts in the industry to find out if this was a mistake? Or if Crytek intended this? I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I’d be interested to know. More for the amusement factor than anything.

  12. 31/10/2007 at 20:30 simonkaye says:

    God, this is essentially turning into Just Cause 2, isn’t it?

  13. 31/10/2007 at 22:02 Leeks! says:

    I can’t find vehicle and many-gun heaven. But I am functionally retarded, so there’s that.

  14. 31/10/2007 at 22:30 Chis says:

    It IS easy to miss. After deactivating the scrambler, head around the LEFT of the beach.

  15. 01/11/2007 at 12:50 Lung says:

    Is it just me or is the demo level file a corrupted .rar file?

  16. 01/11/2007 at 13:38 JJ says:

    I’m with Leeks, i’m functional retarded too. Can’t find anything.
    I’m at the first enemy encampment, down at the beach. Now, facing the water, I have to go left?

  17. 01/11/2007 at 13:54 ZZ says:

    Yeah, there’s nothing new on the left side of the first enemy camp, I verified it with the editor, using the level.pak from demofunmap #5… weird.

  18. 01/11/2007 at 14:12 Alec Meer says:

    By first, do you mean the first bunch of enemies you encounter? I mean the bit after you find your strung-up dead colleague. And y’all are definitely on demofunmap 5, not the number 4 one above it?
    If so, it could be the map’s been pulled/replaced with something sanitised. Hmm.

  19. 01/11/2007 at 14:23 ZZ says:

    I realized the problem was that I only extracted the level.pak from the .rar -archive, I didn’t realize that I also needed to extract the contents of the .pak -file to /island -dir.

  20. 01/11/2007 at 14:34 henry p jacobson says:

    thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

  21. 01/11/2007 at 14:35 henry p jacobson says:

    BAHAHAHAHHA… posted november 1st? hey guys I can tell you about the future ! :O

  22. 01/11/2007 at 15:06 Max says:

    I couldn’t find anything either, neither in-game nor by opening island.cry in the Editor.

    =[

  23. 01/11/2007 at 15:08 siLe` says:

    hi guys , i find my map here “sry my english is not the best , iam from germany ;) ”

    Win vista have problems with my map , i dont know why

    or make a copy from ur old level.pak and paste to the desktop and overwrite than my level.pak in ur island folder ,and than start a new game

  24. 01/11/2007 at 15:27 siLe` says:

    Update:
    hello guys, I suddenly have found my modificated of the island map here and have to tell you some further things which may be important: Windows Vista does not work with it properly, the reason is not known yet.

    This could solve this problem: Backup your old /island/level.pak in a whole new folder and then overwrite the /island/level.pak with the modified one.

  25. 01/11/2007 at 15:40 Max says:

    That explains it. I’m using Vista. =(

  26. 01/11/2007 at 17:01 Habboi says:

    Uhh I’m using Vista and the new level worked fine. I lol’d so hard at the nuke gun and nuke tanks.

  27. 01/11/2007 at 17:58 Chris R says:

    Man, the nuke tank was a hell of a surprise for me. I thought it was a normal tank and drove it around for about 3 minutes before encountering some Surprised Korean Guys. I fired the cannon thinking it was just a regular tank… boy was I surprised at the small atomic cloud that exploded onto my screen. I was just as surprised as all the Surprised Korean Guys… such a funny moment. I was laughing so hard.

    I also had a similar surprising moment when I tried out the TAC launcher, thinking it was a humble grenade launcher, and not a small nuclear hand held cannon.

    Great stuff, so much fun to be had in a little demo.

  28. 01/11/2007 at 18:46 Tom says:

    awesome!!!!!!

  29. 01/11/2007 at 18:47 Reporter says:

    For those claiming they can’t ‘find’ the vehicles and the weapons, make sure you have downloaded demofunmap #5′. The linked site actually offers a #4 map as well, which doesn’t contain the massive stockpile, and I suspect those who haven’t been able to find the weapons/tanks have actually been playing that map.

  30. 01/11/2007 at 19:37 Eschatos says:

    Ah, there we go. The first time I hit the link for #4, and didn’t get weapon heaven. Still, the weapons there were, and the new vehicles are great. That helicopter is a killing machine, and easy to fly, though I still haven’t found out how to strafe with it.

  31. 01/11/2007 at 19:48 Tom says:

    deffo DL’d #5. those who can get it working in Vista, do you have 32 or 64bit…? wonder if that’s got anything to do with it?

  32. 01/11/2007 at 19:52 Max says:

    Yeah I also got #5.

    And I’m on Vista Ultimate x86.

  33. 01/11/2007 at 20:19 Alex N says:

    I had the same thing happen to me, Chris. I fired the TAC into the water and, lo and behold, it was a freakin nuke! I just sat there, jaw dropped for like 30 seconds before I turned around to use it on the mountain. I’m pretty sure that de-forestation in Crysis is one of the most awesome parts about it. Plus nuking small KPA villas from afar…it just doesn’t get better. This gets my vote for best demo ever. I’m also using the inf health and inf ammo codes on it to amp up the fun a bit. I wish I could find an inf energy code to really turn the game into Predator 3. XD

  34. 01/11/2007 at 20:27 Thelps says:

    You know that feeling when you really have to take a piss? I’m getting that feeling right now, only instead of wanting to rush to the toilet to relive myself, I’m hovering my mouse over the Crysis demo download link. All these comments are the urine in my metaphorical bladder, screaming at me to do what’s RIGHT, what’s natural.

    But NO! Must. Not. Play. Demo. ‘lest. I. Spoil. Retail. Game.

    I’m staunch in my resolve.

  35. 01/11/2007 at 20:59 Gestalt says:

    Aww, you spoil-sissies,
    I`m shure Crytek will not let you run free with all that shit, there´s bound to be another “volcano”.
    Enjoy it while it´s fresh.

  36. 01/11/2007 at 21:11 Lance says:

    I’m really looking forward to this game! Just got the latest PC Gamer mag (remember print?) and they gave it 98%, which I believe is their highest score ever for a game…

    Now if I had a powerful enough computer to run it on….

    Lance

  37. 01/11/2007 at 21:16 Chris R says:

    Spoiler alert:
    .
    .
    .
    @Alex: Yeah, nuking the little KPA huts was great, so satisfying, haha. I can’t think of the last time I have ever been so surprised in a game as the moment I first fired the nuke tank though. I think my exact words were “Holy shit! WTF!! It’s a freaking nuke!”
    .
    End of Spoiler

    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    @Thelps: Do it! Play the demo! Think of it as honing your skills now in preperation for the full game. I don’t think anything will be spoiled by playing the demo honestly. You’ll have a blast. This is one of the best demo’s ever, even without unlocking all the weapons and vehicles.

  38. 01/11/2007 at 22:13 Micha says:

    There are no weapons to be found!! what the hell

    Yes, I got #5, yes, I even checked in the editor. >:(

  39. 01/11/2007 at 23:03 JonRico says:

    No idea if I can post without registering here – but the problems with people loading maps in Vista I think are just to do with paths.

    The way these things normally work is that it looks inside the pak files inside a folder for the data. It looks in ANY AND ALL pak files. So if you have the original level.pak and the modified level.pak which one it loads is dependant on which one the filesystem reads first. This will be consistent on one machine (probably) but not necessarily the same order on different machines or operating systems.

    So the solution (tested in Vista) is always to move the original pak somewhere else before running the game.

    Please note that all of the above could suffer from being entirely incorrect! :)

  40. 02/11/2007 at 00:59 Rueal says:

    Woa! The original demo was fun….(im kidding) took me three 3AM-6AM sessions to download the demo over my neighbors
    wirelessly shared HughesNet connection FAP(unfair) and now I have to wait untill 3AM again to get this!!! BUT IT WORTH THE WAIT……….!!!!! Dont worry im not stealling his internet HE let my family use his USB wireless-G modem and its good for downloads but not games…….

  41. 02/11/2007 at 01:34 MiLeS says:

    Hum, does these maps only work under Vista? Cause as soon as the game loaded up (selecting new game) it crashes.

    I’m running the x64 version of the game under xp x64 sp2.

  42. 02/11/2007 at 02:05 Sargonnas says:

    I just found out the reason most of you arent able to get this to work… it must be played on Normal difficulty. Delta (and probably the others) wont work. Different spawn sets for different difficulties or something.

  43. 02/11/2007 at 02:30 emarkp says:

    So does anyone know how to lift the helicopter off the ground instead of hovering and colliding into the mountain.

  44. 02/11/2007 at 02:45 emarkp says:

    ah. Got it. A/D is tilt left/right (strafe), and W/D is collective up/down

  45. 02/11/2007 at 03:56 emarkp says:

    er, W/S

  46. 02/11/2007 at 04:40 Matt says:

    The map crashed for me under XP x64. I switched the shortcut on my desktop to point to the x86 binaries and that worked. Perhaps I should send a bug report to Crytek.

  47. 02/11/2007 at 05:01 Piffer says:

    Oh YEAH! I’ll still buy the game though, and I don’t care a bit about spoiler alerts, or plot alert… it’s all about killing shit anyways :-)

    Thanks for this AWESOME post!
    And thanks to our German friends.

    -P

  48. 02/11/2007 at 08:49 Rueal says:

    WHOO HOO!!!! THIS GAME KICKS ASS!!! I CANT WAIT TO GET!!!
    lol I was scared when i saw tentaclepuss but I ran and got the much rejoiced gausse gun, sushi anyone?Also be careful with mininuke gun…. I ejected the shell without aiming and obliterated every vehicle around me……

  49. 02/11/2007 at 16:03 STEVE says:

    Mod wouldn’t run with Vista 64 bit–I had to point my shortcut to (“D:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis SP Demo\Bin32\Crysis.exe”) And then it worked!

  50. 02/11/2007 at 16:20 STEVE says:

    Yeah, this mod is way too kewl–I am sure UBI (FarCry2) team is crapping their pants right about now; serves them right anyway since they have that shitty little forum where you just sit around and talk about nothing for 6 whole god damn months waiting for the game to be released. I thought about getting Call of Duty 4, but Crysis makes that game look 10 years old so for get it! I really enjoyed FC1 and can’t wait for some multiplayer mayhem with the new release. The only issue I have is upgrading when I thought I already had pretty decent rig with my 8800 vid card. I can’t run in HD withut a serious FPS loss so I am stuck in SD mode–Hell, I don’t even think todays hardware can make this game smoke! So it looks like the hardware peeps have their work cut out for them–get to work god damn it!