Crysis | Know Your Meme

About

Crysis is a first-person shooter video game series following the story of several military protagonists equipped with an advanced nanosuit technology that provides them with inhuman physical strength, speed, defense and an ability to go invisible, who fight against the North Korean military and a race of aliens known as Ceph. The first installment in the series is known for its extremely demanding graphics and spawned But Can It Run Crysis meme.

History

On November 13th, 2007, first-person shooter videogame Crysis, developed by Crytek, was released for PC by Electronic Arts. The game, set in August 2020, followed the story of a special forces operative Nomad equipped with an advanced nanosuit which grants him a choice of several enhanced physical abilities, including inhuman strength and speed, invisibility and defense. The game plot, set in the future, centers around the awakening of a hostile race of aliens which lied dormant on islands off the coast of the Philippines (trailer and gameplay footage shown below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVsw-gmnUeo

On September 16th, 2008, spin-off game Crysis Warhead was released. The main installments of the series were continued with releases of Crysis 2 on March 22nd, 2011, and Crysis 3 on February 19th, 2013 for PC and game consoles (trailers shown below, left and right).

Starting on April 13th, 2020, the official Twitter account for the game series posted several tweets, hinting at a new installment in the series coming soon.

On April 16th, 2020, it was discovered that the game website’s Cookie Policy Page displayed Crysis: Remastered logo which led to the new version of the website. The page suggested future release of the remastered version of Crysis for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, with the game using ray tracing technology.

Reception

Most games in the series received positive reviews from critics and audiences. On Metacritic,Crysis maintained a 91 average score with 56 critic reviews and 8.1 score with over 2380 user rankings. For Crysis Warhead,Crysis 2 and Crysis 3 the average critics scores were 84, 86 and 76, with average user scores being 7.9, 6.9 and 6.6 respectively.

Fandom

While the series did not obtain a significant online fandom, a series Wiki was launched on July 18th, 2007.

But Can It Run Crysis?

But Can It Run But Crysis? is a phrase referring to the 2007 Crytek first-person shooter Crysis, underscoring the reputation the game has obtained for it’s steep system requirements at the time of its release. The phrase has slowly evolved into a snowclone as years pass, substituting “But can it run X?” for the most recent and system-demanding title at the time.

The April 2020 leaked announcement of the game which would be available, among other platforms, for Nintendo Switch gaming console, saw a surge in popularity of the joke.

Search Interest

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External References