When Crysis 3 came out last month, it received a fair amount of deserved hype from Electronic Arts. Crytek, a company that knows its way around first-person shooters (just check out the forthcoming free-to-play Warface if you don’t believe us), made significant improvements upon the formula since Crysis 2, adding a new composite bow to Prophet’s arsenal to make him even more unstoppable and pulling out all the stops in the visuals department.
Most importantly, the story makes a little bit of sense this time around and also involves another character from the Crysis legacy – Psycho, the star of Crysis Warhead. He plays a big part in Prophet’s push to stop the evil CELL organization, even if it’s easier said than done because of the existence of an Alpha Ceph.
Without further ado, here’s our Spoiler Alert for Crysis 3. As you might expect by now, this pretty much spoils the story for you, so you may want to finish playing the game first before you read on…
Following the events of Crysis 2, Prophet has assimilated Alcatraz’s body and memories with his own, resurrecting himself in the process. He then begins a journey for the Alpha Ceph, who leads the charge of alien attackers, with the help of Psycho. They eventually locate it and keep it contained, but then CELL, a company seeking to take control of all land and technology associated with the Ceph, steps in and disables Prophet and skins the remaining Nanosuit soldiers to steal the alien materials from them. The last to be skinned, Prophet is transferred to a facility in New York armed with EMP transformers so he won’t be able to escape.
Psycho isn’t about to let a good man down, and with the help of resigned researcher Karl Ernst Rasch, learns of his whereabouts. He raids the New York facility with the help of other fellow Nanosuit soldiers (Lazy Dane and Bandit) and are able to free Prophet from his restraints, reawakening him – Nanosuit and all – in the process.
Psycho then explains what’s happened over the last 20 years since his “slumber”. CELL began adapting Ceph technology in a way to distribute unlimited free energy across the city. It managed to get a large stranglehold over all industry as a result, which it then used to drive the populace into debt. Those who couldn’t afford their energy were enslaved, forcing others to rise up as a resistance movement. Psycho joined them, but they haven’t been able to do much since. He then talks about a power server called System X, located in New York, that runs pretty much everything. The land has since been changed into an uninhabitable jungle, where soldiers and the much-feared Ceph Stalkers roam about. Prophet, still concerned by what the Alpha Ceph had showed him in apocalyptic visions back in Crysis 2, eventually agrees to help.
Fighting their way through the outskirts of the city (and into the dome where System X is located), they meet up with Rasch as well as fellow CELL employee Claire Fontanelli. She isn’t quite trusting of Prophet due to the modifications in his Nanosuit, but still asks for his help. They all get on the same page and begin working their way towards System X.
In the midst of locating the hydroelectric dam that powers System X, Prophet learns that it’s actually the Alpha Ceph he had seen earlier. After escaping from containment, it manages to enable a hidden Ceph structure within the Nanodrome, firing a beam into space to open a wormhole from the Ceph home world, way off in the M33 Galaxy. It’s here that they plan to bring about an invasion, one that could match Prophet’s previously seen visions.
In order to stop the Alpha Ceph’s heinous plan, Prophet unlocks even more potential in his Nanosuit through the removal of neural blocks. They head to a facility to perform the procedure, only to see the harrowing visions of soldiers stripped of their Nanosuit by CELL. The process opens Prophet up to even more capabilities with the suit, but Psycho also learns something about Claire – she was the one who was behind the skinning of soldiers with CELL, including him. He rebuffs her emotional reaches, as she says she had no other choice and joined the resistance. He departs soon after, but not before leaving some dog tags of fallen soldiers with Prophet.
Prophet then learns that the Alpha Ceph is continuing its plans and that CELL looks to fight back using a satellite-based energy distribution device known as Archangel. However, Prophet realizes that this device would leave a catastrophic effect on Earth as a result. Shortly thereafter, the resistance is attacked and Claire is captured by the Ceph. Prophet attempts to rescue them, but Claire insists that stopping CELL is more important. He makes his way to the Archangel and shuts it down, only to find Rasch, who is now being controlled by Alpha Ceph using Ceph DNA to expand his life. After disabling Prophet, he attempts to do the same to the returning Psycho, only for Claire to distract him and leave him open to be killed.
Rasch regains his control and helps guide the group to safety as the Ceph Tentacle emerges from the Alpha Ceph. They board a ship and engage in battle with various Ceph aircraft, only to come crashing down. Claire dies as a result, but not before Psycho forgives her. Prophet and Psycho then get in a battle over the remaining Nanosuit, which Prophet eventually wins. Psycho reverts back to his original name, Michael, and vows to fight using another VTOL.
The Alpha Ceph is successfully killed, but the beam activating the wormhole still activates, sending Prophet flying through it. His suit is beyond repair, but he pushes on and comes across a massive Ceph warship. Utilizing the help of the Archangel satellite set-up, he is able to hack into it and destroy the warship, closing the wormhole and ending the invasion. He falls back into the Earth atmosphere and collapses into the waters of the Lingshan islands, back where the Ceph were originally discovered in the first Crysis.
Prophet manages to awaken the next day, and uses the power of the Nanosuit to regain his body structure and resurrect himself. He then takes the dog tags that Psycho had given him and throws them in the nearby water, and vows to call himself “Laurence Barnes” from hereon in. He then vanishes, using the cloaking power of the suit, and utters, “They called me Prophet. Remember me.”
The post credits sequence involves two CELL troopers and three men, who are actually the CELL board of directors, being attacked by an unforeseen enemy. The CELL troopers are suddenly shot, and suddenly, Michael (aka Psycho) appears, explaining that he spent quite a bit of time at their hospitals…and he wants to “make a complaint”.
Crysis 3 is available now for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Published: Apr 1, 2013 04:59 pm