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Original Crysis suddenly vanishes on Steam in another blow to preservation
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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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If there was no alternative, and debatably superior, version of the game currently available then this might be an issue. But there is, so the preservation of the IP is hardly jeopardized.
It's not about the IP. It's about the actual piece of work.
Imagine if I drew a new version of the Mona Lisa, and they destroyed the original to display mine instead.
They could use the old one as a placemat to protect a table from having soup spilled on it.
Goddammit, Roshi, never again.
The comparison is more akin to how they have actually restored the mona lisa with chemical and color correction as a means to make it withstand the test of time. Thats essentially what has happened with the remastered version of this game.
I understand that in other instances, remasters and remakes might as well be a different game, but if you have played crysis, this is barely the case.
Im not saying its fine to lose access to original data. All im saying is in this particular case, there isnt much loss to be outraged about. The publishers havent un-alived the IP. We have just lost access to some historical data.
I am all for preservation. I dont want to underplay the detriments of lost data. I just want to subjectively quantify this loss.
Nope, digital art doesn't deteriorate, needs no repainting.
Preservation, while perhaps idealistic, is about keeping every version that we can. Doom is a great example. Because Carmac released the source code, source ports have proliferated. That means anyone can play the original Doom on just about any machine. Varying degrees of accuracy to the original DOS release exist thanks to ports like Chocolate Doom, GZDoom, Eternity Engine, et al. As do varying degrees of accuracy to Doom 95, the Windows 95 rerelease. Or to the version running on Xbox packed in with Doom 3.
Ports cover the engine, but we also have an archive of all the doom.wad files, the contents. We have demo and prototype versions. The dos release. Officially patched versions. The win95 release. The Xbox release.
But a preservationist also wants the original Bethesda Unity release, wad and engine. The Kex release with the new engine and new episodes. Neither of those Bethesda engines needs to exist but why not keep them too? They're a part of the Doom legacy, an ongoing chapter in the endless story of Doom.
Its good that in this community we've gotten to preserve so much. It keeps the history of one of the most important video games alive and relevant. It keeps the game itself relevant. Without the original source release, there's no GZDoom and there's probably no Bethesda rereleases. The impact that source release had on the gaming community, gaming as an industry, modding and indie gaming, is incalculable.
That Crysis--also a landmark game in its own time--deserves any less is laughable. The original release of the game should always be present and available: as an artifact of its time, as a fine game in its own right, and as a piece of living history that can be stood up against its remakes, sequels, and the games it inspired.
Good thing the Internet Archive has a software library containing many classic PC games, including Crysis.
Not sure about the legality, so I won't link it here (just go to archive.org, and search for it in the software category), but it appears the uploads were made by Crytek themselves.
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I agree with what Kolanaki said -- it should be available simply because it existed, not just because people will want to play some version of Crysis. My preference is that each patch-level version of a game should be made available somewhere for people to check out. It's not simply about a product being available that satisfies some need or desire (in this case, the desire to play Crysis). Works that people have made should be available for others to explore.
Also:
is that true? I'm genuinely asking. I think I actually own the remastered version of Crysis, but I haven't actually played it, as I also have the original on Steam. I thought the remastered version was a graphically improved version of the console port of Crysis, which made some changes to the way that your powers activate. And I remember everyone disliking that when the console ports first came out.
That's why they put in the "debatably" part. Anyone can debate to their heart's content that it is superior. And they'd still be wrong.
(To be clear, I'm agreeing, you and Kolanaki are exactly right.)
But it doesn't even matter if it's superior. There is value in seeing the steps of progress made to get to a superior edition. This is why we have version control for code. It's not always just so you can do a revert or see the latest change, if it was we could just throw away commits older than a month or something. It's valuable to be able to see the whole history. We can still learn from it and appreciate what it did for its time, even if it's old.