Oh Crytek, you’ve been sloppy, very sloppy indeed.
Let me ask you a question: was the decision to effectively dump Crysis’s original code into CryEngine 5’s shoes and leaving it at that a point of laziness, were you or were you not simply trying to cash in on the DLSS hype?
The answer to both of them is probably yes, as mentioned in my previous post about Crysis Remastered the game retains all its original code, including outdated code that will never ever be used again officially.
Every console command and their linked methods have been kept, including the ‘connect’ command used to connect to multiplayer servers. I’ve done some experimenting with wire sniffing and I’ve found that the game does in fact talk to servers when a connect is initiated via the ‘connect’ command, as seen here (skip to 1m 16s for the juicy bit):
Note: The server itself is for Crysis Wars so it is preventing the game from going any further (I need to source the original version of Crysis), and I’m doing it via the benchmark mode for now since… well, see below.
Why & how has Crytek been sloppy?
Look, I love Crytek, Crysis modding is what started me in games programming in the first place- I literally wouldn’t be who I am today without Crytek and Crysis, but Crytek has historically been pretty sloppy with Crysis’ code in general.
What do I mean by that on the topic of Crysis Remastered?
DRM.
You may know that Crysis Remastered is a PC exclusive on the Epic Store and uses Epic’s DRM. You know what skips the DRM? The benchmark launcher.
You know what can be accessed in the benchmark? The console. You know what can be done via the console? Literally. Anything.
This means that you can start new games, load maps, etc. all from the console in the benchmark mode that is DRM-free. I’m not a cracker, crackers for game DRMs rely on inspecting what memory addresses are accessed and changing the game’s files so the game goes straight to the memory address it executes after the DRM check, but for me to find this vulnerability really does put Crytek in a bad light.
Crytek stopped supporting both Crysis 1 and Crysis Wars two years after launch, mostly because everyone was pirating the game and their DRM (from Sony) never worked to combat it. You’d have thought that Crytek has learned from that experience, but apparently not.
Crytek, you never disappoint me in your shenanigans.
Crysis Remastered is a sloppy piece of work, which is good for modders like me.
Here’s hoping Crytek don’t fix those vulnerabilities.
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