“I’ve never seen that before!” exclaims Matt Bennett. A press colleague playing the demo in front of me had taken his vehicle into a cargo yard and cleared out the enemies. Apparently he had built up enough speed to bust through a barrier intended to make him do the area on foot. Seeing new things is part and parcel of working on a Crysis game, I suppose; Bennett says he is often surprised.

Crysis: Warhead fills in the gaps in the story of the original Crysis. Sgt. Sikes had gone on a special secret Delta Force mission, and this is that story. It’s something about a special cargo in the hands of an unscrupulous Korean general, but really it’s about finding a reason to blow things up. Warhead will have much more action, many more firefights and less of an open field of play like Crysis. It is a focused and finely tuned adventure, intended as a cinematic experience.

As expected, it looks glorious. Using the excuse of “microclimates” to show off what their engine can do, players can expect to see frozen palm trees not far from a jungle environment. And, as expected, Bennett is ready to defend the practicality of targeting “high end” computer systems.

“There is a misperception that this is a game that only some people can play. We’ve optimized the engine greatly, so it runs much more smoothly than in Crysis. You still won’t be able to run it on integrated graphics, but you can get an Nvidia 8800 card for less than 200 dollars now. People who want to play this sort of game can do so for a reasonable price.”