This morning EA and Crytek have officially unveiled Crysis 3, the third installment of the high-tech military shooter franchise and the second set in New York City's lush rainforests and teeming swamps. Wait, what?

The first Crysis took place on a tropical island. The second Crysis took place in New York City. The third mashes these two environments together, thanks to the power of the sinister Cell Corporation's Nanodome. Yes, New York City has been encased in a bubble and transformed into an urban rainforest, with seven distinct environments (known as the Seven Wonders) ready to put Prophet's skills and technology to the limit.

It's the perfect place for a bow, as it turns out, like the one we saw during last week's leak.

"Crysis 3 is a thrilling mix of sandbox gameplay, advanced combat and hi-tech human and alien weaponry that shooter fans will love," said Cevat Yerli, chief executive officer of Crytek via the official press release. "Leveraging the latest CryENGINE technology, we're able to deliver seven unique themes that offer stunning and visually loaded gameplay experiences. We cannot wait until people get their hands on the game."

And EA cannot wait to get fans lined up to play. Despite the game's 2013 release date, Origin is already taking preorders, with customers that commit early to the Crysis 3 Hunter Edition scoring early access to the bow weapon and double experience points in multiplayer up to level five.

They've even lined up retailer-exclusive preorder bonuses already:

• Stalker Pack – Includes the base game, all Hunter Edition content and the following early multiplayer unlocks: for players who like to stalk their prey from the shadows the Stalker Pack provides early multiplayer access to the deadly semi-auto Jackal shotgun. This powerful, close-range shotgun comes with a unique silencer attachment, custom weapon skin and two exclusive themed in-game dog tags.
• Overkill Pack – Includes the base game, all Hunter Edition content and the following early multiplayer unlocks: the Overkill Pack features early multiplayer access to the Typhoon assault weapon and skin. Spewing 500 rounds a second, the Typhoon gives players the ability to go guns blazing to take back the Liberty Dome. Also included are two exclusive Overkill themed in-game dog tags.
• Predator Pack – Includes the base game, all the Hunter Edition content and the following early multiplayer unlocks: the Predator Pack delivers early multiplayer access to the Feline submachine gun and exclusive camo. With an extremely fast rate of fire and a 60 round magazine the Feline is highly effective and deadly, at short range.

So yes, EA and Crytek would really like you to play Crysis 3, eventually. Did I mention the hunter has become the hunted, and that everyone is a target in Prophet's quest for retribution? I probably should have. That sort of originality must be lauded.

Who's excited?

With Crysis 3 on the way, even if we know almost nothing about it, we can at least guess it'll feature improved visuals from the second game in the series.

Especially since developers Crytek just announced a range of upgrades to their proprietary engine, including "revamped DirectX 11 tessellation, advanced character rendering options" and an "improved AI system".

What does that mean? Pretty things can now look a little prettier. As you can see in the video above.

Free CryENGINE 3 SDK 3.4 available [Crytek]

Crysis has long been a benchmark for PC hardware, a high-octane series packed to the brim with nasty aliens and powerful graphics.

So it only makes sense that developer Crytek's next project is a cartoon game for your phone. Coming this spring for iOS and Android, Fibble is a physics-based puzzle game starring adorable extraterrestrials with names like Byte and Vroom.

Speaking in a press release, Crytek CEO and President Cevat Yerli called the new project "an incredibly exciting step."

"The way that people play games on mobile devices is a real blessing," he said. "This allows us to get back to our roots, experiment and focus our energy on creating great gameplay experiences while still keeping Crytek's high production values."

Hope my iPhone's graphics card can handle it.

Sean Tracy, a technical designer for Crysis studio Crytek, tweeted this morning that he is at a Durango summit in London. Two weeks ago, Kotaku reported that Durango is the codename for Microsoft's next Xbox. [Twitter, via NeoGAF]

Crytek, the developers behind the Crysis series (and the CryEngine), will soon be helping release their own online multiplayer gaming service. It has a stupid name, but everything else about it is very interesting.

It's called GFACE. Seriously. Get over the name, though, and you see it's trying to take online gaming on a PC (and other devices) to a very slick and sociable place.

While saying that the product is run by a "a small team with big ideas", GFACE's creators acknowledge they are "backed up by a well known critically acclaimed game studio: Crytek. We share not only technology and vision, but the commitment to deliver the highest possible quality". All the group's vacant job positions are all hosted on Crytek's website.

As a network, GFACE is built around friends lists, obviously, but with a few key alterations to the way most existing services do things. For one, it's got embedded video chat right there in the framework. It also has a drag-and-drop invite system similar to the way Battlefield 3's Battlelog rus, and again like Battlelog, GFACE operates in a browser.

And that's where it gets interesting. Unlike Battlelog, which was designed for a single game, GFACE's browser plug-in also operates as a streaming agent, meaning you don't actually play the games off your PC, you'd be streaming them in from off-site, ala OnLive.

So, like you can see in the multi-device shot in the gallery above, the guy on the PC plays a traditional 3D first-person shooter game, while other players on iOS devices play command or support roles designed specifically for their hardware. Yet they're all playing the same game, because it all - in theory, at least - runs in a browser and not on the actual device.

It's also taking a page out of Xbox Live's books by letting you access those same friends lists and functionality while watching media.

Perhaps most ambitious, though, is the fact gaming is just part of what Crytek wants GFACE to do. There's a whole raft of social applications similar to what Facebook and Twitter currently do built into the system as well, which you can see in the video in the gallery above.

GFACE is currently in closed beta.