Forget the fancy compound bow. It looks like you're going to need weed-whackers to journey through the lush overgrowth that's choking New York City in Crysis 3.

These screens—grabbed by Polygon from the personal site of lighting artist Pierre-Yves Donzallaz before they were taken down—show the Big Apple in a state of natural disaster. Gorgeous lighting effects and texture details have always been a Crytek signature and the dev studio's upcoming shooter looks like it's going to continue that tradition.

Crysis 3 Canyon Environment [Pierre-Yves Donzallaz, via Polygon]

Occasionally we in the world of games journalism are asked by people in the world of public relations what we thought of a game we just saw. Surely, anything I could say to them, I could say to you, reader of Kotaku. And I should, right? Otherwise I'm just doing free consultation.

In answer to those who asked what I liked or didn't like about Crysis 3 after I played the February 2013 first-person shooter several weeks ago, I'd say, first of all, that I'm hoping to like this game more than I did Crysis 2. That 2011 game presented the promise of open-ended level design but its campaign was ultimately more constricted and funneling than I expected. For a game that was supposed to be the thinking gamer's Call of Duty, it was too, well, Call of Duty.

I was, therefore, happy that the one level I've played of Crysis 3—the dam-detonating level you see chopped up in the trailer above—felt like it offered a variety of tactical options. I could play through it stealthily or aggressively. I could stick to the water or fight on land. I could work my through the level's main building or around it. I liked all of that.

The Crysis games fetishize the super-suit worn by the the player's character. The suit lets you jump really high, turn nearly invisible, punch trees and so on. Crysis 2 made a big deal about the suit always crashing, re-booting and apparently upgrading, though all of that seemed like inconsequential special effects to me. I'm not sure Crysis 3 will do a better job with the suit, but now they've added a new item to fetishize, one that I like more: the bow-and-arrow.

The prevalence of bows and arrows among the games at this past E3 became a bad joke, but Crysis 3 gets a pass from me. Its' bow-and-arrow is great and fits the series perfectly. Over in the new Tomb Raider, we've got a bow-and-arrow that is used as a survival weapon, as a sort of gun-replacement in a place where guns aren't easily obtained. In Crysis 3, the bow and arrow feels like something better than a gun. It's lethal, it fires fast and, best of all, it's quiet. Previously, Crysis was a game about trading off power for stealth, of choosing to forgo one's own cloaking device when it's time to uncork a spray of machine gun fire. In Crysis 3, the bow and arrow feels like the best of all worlds, offering quiet lethality, a combo that feels like it trumps the tactical options of the previous game. This particular weapon also suits the Crysis series' appeal to the shooter player's tactical mind, requiring them to use the ammunition in their quiver efficiently and encouraging them to pick up their spent arrows to use them again.

The new game will let players hack and use alien weapons and still offers bunches of suit upgrades. These features don't interest me much, nor does a perpetuation of the previous game's plant-overgrowth-in-the-city aesthetic. While other shooters globe-hop perhaps more than they should, it feels that Crysis may be erring in staying too still. The new game is supposed to feature a variety of climates and terrain in special biodomes that house the game's urban levels. But the overall foliage-and-steel look that I've seen makes this new game look, to me, like an add-on to a Crysis 2 campaign that had already gone on too long for me. I'm hoping to see more visual variety than we've seen so far.

I did not attend EA's E3 press conference a month ago, and I was surprised to hear that this game closed the show. I'd walked away from my demo of the game feeling that Crytek's series was on the upswing, but I did not walk away feeling that it was grand finale material. Blame the marketing team or show organizers for that, I guess.

I have a hard time seeing where Crysis 3 fits in and it remains a sequel that risks being one too many in a crowded field. For me, it needs to be best at something or at least interestingly different. Crysis 3, however, feels a shade more conservative than the next Call of Duty, which is adding branching story to its own previously-safe formula. I am now looking toward first-person shooters such as Metro Last Light and its striking Russian post-apocalypse for my FPTS aesthetic left turn. I now look to whatever the former Infinity Ward folks at Respawn Entertainment are doing for the next big shake-up in first-person shooting game design. I wasn't the kind of person who was dying for a new Crysis and I could, honestly, have been content without one.

But there's something about this game's bow and arrow. It was just about the most satisfying weapon to shoot of all the E3 games I played. Can one weapon alone make a game? I don't know, but it's something I can say got my attention and got me to care about what comes next for Crysis.

Crytek is building Warface, the studio's first freemium shooter, shown recently at E3. It's also going to deliver Crysis 3, a more traditional FPS, sometime in 2013. Whenever the studio finishes off its current committments, CEO Cevat Yerli told VideoGamer.com, it will be developing free-to-play games only.

Yerli considers DLC and premium gaming services, both of which Crysis 3 publisher Electronic Arts is very fond, to be "milking customers to death."

"Right now we are in the transitional phase of our company, transitioning from packaged goods games into an entirely free-to-play experience," he said to VideoGamer.com.

"I think this is a new breed of games that has to happen to change the landscape, and be the most user-friendly business model."

Yerli says top-flight games Crytek produces still require a $10 to $30 million budget, they'll just get an entry price point of, oh, zero dollars. Obviously, they'll be monetized through the sale of upgraded items. Is this really milking consumers any less? More of his thoughts on freemium model at the link below.

Crytek: All our future games will be free-to-play [VideoGamer.com]

Sorry if that sounds a little "glorious master race", but hey, when you look at what Crytek are able to do with the wet stuff in this DirectX 11 tech video, there's really no other way to describe it.

One thing though: that sort of chop would look at home somewhere in the North Atlantic. So close to shore? It's a little much.

Crytek's vision of a New York jungle is sadly not the same as the Wu-Tang Clan's. Once I'm over the disappointment of that fact, I'll probably be ready to enjoy all those lovely green trees a little more.

Here's a great trailer for Crysis 3, shown today at EA's E3 press conference. Crysis 3 is out next February for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

My, there certainly is a lot going on in this Crysis 3 shot. We've got those CELL dudes from Crysis 2 back, haplessly wandering around as usual, waiting to get killed.

But now, our nanosuit-wearing protagonist (Still Alcatraz? You know, I weirdly love Crysis 2 and I can't remember what happened to the dude in the end)… anyway, our nanosuit-wearing protagonist is ready to stick some arrows into 'em.

And hey, over there by a tree is one of his victims, stuck with an arrow like a chump.

Lookin' good, Crysis 3.

Check out these beautiful new pictures and concept art for Crysis 3, the upcoming sandbox shooter that will be released next year for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

There are aliens, a composite bow, and a whole bunch of rubble. It all looks pretty. Really pretty. Really really really pretty.

(We saw a few of these shots when they were leaked a few weeks ago, but most are new. And real official-like.)

All kinds of vegetative devastation happens to the Big Apple in EA's upcoming threeequel. We've already gotten a preview of the new mechanics and weapons of the Cryek-developed FPS but these new screens show even more detail than before.

Flooded streets, crumbling buildings and a scarcity of any other human beings hint that this Crysis will be a different, moodier affair than Crysis 2 when it hits next year.

Crysis 3 [All Games Beta, via Reddit]

On the corner of Brannan and Embarcadero streets in San Francisco, CA., an entire block is dedicated to what appears to be a Mediterranean-style condo complex.

I recently attended an Electronic Arts event there showing Crysis 3 and Battlefield 3: Close Quarters, and the unassuming architecture and building front had only one way in, through an electronic black gate. It took me a while of walking up and down the street to realize this was the entrance and the place.

It would be easy to pass by. And it would be normally safe to assume that wealthy, upper class people live the good life there. The valuable real estate faces the East Bay Bridge right across the street from the Embarcadero piers.

That assumption would be flat wrong.

The 600 Embarcadero Street address is home of the Delancey Street Foundation, a unique self-help organization designed to turn around the lives of former substance abusers, homeless, ex-convicts, and gang members. "The Average resident has been a hard-core drug user and alcohol abuser, has been in prison, is unskilled, functionally illiterate, and has a personal history of violence and generations of poverty," states the site's FAQ.

And, it appears, it's an excellent location to demo video games.

"Delancey Street is a great venue," said Peter Nguyen, director of PR, EA Games Label. "There are only so many venues with theaters in San Francisco. There is Dolby, the Metreon, which is a big theater but nothing else, and Delancey Street. We showed off Bulletstorm there about three years ago, and with Crysis 3, we wanted an intimate setting, easy access, and we needed that theater setting. We have that at EA, but we wanted to spice it up."

Delancey Street started in 1971 with four people. For more than four decades, it has been an award-winning, widely acclaimed social organization that's received hundreds of civic, social, and educational awards, as well as having appeared on The Oprah Show, The Discovery Channel, and in The New York Times, Hope Magazine, the San Jose Mercury News, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among others. During its 40-year existence, more than 14,000 men and women have graduated from it to become lawyers, firemen, salespeople, truck drivers, mechanics, and realtors.

The unique social program takes in the disenfranchised and, in either a two- or four-year program, educates, trains, and graduates them back into mainstream society as functioning, non-violent, drug and alcohol free citizens. Graduates, many of whom cannot even repeat the alphabet, or are lifetime gang members and murderers, or have been reared as prostitutes over several generations, will earn a minimum high school equivalency degree (GED) and receive training in three marketable skills. Four-year graduates can earn an in-house B.A. achieved with accredited universities. Those accepted into the program live on the premises and work for free—and remain drug, alcohol, and crime free.

The "three marketable skills" comprise one interpersonal/sales skill, one clerical/computer skill, and one manual skill. There are current 15 vocational programs. They include accounting and bookkeeping; automotive and truck mechanical repair and painting; Christmas tree sales and commercial decorating; coach and paratransit transportation services; coffeehouse, art gallery, and bookstore retail; construction and property management; digital printing and banners, silk-screen, and framing; film screening; handcrafted wood, terrarium, iron works, and furniture work; moving and trucking; retail and advertising specialities sales; restaurant, catering, event and wedding planning; upholstery/sewing; warehousing, and welding.

This remarkable organization mixes idealistic concepts with hard, realistic practices. But its social model—"each one teach one"—which focuses on self-reliance, family, and community, is what makes it run. Designed as an educational rather than therapeutic paradigm, Delancey is a life learning center. People start from the bottom up and learn to work together as a unit. Each person must teach the other: older residents guide younger ones, and more experienced residents educate newer ones. For example, new residents are responsible for guiding the next new resident. Perhaps even more important—there are no paid staff members, and everyone works.

So just exactly how do former drug addicts, criminals, and gang members live and work together peacefully? In addition to the "each one teach one" principle is another one: any act of violence, or threat of violence, is cause for immediate removal from the program. Over time, the facility starts early entrants in dorm-rooms and moves them up to their own apartment rooms.

Delancey Street's economic model is also impressive. Neither the residents nor the president of the foundation are paid. The group pools its resources and has never accepted government funds for its operations. Its 12 ventures, which range from the Crossroads Cafe, Bookstore and Gallery, its catering service, private car service, moving and trucking operations, landscaping, and screening room services—including the $150/hour theater we sat in—fund about 55% to 65% of the operation.

About 25%-35% of funds come from corporate donations of product or services, and approximately 5%-15% of funds come from financial donations. The most recent audit shows 98.6% of Delancey Street's expenditures were allocated to programs, with 1.4% to administration and funding.

It's hard to imagine such an idyllic place even exists—and just how many successes its founders and residents have experienced. The 400,000 square foot facility currently houses more than 500 residents, was built in 1990 in the south of Market Street area (known as SoMa), where then-Mayor Diane Feinstein dug the first shovel-full of dirt at the foundation's groundbreaking ceremony, and Pulitzer Prize winning architectural critic Allen Temko has called it "a masterpiece of social design."

Since its humble beginnings of a $1,000 loan in 1971, Delancey Street has expanded its operations beyond San Francisco. It runs similar facilities in Los Angeles, New Mexico, North Carolina, and New York. All this built on the idea of taking down-and-out people deemed unfit for society, and empowering them with a sense of community and family, giving them work—and a sense of dignity.

The screening room where we saw Crysis 3—and where three years ago EA debuted Bulletstorm—is a 150-seat, THX certified screening room offering Simplex 35mm projectors and digital video projection, a stage, and a 24' X 11' screen. It's considered one of the three best screening rooms in San Francisco.

It's the place where the Director's Guild holds monthly screenings, where the Academy of Motion Pictures holds screenings, and where singer Bonnie Raitt, director Ron Howard, and actors such as Sean Penn, Robin Williams, Dennis Quaid, and Charlize Theron have held private parties.

"I always knew about the [Delancey Street] restaurant because I used to live close to it," added Nguyen. "So when we started looking for places to show Bulletstorm [in 2010], we saw the great menu and their social cause. It's an added bonus. More power to them. We like working with them: they are very professional and accommodating."

I can tell you that learning about, and experiencing, the property and people at Delancey Street was touching. I'm generally a positive guy, but The Delancey Street experience inspired me to look into its amazing story. Every one of the people in the Cafe and in the theater was positive and professional. It made me feel hopeful about humanity.

To my knowledge in this industry, only EA has used this venue to show off games. Compared to the dozens of often dirty, sticky, cramped bars and saloons in San Francisco, it's not only an ideal location due to its proximity to CalTrain and the Embarcadero piers, but spending money to better humanity—a theme similar to the many games themselves, despite the violent means of getting there—seems like the kind of good will we could all get used to.