This is a timeline of events preceding and chronicling the Crysis games.
Millions of Years Ago
- The Ceph land on Earth in one or more locations, and begin construction of their dwellings. Their purpose here is unknown, as is their point of origin (speculated to be the galaxy M33) and the cause of their eventual retreat into hibernation.
1896
- Jacob Hargreave was born to a middle-class family in Ohio.
1918
- An explosion known as the Tunguska event takes place in Russia. It was supposedly caused by a meteor or comet fragment.
- Jacob Hargreave discovers first signs of Ceph technology in Siberia.
1919
- Karl Rasch and his American friends, Jacob Hargreave and Walter Gould, lead a private expedition to investigate the site of the Tunguska event. The events that transpire there are unknown, but led to the discovery of the Ceph and the resulting the deaths of the expedition members except Hargreave, Rasch, and Gould. Hargreave was able to carry the other two injured men across the Siberian wastes in an apparently superhuman demonstration of strength and endurance before being found by a British expeditionary force operating from Vladivostok. They all ended up with possession of alien technology and knowledge of the threat the Ceph pose to human civilization.
2016
- The Nanosuit program begins its development and is finalised some time after Lockhart's meeting with the Senate.
April 18
- Commander Dominic Lockhart attends a Senate meeting on the use of the Nanosuit armor in the military and the funding for deploying the suits. Lockhart conflicts with Senators M'Benga and Dubain in fully utilizing the Nanosuit armor and its unrivaled capabilities and explains the side-effects of wearing the suit, such as symbiosis with its users and overriding of the nervous system beyond normal functions. This is all due to Lockhart's loss of his nephew in the project. At the end of the meeting, Lockhart vows that he will not support the Nanosuit program's existence.
2020
- The founder of CryNet Systems, Jacob Hargreave, produces the Nanosuit 1.0, the pioneer platform of extremely advanced tactical combat armor. All future Nanosuit models are to be based around this initial design.
- The aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Constitution is completed.
August 7
- North Korea began detecting signals from an island off of the Lingshan chain. Shortly after, the Korean People's Army evacuated all civilians and held Dr. Rosenthal's archaeology team hostage. Dr. Rosenthal's daughter, Helena, sent a distress call to the United States. The United States began to notice abnormal heat signatures and high-frequency signals emanating from the island, and incorrectly assumed they were the result of nuclear tests being carried out by North Koreans.
August 14
- US forces deploy a single 5 man Nanosuit team (Raptor) onto Lingshan Island to retrieve the Research Team and recon the island.
Crysis and Crysis Warhead
Day 1 - August 14, 2020
Contact
- Raptor Team, consisting of Prophet, Nomad, Psycho, Jester, and Aztec, parachutes onto the island in the early morning hours. Their goal is to find and rescue the research team.
- Aztec is killed by a mysterious entity while trapped in a tree.
- Raptor Team learns of General Kyong's presence on the island and finds the Lusca's Call frozen miles inland. Jester is kidnapped and killed by an alien scout.
Recovery
- Nomad and Psycho raid a village where a member of Rosenthal's team is being held hostage. She explains that the research team discovered an ancient artifact that the Koreans want.
- Nomad meets up with Prophet, who reveals the rescued hostage was actually a CIA agent spying on Rosenthal.
Relic
- Prophet is kidnapped by another alien scout. Major Strickland begins giving Nomad orders in his place.
- Nomad infiltrates Rosenthal's excavation site. General Kyong is revealed to have Rosenthal's daughter Helena hostage. Rosenthal is killed when the room he is in is frozen by a captured alien.
- While Nomad awaits extraction by US military forces, he encounters North Korean troops with their own nanosuits.
Day 2 - August 15, 2020
Assault
- The US military begins a full-scale invasion of the island and begins a war with the Koreans.
- Nomad assists the military, led by Major Strickland, in their invasion by disabling anti-air weapons and a cruiser.
- Nomad meets up with Strickland and they prepare a tank assault. Psycho is sent on his own mission, shown in detail in Crysis Warhead.
Onslaught / Call me Ishmael (Crysis Warhead)
- Nomad, Strickland, and the marines use tanks to push through the Korean defenses.
- The military and Nomad destroy the Korean ammunitions dump.
- Psycho assists the US military in their invasion and destroys a Korean base on the beaches. He witnesses the Koreans airlifting a mysterious container.
- Sean O'Neill, an old friend of Psycho's, is shot down while bombing the base.
Awakening
- Nomad infiltrates a Korean base and discovers the location of the mine in the giant mountain where Kyong is holed up with Helena Rosenthal.
- After fighting off more nanosuit troopers, Nomad enters the mountain but is captured by Kyong. Kyong opens the alien ship inside the mountain, allowing Nomad to escape. Nomad successfully kills Kyong.
- The alien ship begins disintegrating the mountain. While Helena is rescued by the military, Nomad is trapped inside.
Core / Shore Leave (Crysis Warhead)
- Nomad realizes the only way out of the mountain is through the alien ship.
- Inside the ship, Nomad fights off the strange aliens in a zero-gravity environment and eventually escapes.
- Psycho rescues O'Neill. The military believes the Korean container holds a nuclear warhead.
- Psycho enters the submarine where the alleged warhead container is kept. He discovers it contains not a nuclear warhead, but a captured alien scout.
Paradise Lost / Adapt or Perish (Crysis Warhead)
- As Nomad exits the mountain, the alien ship emits a massive ice shockwave, enveloping the middle of the island in a giant energy sphere and freezing everything inside.
- Nomad encounters Prophet in the sphere, and they successfully defeat the aliens and flee the sphere.
- While on the submarine, Psycho is captured by Colonel Ji-Sung Lee. However, the ice shockwave freezes the ocean and the sub.
- Psycho follows the fleeing Lee and the container via hovercraft, but loses them. He meets Eagle Team, another nanosuit team on the island, and they kill a giant alien hunter.
Frozen Paradise (Crysis Warhead)
- Psycho and Eagle Team maneuver through a frozen aircraft carrier to get to the mining complex.
- Eagle Team fights off waves of alien attackers as Psycho enters the mine.
Exodus / Below the Thunder (Crysis Warhead)
- Nomad and Prophet meet up with the military outside the sphere and flee the aliens.
- They rescue Helena, whose VTOL has crashed, and find Strickland evacuating the troops from the island.
- Helena, Nomad and Prophet manage to board a VTOL and escape, along with Sherman Barclay. However, Strickland is killed trying to hold off an alien hunter.
- Psycho fights his way through the mine.
- Eventually, Psycho finds the alleged warhead container on a train, which he boards.
From Hell's Heart (Crysis Warhead)
- Psycho rides the train through the jungle, with the help of O'Neill in a VTOL.
- The train eventually arrives at a bridge, where Lee ambushes Psycho. In the process, an innocent marine is killed, and Lee escapes with the container.
Ascension / All the Fury (Crysis Warhead)
- Nomad flies a VTOL through heavy alien swarms.
- He eventually makes it successfully to the USS Constitution.
- Psycho takes out his anger about his failure to save the marine on an unarmed Korean nanosuit trooper. He then infiltrates the airfield where Lee intends to leave with the container.
- In the ensuing battle, aliens swarm the airfield along with a red alien hunter. Psycho manages to kill the red hunter and the other aliens and retrieve the container with O'Neill.
- Lee makes one last attempt to steal the container. He and Psycho duel and Lee loses, being left to the mercy of the massive alien warship. Psycho and O'Neill then return to the navy fleet safely.
Day 3 - August 16, 2020
Reckoning
- Nomad meets up with Psycho and sees the alien from the container. Admiral Richard Morrison orders a nuclear strike on the island, but instead of killing the aliens, the nuke makes the ice sphere grow. Prophet, acting strangely, returns to the island right before the nuke goes off.
- Thousands of aliens swarm the navy fleet. Morrison is killed and the entire fleet is sunk.
- In the final battle, Nomad kills another alien hunter and uses an experimental nuclear weapon to destroy the alien warship. He flies away from the destroyed fleet with Psycho and Helena.
- As they fly off, they receive a transmission from a still-alive Prophet and the group decides to return to the island.
Unknown
- Tara Strickland, having been informed of her father's death, is discharged from the Navy SEALS, and after recovering from a mental breakdown is later hired by the CIA to work undercover as a CELL Special Advisor.
2021
March 22
- Lockhart convinces the CryNet board to terminate the Nanosuit 2.0 program and warns that the Nanosuit programs are failing many legal safety requirements.
March 28
- CryNet responds to Lockhart and stated that they will still continue their development of the Nanosuit 2.0 due to support and funding from the Pentagon and that the Nanosuit programs will be closely advanced to Stage Seven and Eight under close supervision.
Between 2020 and 2023
- Prophet returns to Hargreave and confronts him about his knowledge of the aliens on the island. Hargreave calls Raptor Team's casualties a necessary sacrifice to see what would happen when the aliens encountered the nanosuits. Prophet storms off and goes rogue.
February 2023
- A Ceph ship was spotted orbiting near Mars and is believed to be preparing a Ceph invasion after the "Manhattan" virus cleans up New York City.
May 2023
- Strange weather events begin affecting New York City and the east coast of the United States.
August 20, 2023
- The Ceph begin emerging from underground in New York City. CELL takes over as the primary human opposition, establishing martial law. A strange infection, emitted by Ceph spore spires, dubbed by the public as the "Manhattan" virus causes thousands of people to become sick, die, and start gruesomely decomposing.
- Prophet in the past 3 years somehow discovered the existence of Ceph ships buried all over the Earth (including the one under New York City), and returns to New York to try to warn the city of his findings. He arrives too late, however; after the invasion has already begun.
August 21, 2023
- U.S. marines are deployed to Manhattan for "humanitarian" reasons and to control the situation in New York City.
Crysis 2
Day 1 - August 23, 2023
- Operation Martyr - Corporal Analee Lansing of CELL HumIntel Acquisition interviews 38-year-old Caitlin Sweet on her eyewitness report of Prophet's sighting with her daughter, Emma, for Operation Martyr, a CELL operation with the goal to eliminate Prophet.
In at the Deep End
- Alcatraz's marine squad is assaulted by the Ceph in the Hudson River. Alcatraz is rescued by Prophet.
Second Chance
- Alcatraz awakens to find himself wearing Prophet's nanosuit; Prophet himself is dead.
- Alcatraz is contacted by Nathan Gould, who believes him to be Prophet. Gould begins leading Alcatraz to his location.
Sudden Impact
- Alcatraz witnesses an Alien Dropship get shot down by CELL helicopters. Gould suggests he raid the crash site for alien DNA, then continue making his way to Gould's lab.
Road Rage
- Alcatraz begins traversing FDR Drive to Gould's lab while CELL forces, led by Commander Lockhart, attempt to kill him, against the orders of Tara Strickland, who wants him alive.
Lab Rat
- Alcatraz finds Gould's lab has been compromised by CELL and Gould himself has moved to a nearby apartment. Alcatraz destroys evidence of Gould's hiding place and makes his way to the apartment.
- Gould discovers "Prophet" is actually Alcatraz. He determines the nanosuit is fusing with Alcatraz's body and reverse engineering the alien DNA, allowing it to be used as a bioweapon. CELL forces raid the building and Alcatraz is separated from Gould.
Gate Keepers
- Alcatraz begins making his way to a CELL Nanotech Facility, where his suit can be analyzed. He destroys two supply tents at a CELL outpost located at Trinity Church to distract CELL forces.
Dead Man Walking
- Alcatraz fights his way into the CELL Nanotech Facility, where he meets up with Gould. They analyze the suit for further information, but Lockhart and Strickland break in and capture them.
- As Alcatraz is loaded into a helicopter, a Ceph spire erupts from the ground. He escapes in the chaos.
Seat of Power
- Alcatraz is contacted by Jacob Hargreave, founder of Hargreave-Rasch Biomedical and Crynet Systems and creator of the nanosuit.
- Hargreave leads Alcatraz through the City Hall area while explaining the nature of the Ceph invaders.
Dark Heart
- Alcatraz is led to destroy the various Ceph spires by Hargreave, using his suit's human-alien DNA hybrid weaponry.
- The US military floods Lower Manhattan by destroying the city's flood barrier in an attempt to kill the Ceph. Alcatraz attempts to escape on a helicopter but fails and is swept up in the waves.
Day 2 - August 24, 2023
- Operation Martyr - Corporal Lansing publishes her report on Prophet's sighting.
Semper Fi or Die
- Alcatraz awakens the next morning to find Chino and a squad of marines. Hargreave instructs them to fight their way to the Hargreave-Rasch building so that Alcatraz can interface his suit with the advanced computers there and hopefully create a cure for the Manhattan virus.
Corporate Collapse
- Alcatraz attacks the Ceph surrounding the Hargreave-Rasch building and enters through the parking garages. Lockhart refuses Hargreave's orders to allow Alcatraz safe passage and goes rogue.
- Before Alcatraz can finish interfacing with the building's computers, the submerged windows shatter and the building is flooded, knocking Alcatraz back into the streets.
- Having failed to generate an anti-virus, Hargreave tells Alcatraz to assist the marines in helping to evacuate civilians from the city.
Train to Catch
- Alcatraz helps civilians get to the rally point at Grand Central Station, where Colonel Barclay begins evacuating them by train.
Unsafe Haven
- Alcatraz assists in the perimeter defense of Grand Central Station, including the demolition of a nearby building in order to block incoming artillery fire.
Terminus
- Alcatraz meets with Barclay inside Grand Central Station, but the Ceph attack as the subways are being evacuated. Gould demands to be allowed to stay, but Barclay refuses.
- Alcatraz helps hold off the Ceph while the civilians evacuate, then he and Barclay make their escape by road as the MetLife Building collapses onto the station.
Power Out
- Alcatraz and Barclay defend the secondary evacuation point at Times Square. An alien spire erupts in the street and Alcatraz destroys it.
- The final VTOLs arrive and Alcatraz and the remaining marines are successfully airlifted.
Day 3 - August 25, 2023
Eye of the Storm
- Alcatraz heads to Roosevelt Island to rescue Hargreave, who has been placed under house arrest by Lockhart.
- After infiltrating the facility, Alcatraz kills Lockhart, but is captured by Tara Strickland on Hargreave's behalf.
Masks Off
- Alcatraz is placed on a medical table, where scientists begin to cut him out of his suit for Hargreave. Alcatraz sees into Prophet's memories and learns that Hargreave knew of the aliens on the Ling Shan islands but told no one, because he wanted to see the effects the aliens had on the nanosuits.
- The suit's fusion with Alcatraz causes it to repel the cutting lasers. As Hargreave suggests killing him, Tara shoots the scientists, revealing herself as an undercover CIA agent. She tells Alcatraz where to find Hargreave, who no one has seen in person.
- Alcatraz finds Hargreave's office, where he learns Hargreave is actually over 150 years old and his body is kept in stasis using Ceph technology; he speaks through an advanced computer that contains his consciousness. Hargreave tells Alcatraz to inject himself with a substance to make his bioweapon capabilities stronger, before activating a self-destruct device buried under the island. Alcatraz narrowly escapes the explosion of Roosevelt Island.
Out of the Ashes
- Alcatraz returns to Manhattan and reunites with Gould, Tara, and Chino. Barclay explains the military will launch a nuclear strike on the city in 20 minutes unless they find a way to stop the Ceph.
- The team rides in a convoy to Central Park, only to watch it rise into the sky, attached to an alien ship buried beneath.
A Walk in the Park
- Alcatraz is dropped onto Central Park. After severely destabilizing the ship, he enters the heart and destroys it with his suit.
- A vision of Prophet appears to him and explains how he went mad after the alien technology began merging with his DNA and the suit, and how the Ceph have hidden ships all over the planet. He then says they must return to finish the battle against the aliens.
- A wave of energy is released from the destroyed ship, killing the aliens throughout New York City. Alcatraz awakens in the rubble and is contacted by Karl Rasch, who asks his name. Alcatraz replies, in Prophet's voice, "They call me...Prophet."
August 27, 2023
- Alcatraz tells the CSIRA BlackBody Council about the events from the day he first wore the nanosuit to the destruction of the Ceph's presence in New York City.
- Nathan Gould, like Alcatraz, is interviewed by the CSIRA BlackBody Council and mostly explains about the Ceph throughout the interviews.
2047
- C.E.L.L. builds Nanodomes in an effort to eradicate the Ceph population and to dominate the world.