MyCrysis community member "WaR_SPiRiT" has put together his own mappack for PC users which is available FOR FREE!  The map pack contains 5 different maps and was created using the Crysis 2 Editor.  Read below for an interview with the man himself, and information on how YOU can get your hands on the map pack!

Introduce yourself, what do you do and how did you get started with Crysis 2?

My gamer name’s War Spirit, I’m 18 from Scotland (that’s that little rock at the top of the UK). I play Crysis 2 a lot! I do a lot of Youtube content for Crysis 2 (www.youtube.com/warspirituk) including gameplay commentaries, montages, a top 5 series and more. On the other hand I’m currently in my second year at University doing a Masters of Engineering degree focusing on Audio and Video. I had been waiting on Crysis 2 since the start of 2011 and was super hyped when the release date turned out to be the same day as my birthday. I played Crysis Wars a lot before that, so I knew what the deal was and I just couldn’t wait to get my hands on the second one.

How long did it take to create the map pack?

The map pack was definitely the most time I’ve put into the Sandbox editor so far. I started working on it about 2 weeks ago and worked on it most nights. The final weekend before release was fun, spending a lot of hours testing out the maps looking for bugs, fixing them, and then doing more tests and adding finishing touches. Then of course there was making the trailer which I had to spend a lot of time in the maps with my clan, SiTH, online recording little action scenes.

What were your goals for this map pack?

I really want to get more people into the Custom Maps Scene for Crysis 2. It was (and still is) HUGE in Crysis Wars. A lot of people don’t even realise that there are custom maps in Crysis 2, filters in the server browser are always set to Ranked and non-empty servers, which means custom maps never get played. I figured a tasteful well-advertised trailer and some official looking content would get more people interested. So far it really has paid off. I’m really happy with the success of the pack in the first day.

Can we expect any more maps in the future?

Definitely! Although I think I might love playing the game too much. But once you get started on a project you can really get into it and instead stop playing the game and start spending more time in the editor! I’ll be downloading the recent update for the editor soon, really want to check out the updates to the Forest map. I’ve seen lots of videos and every time I think wow, I need to convert this into a multiplayer map for Crysis 2. Still I’ve got a lot of work to do for University now so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Do you have any tips for someone else thinking of making their own maps?

Yeah, people looking to start should definitely look at the online Sandbox Manual for Crysis 2, it helped me out a lot, I always had it open when I was in the editor along with Crydev and the search function. I learned a lot of things just through putting the maps together in the editor finding new things that I didn’t know were there, finding simpler ways to do things that had made things really tricky before. A lot of it is experimenting, that’s the good thing about making a few maps at a time, you might find something out later on that would help you with the first map you started. I found myself going back to the first one I finished and touching it up with some new cool stuff I’d discovered. If your into making custom maps for Crysis 2 I found that what really helps make a map successful is making sure you have the preview image and a nice mini-map functioning, it gives your map that edge over the others. The editor’s a lot of fun but at times it can feel like everything you’ve done is wasted just asking on the forums is always the best solution and that’s what helped me a lot too!

How can other users download and play your map pack?

It’s really simple! Just download the zip folder, there’s a readme in there with instructions. You basically just copy the map-pack folder into the Crysis 2 folder and then you can start Crysis 2 and get on the maps! Make sure you turn off all your filters when searching for servers as Custom Maps are Unranked. My map-pack is currently hosted 24/7 on the fVic| Custom 24/7 | SiTH server, so searching for Sith or Fvic in the filters will bring it up and you can play all the maps as long as you like! Thanks for reading, and thanks to Cry-Tom for the interview!

Download the map pack here

Installation:

1. Unzip files using a program such as 7Zip or Winzip.
2. Open the downloaded folder and paste "gamecrysis2" to Crysis 2 game folder. - "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis 2" or "C:\Program Files\OriginGames\Crysis(R) 2".
3. Allow folders to merge.
4. Launch Crysis 2 Multiplayer.