rooted in realistic conflicts, while others have involved elements of the supernatural or science fiction. Ubisoft Montreal, the principal developers of the series, do consider that all games share the same common fictional universe, and have reused some minor characters to maintain that, but otherwise anticipate each game can be enjoyed as a standalone title without knowledge of the other games. History Origins with Crytek (2004–2007) The first Far Cry game was developed by the German studio Crytek, and premiered their CryEngine software. One of Crytek's goals with the CryEngine was to be able to render realistic outdoor spaces with large viewing distances, which was a unique feature compared with other game engines at the time of its release. The CryEngine was originally demonstrated as a tech demo at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 1999 under the name X-Isle: Dinosaur Island specifically aimed at NVIDIA graphics processors. The demo allowed the user to explore a virtual tropical island populated with dinosaurs, showcasing the size of the virtual world that the CryEngine could handle. Following E3 1999, they secured a deal with NVIDIA to distribute X-Isle alongside all NVIDIA cards as benchmarking software, as at the time the CryEngine was the most demanding game engine on the market. Ubisoft made a deal with Crytek to build out X-Isle into a full AAA title, and obtained publishing rights for this title. This game develops the story of player-character Jack Carver, who stumbles upon the genetic research of Dr. Krieger and the Krieger Corporation, on a fictional Micronesia island, to create powerful Trigen Beasts as weapons later sold to mercenaries. Far Cry released in March 2004 for Microsoft Windows to critical praise and strong sales, with over 730,000 units sold in the first four months. Following Far Crys release, Crytek, wanting to show that CryEngine had other applications, signed a deal in July 2004 to develop a gaming franchise with publisher Electronic Arts (EA), a direct competitor to Ubisoft. This franchise became the Crysis series, and through which Crytek continued to improve their CryEngine. With Crytek unable to work with them, Ubisoft assigned its studio Ubisoft Montreal to help port the title to the various game consoles through the Far Cry Instincts and Far Cry Vengeance titles. These titles required Ubisoft Montreal to rework much of the game as the consoles at this point in time were not as powerful as personal computers, and