Crysis 2 Multiplayer: How To Level Up Fast

Crysis 2 multiplayer is a tricky mode, requiring a keen eye and fast reactions. To help you come out on top and earn bounties of XP in the process, we’ve created this useful guide to walkthrough the early levels.

Combat

Stealth Cloak

Making good use of the stealth cloak (R2/RB) will help you win most matches. Though it doesn’t make you entirely invisible – you can spot a slight person-shaped light diffusion – it does give you an advantage. Activate it just before turning a corner or crossing open terrain.

Find a good vantage spot and hide in your cloak as you look out for enemies below. More often than not you won’t be spotted, so use the opportunity to surprise your enemies. This can be done with a sniper rifle from a distance or with an assault rifle from mid to close range. In Crysis 2, the height advantage always wins.

Armour

Don’t bother keeping armour active since it will slowly sap your energy. Instead, have a trigger finger ready for the first sign of contact and switch it on immediately. If you’re fast enough – and the enemy don’t have their armour on – then this will even be able to save you from a flank attack.

Using a combo of stealth and armour is the best way to dominate a match. You can’t have both active at the same time, however, so use armour ability to simultaneously strengthen your defence and deactivate your cloak.

Regulate Energy

If you deplete your energy entirely it will take a brief moment before it can be used again, meaning anything from running to jumping will be impossible. As you can imagine, this will be a problem if you’re suddenly attacked during this state.

Avoid this by keeping an eye on your energy uses. Don’t run if you’re low on energy, since it only takes a couple of seconds before it’s back to full capacity anyway. And while you’re cloaking in and out of locations, make sure you watch out for the ‘Low Energy’ warning – when this happens, decloak and take cover until you’re charged again.

Melee When Possible

Like Halo, Crysis 2 melee attacks require two smacks before finally dropping an enemy – however, if you manage to approach your enemies without being spotted then quickly jab the right stick twice and they’ll drop quickly.

Not only will this earn you an extra 50 experience points, but it means you’ll avoid highlighting yourself on your enemies’ minimaps since you won’t have fired your weapon. Get a bit of practice and learn when good melee opportunities arise.

Detach Heavy Guns

Some of Crysis 2’s multiplayer maps come with mounted machine guns that deal heavy damage. While these are useful in their positions – covering the open areas they’re taking vigil over – they can be detached and carried anywhere.

With sensible usage, however, these powerful weapons will quickly rack up the kills. Crouching, burst shots while aiming down the sights will dramatically increase the accuracy of the heavy weapon and, though the spread is quite varied, it only needs a couple of bullets – even over range – to bring an enemy down. It will slow you down, however, so remember to use your armour ability.

Nanovision Spots Stealth

Press down on the D-pad and you will activate Nanovision, AKA heat detection. This will let you spot stealthed enemies, providing they are in a close enough range for the scanners to pick them up.

Don’t keep this active, however, as it will drain your energy – especially when combined with stealth or armour abilities – so only use it as you enter into an area where you know (or assume) your opponents will be hiding.

Dog Tags

While collecting these will add your opponents name to your database of kills, their uses are far more useful than that. Collect three, five or seven dog tags without dying and you’ll earn a corresponding killstreak, the choice of which is dependant on the map you’re playing on.

This means sniper’s are unlikely to get any of the bonuses, from UAV to the ion cannon, since they won’t be close enough to collect the dog tags. If you like to get a little assistance for your kills, stick to close ranged combat.

Perks

A sensible decision is required when unlocking any of the early perks, so we describe each one and put them in order of importance. The later perks are unlocked when you reach level six in the corresponding class.

Armour

Armour Enhance: This perk is the most useful out of the initial four as it makes your ability considerably stronger, keeping you alive for longer in the thick of battle.

Threat Tracer: While it’s easy to detect where the enemy are firing at you at the best of times, Threat Tracer will highlight their bullet shots even when they’re not firing at you.

Proximity Alarm: You may consider this most useful to help you detect when enemies are nearby, however, all it really does is turn a white bar by your minimap red and – when enemies are stealthed – it only confuses you more.

Air Stomp: This is a personal preference, but for the limited uses this attack has it’s likely there’s a better option available. It will damage your enemies, but the recovery time makes it hard to recommend.

Later perks: If you want quicker recharging health and energy then this is the class for you to concentrate on levelling up.

Stealth

Blind Spot: This will keep you from appearing as a red dot when enemies use their UAV ability, so highly recommended. It won’t stop you appearing when firing a weapon however.

Jammer: Should an enemy get too close, their radar will get jammed, stopping them from tracking your position. This is only really useful if you know an enemy is around, so equip it with consideration.

Covert Ops: While having silent footsteps does mean you can assault enemies by surprise easier, if you’re close enough for them to hear your footsteps it’s probably already too late for them.

Stealth Enhance: You start with this perk, so you don’t have to worry about whether to unlock it – however, since all it does is unnoticeably alter the speed at which you shift into stealth, it’s largely unnecessary.

Later perks: With abilities to track or spot enemy players better, Stealth’s later perks are worth focusing on levelling up first.

Power

Aim Enhance: All of the Power class of perks are worth using, so it’s mostly down to choice. Aim Enhance, however, is the most useful since it drastically reduces recoil when firing down the sights.

Weapon Pro: This will dramatically decrease reload time, the use of which is dependent how often you get killed reloading or your preference of weapon type – SMGs won’t benefit much from this.

Point Fire Enhance: If firing from the hip is your preferred style then this is the perk for you. It reduces the spread of your weapons’ bullets when firing on the move, meaning your bullets will hit more often than not.

Side Pack: You’ll start with this perk, however a single clip isn’t a noticeable difference in your ammo count, especially when you can scavenge for ammunition and weapons during a match.

Later perks: This will take longer to level up than the other two classes, but has the most effective later classes – ranging from the option of two primary weapons to reducing energy loss.