Crysis Warhead to be released on the 16th, will have online activation

Highly anticipated standalone expansion pack for last year's Crysis, titled 'Crysis Warhead' will be released on the 12th in Europe and 16th in the US. Speaking of the game, this will not be a sequel to Crysis and will not be the second part of the planned Crysis trilogy. Instead, Crysis Warhead will feature the same story of Crysis, seen through the eyes of a different Crysis member (Psycho).

I was curious to know as to what protection this game would implement, it being an EA games release. EA's recent releases have been bundled with online activated SecuROM, something that has challenged scene groups for quite a while. It looks like EA are shipping Warhead with the same protection. Check this DVD cover and look closely at what's written in third paragraph (bottom). A zoomed up version is displayed below:

crysis_online_act

Anyway veteran scene group RELOADED have been all over this new SecuROM which came with a few recent releases.

2008-09-10 23:29:11 Iso Alone.In.The.Dark-RELOADED

2008-09-05 00:13:10 Mercenaries.2.World.In.Flames.Crackfix-RELOADED.NUKE:protection.still.active_emulation.workaround.slowing.down.performance

2008-09-05 00:11:32 Iso Mercenaries.2.World.In.Flames.Crackfix-RELOADED

2008-09-04 23:53:11 Iso Mercenaries.2.World.In.Flames-RELOADED

2008-09-04 23:53:09 Spore.Crackfix-RELOADED.NUKE:protection.still.active_emulation.workaround.slowing.down.performance

2008-09-04 23:49:32 Iso Spore.Crackfix-RELOADED

Out of the three games mentioned above, I've only played Spore. That did have server activated SecuROM (so did Alone in the Dark) and I have played the RELOADED release (with initial fix, not the crackfix which got nuked) just fine and did not notice any particular slowdowns.

Razor1911 released the original Crysis, 3 days before the game's street date. Which group will release Warhead? At the moment RELOADED seems to be a fine guess. While you wait for the game to be released, why not check some screenshots?