CryEngine 3 SDK offered for free

The battle of the engines continues. Crytek has announced that the SDK for its CryEngine 3 will be free--not unlike the competing Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games.

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The battle of the engines continues. Crytek has announced that the SDK for its CryEngine 3 will be free--not unlike the competing Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games. The free toolset includes the CryEngine 3 Sandbox level editor, and promises to be updated regularly, "to make sure our community has access to all the advances we make to CryEngine 3."

Curiously, the press release says the free SDK will make "next generation games for PC," omitting the fact that the engine also works on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

“With the release of our SDK we encourage creators to try out CryEngine 3 and hope it will lead to new companies being formed and using our engine," Carl Jones, Director of Global Business Development said in a press release. "More importantly we expect to increase the talent pool for CryEngine developers, as well as boosting our online community of users."

"This SDK contains more toys than we’ve ever released before – it empowers people to create whole new games from scratch, not just mod Crytek’s own games, so we encourage all aspiring and indie developers to try it out."

Like Unreal Engine, the SDK is only free for non-commercial purposes. Should you want to make a game for commercial release, Crytek will take a 20% cut of revenues from the launch of the game. Epic has a slightly different policy. Unreal Engine is royalty-free for the first $50,000 in revenue, but demands a 25% cut after that threshold.

You can also download the SDK from Shacknews.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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  • reply
    August 17, 2011 5:00 PM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, CryEngine 3 SDK offered for free.

    The battle of the engines continues. Crytek has announced that the SDK for its CryEngine 3 will be free--not unlike the competing Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games.

    • reply
      August 17, 2011 5:09 PM

      This is pretty cool :D More free tools to mess with.

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      August 17, 2011 5:18 PM

      Hopefully someone will do something amazing with the real-time GI.

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        August 17, 2011 5:20 PM

        Giant, pulsating, realistic trees?

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      August 17, 2011 5:40 PM

      Seriously, author?

      "Curiously, the press release says the free SDK will make "next generation games for PC," omitting the fact that the engine also works on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3."

      First you report 6-month old story like it's brand new, then you comment on a press release as if the company that wrote it doesn't understand the product they're putting out? They don't mention consoles because the FREE SDK IS PC ONLY. If you're making a game for 360 or PS3, you're paying licensing to MS or Sony and will be paid for that game, which means you will need to work out licensing with Crytek. They say it plainly on the page you linked:

      "If you want to move your game onto platforms other than PC, or you need access to CryENGINE 3 source code, please contact Crytek to find out more about our licensing for Independent Studios."

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        August 17, 2011 7:24 PM

        lol... last name "Yoon" ...he's still learning, jacob.

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      August 17, 2011 6:34 PM

      Can you actually play around in this? Or you limited to the editor mode?

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        August 17, 2011 7:04 PM

        Not sure what you're asking.. I think the source code is available and you can add to it, so you can do more than just modding.

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          August 18, 2011 1:49 AM

          Not all the source code. Just enough.

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      August 17, 2011 8:49 PM

      [deleted]

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      August 18, 2011 2:18 AM

      Do you have to own crysis 2 to download cryengine sdk?

    • reply
      August 18, 2011 5:35 AM

      Cryengine always looks good - but which games have actually licensed their engine?

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