CryEngine 3 SDK available now for free
Above: An early, work-in-progress screenshot of Joystiq Publishing's atmospheric and haunting adventure, Fears for Spheres. We just whipped it up in the last 20 minutes with the aid of the CryEngine 3 SDK, which is now available for free from the CryDev website.
With access to the engine that powered Crysis 2, as well as the CryEngine 3 Sandbox level editor, we've been able to breathe perfectly lit life into our artistic (and non-commercial) endeavor. If we were trying to impart some educational information in a classroom, developer Crytek wouldn't charge us a cent either. (It's a competitive stance, considering the Unreal Development Kit is free as well. Both require users to pay a licensing fee if the project becomes commercial.)
Though this SDK has helped us to quickly arrange terrain, AI and textures, the central "narrative" -- as they say -- of Fears for Spheres has been years in the making.
Embark on the tragic journey of Borb, the reflective amnesiac sphere, cursed to wander/wonder through a fantasy realm in search of his true purpose. "Who am I?" he asks a traveler in passing. "I know not," comes the reply, "but you have shown me much of myself today. Such is your thankless existence."
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Crytek Releases CryENGINE®3 SDK Free-of-Charge
All-in-one multiplatform development solution now available to everyone
Frankfurt (Germany), August 17, 2011 – Crytek GmbH ("Crytek") is excited to announce that they will release their latest all-in-one game development solution CryENGINE 3 free of charge for non-commercial use today. The award winning SDK provides the complete game engine to create AAA quality next generation games for PC, and includes the CryENGINE®3 Sandbox™ level editor, a production-proven, 3rd generation "What you see is what you play" (WYSIWYP) - tool designed by and for professional developers. The free toolset is available for download at crydev.net, the former crymod.com community portal that offers documentation written by the developers of the engine, a thriving community and a supplementary knowledge base for CryENGINE 3. The free CryENGINE SDK will be updated regularly, to make sure our community has access to all the advances we make to CryENGINE 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. 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." said Carl Jones, Director of Global Business Development CryENGINE.
"For those who want to make the step into commercial gaming, we'll offer a royalty-only license model for games made with this SDK, where Crytek require only 20% of the developer's revenues from the commercial launch of their game."
For more information visit http://www.crydev.net and http://www.mycryengine.com
About Crytek
Crytek GmbH ("Crytek") is one of the world's leading independent development studios for interactive entertainment. It is based in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) and has additional studios in Kiev (Ukraine), Budapest (Hungary), Sofia (Bulgaria), Seoul (South Korea) and Nottingham (UK). Crytek is dedicated to creating exceptionally high-quality video games for next-generation consoles and PC, powered by their proprietary cutting-edge 3D-Game-Technology, CryENGINE®.
Since its foundation in 1999, Crytek has created the multi-award winning PC titles Far Cry®, Crysis® (awarded best PC Game of E3 2007 and Best Technology at the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards), Crysis Warhead® (awarded Best Graphics Technology at IGN Best of 2008 Awards) and Crysis® 2 (awarded Best Shooter of E3 2010 and Gamescom 2010).
Crytek, Crysis and CryENGINE are registered trademarks or trademarks of Crytek GmbH in the USA, Germany and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
